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Our Mission

Alliance’s work makes it possible for individuals and families to create homes for themselves, regardless of income and background by developing and managing housing that is:

  • affordable,
  • relational,
  • and flexible.

In addition, Alliance Housing challenges the environment that limits our residents’ opportunities.

Who We Are

Our Core Work

Alliance currently owns 374 homes across 27 buildings of various sizes in Minneapolis. Our core work includes:

  • Creating and preserving affordable homes throughout the city. Most of our homes are deeply affordable and many have onsite supportive services.
  • Practicing hands-on, relational, compassionate property management. Staff work with residents to ensure homes are properly maintained, safe, and a place where residents can pursue their dreams. Alliance does not give up on residents.
  • Working in coalition with other housing organizations to change the policies and systems at the city, county, and state level that allow homelessness to occur in the first place.

Our History

In 1986, The Church of St. Stephen’s in Minneapolis received a grant from the Minneapolis Foundation to bring together those experiencing housing instability and those that work with them, especially guests and volunteers at the St. Stephen’s Shelter and Loaves and Fishes. The goal of the grant was to find ways to solve the issues of homelessness and hunger in Minneapolis and one of the first actions of the group was to hire a Community Organizer, Herb Frey, to lead the efforts.

Following Herb’s hiring, the group formed a union of poor and homeless people and a parallel structure of friends to support them. The union would be the Alliance of the Streets and was modeled on the Union of the Homeless in Philadelphia. The stated goal of Alliance of the Streets was to build an organization large enough, and strong enough, to truly grant its members a voice and seat at the table when issues touching its members were being decided.

Over the next few years, it became clear to the Alliance of the Streets that more long-term housing solutions for families and individuals experiencing homelessness were necessary. The group surveyed the landscape in Minneapolis and found a number of vacant and available properties at low cost in South Minneapolis that could start to provide these solutions. Accordingly, in 1991 they created a new organization, Alliance Housing, to purchase and operate these properties as affordable housing and Herb Fry became our first Executive Director.

Alliance has grown substantially in the intervening years. First, we did indeed purchase existing duplexes, small apartment buildings, and other existing housing. Then in 2006 we opened our first large development, Hiawatha Commons, and have since developed 4 more large apartment buildings. Two other tremendous leaders have followed Herb as Executive Director, first Barb Jeanetta and now Jessie Hendel, and our staff has grown to 11.

Regardless of who has been in charge or the type of building we’re working on, though, one thing has not changed: We are a compassionate partner to Minneapolis neighbors who are precariously housed as they work to find hope and long-term stability. This is who we are and who we will continue to be.

Photo of St. Stephens original emergency shelter. Credit to the Star Tribune.