The Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership hired us to incorporate arts and cultural strategies in community engagement, with a goal of increasing community awareness of available housing resources in St. James, Minnesota. 

Through an extensive engagement process, we created a toolkit for creative collaborative engagement between the St. James Housing Committee and other residents in town, specifically those households with limited English language skills. In addition to facilitating 34 housing assessments, we helped the city establish a local Fix-Up Fund Program of $25,000 to address small but necessary repairs identified in the assessments. Bilingual Handyman workshops and Home Maintenance workshops helped address some of the concerns that emerged over lack of household knowledge or availability of contractors handymen to address home repair and maintenance needs. The data from the assessments was used to secure an additional $650,000 to address housing issues in the community. 

Project results included production of bilingual housing resource guide, a bilingual handbook of implementation strategies for the city, and the appointment of a Latino leader to the local housing committee.