New, beautiful temporary housing for individuals and families

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the Twin Cities in 2020 the KimbleCo team knew that we would see some real changes in the approach to how people work — but we had not necessarily anticipated the impact on housing and how people might need to change their approach to living. Through a long-term contract with a local government agency, KimbleCo was asked to help find and secure shelter housing for families and individuals in transition.

The significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic created the need for speed for an already complex requirement and the challenges of this were fourfold:

1. We knew that there were misconceptions around the “why”s of transition housing, finding sites that may traditionally be perceived as “NIMBY” (“not in my back yard”), but we were ready to take these misconceptions head on

2. We had to work on a very tight timeline because the relief funding had to be spent by a deadline

3. The sheer space need had increased rapidly due to the fact people needed more space between them because of the pandemic (and there was limited inventory)

4. The relief money had to be spent in a certain geography that was limited in size

Time was truly of the essence to get people off the streets and in safe and healthy homes, especially before the cold weather hit.

Working closely with our client, the KimbleCo team analyzed previously identified sites while running a parallel search for new opportunities. The team split up and took swaths of corridors in which we believed there could be opportunities for shelter housing. Because many of these sites were not currently on the market, we performed intensive in-person reviews of the corridors as well as research on broker databases. As a third channel we carefully looked at the potential of hotels for sale or long-term lease and used creative solutioning skills to introduce a property in a neighboring city that included an affordable housing developer; testing the opportunity for a tri-party win-win. We did everything we could as quickly as possible to fulfill the goals of the client and to provide the needed housing.

Very quickly on our journey, KimbleCo felt and understood the mission of this endeavor. We learned more about shelter housing and our hearts were in the project as much as the use of our minds and experience.

The result was that we secured two properties in an expedited timeframe during a pandemic – both properties were beautiful new homes for those in need of transitional housing with green space and nearby bus routes. But both transactions required great persistence and patience to close. Community engagement was key and our client and the property owners with support by KimbleCo, saw results that turned out to be nothing short of amazing. The neighborhoods surrounding each property attended the public meetings in great number and to everyone’s delight were in 100% support of the projects, wanting to know what more they could do to support those in need.

PRODUCT TYPE

Multi-family temporary shelter housing

SCOPE OF SERVICES

Brokerage and Consulting

GOALS & VISION

Find two residential properties to accommodate housing needs for an underserved population

CHALLENGE

Timeline
NIMBY
Limited geography
Inventory

Outcome

Transitional homes for 150+ individuals and families with 100% neighborhood support