Supportive Housing plan for 30 units shot down by current chairman

A project meant to help fight homelessness at LCO and help at-risk families was recently cut short by the current tribal administration. The Supportive Housing Project was initiated by former chairman, Gordon Thayer.

As chairman, Thayer visited the Fond du Lac Reservation in northern Minnesota to visit their Supportive Housing project, which has received praise on a national level. He immediately put in a plan of action to bring the project to LCO in an effort to reduce homelessness in the local community. The project is aimed at providing housing for at-risk families who otherwise couldn’t get housing.

The project at Fond du Lac includes a 24-unit complex, with single bedroom efficiency-style apartments and two town home facilities with up to three bedrooms as well as a community facility and playground. Thayer said the project at LCO would have been similar with a community center and 30 units.

During his administration, tribal representatives from support services across the reservation met to discuss pursuing the grant funds. Thayer said the project was in its pre-development phase looking into federal grant funds and tax credits. Thayer said there would have been some subsidizing from the tribe.

The project would have been under construction at the corner of Hwy K and Froemel Road if it hadn’t been cut short by current chairman, Mic Isham. According to witness reports, Isham had commented that he didn’t want to have a place for drunks to be hanging around.

Isham didn’t respond to numerous attempts to reach him about this story.

The project in Fond du Lac was funded by no less than 15 different sources. The final construction cost was $4.6 million.

“This incredibly successful project received rave reviews and tremendous applause from local, state and tribal officials,” said Zoey Lebau, coordinator of the project.

The Fond du Lac Supportive Housing program not only places at-risk families into affordable housing, but it provides services to meet the needs of the clients, addressing their barriers to maintaining housing. The program creates a support system around the families to prevent homelessness from re-occurring.

Some of the families that would receive housing include long-term homeless, chronic homeless, which include double up occupancy, tripled up, overcrowded, those in shelters, facing evictions, leaving institutional settings, or those living in abandoned housing without running water or electricity.

Thayer stated that to go after these funds, it was a lot of work. “You had to have your ducks in a row,” Thayer said, which is what LCO did.

“This was a great project that would have helped a lot of families in need. It would have helped them get back on their feet,” Thayer said.