Apartments open offering transitional housing to ‘judicially impacted’ people

Note: If you are looking to connect with the St. Francis House, call (605) 334-3879 or stop by 210 N. Sherman Ave. in Sioux Falls. 

A new program aimed at helping people with a criminal history transition to permanent housing officially opens its new apartments this week.

On Tuesday, the St. Francis House will mark the opening of the transitional housing program at the Copper Arms Apartments, 1401 E. Seventh St.

The 11 apartments offer one element needed to address the lack of affordable housing in the Sioux Falls area, St. Francis House CEO Julie Becker said.

“It’s focused on assisting individuals who have been judicially impacted in some capacity in their lifetime — they don’t have to currently be under supervision — to help keep them housed,” Becker said. “We do our best to stop the revolving door of people going back into the court system, into jail and/or prison.”

Founded in 1987, the St. Francis House is an ecumenical ministry focused on serving the homeless population of Sioux Falls. The organization was approached by Minnehaha County Human Services as a potential partner in its “Just Home” program, funded through a grant from the MacArthur Foundation.

The apartments are located just a block from the main St. Francis House building, and the grant provided funding for the nonprofit to acquire them.

The organization spent months upgrading the older space, Becker said.

“We wanted to make it a place where people would want to be able to live,” she said.

Residents must stay a minimum of 60 days at Copper Arms Apartments, maintain employment and respect a zero-tolerance policy subject to drug and alcohol testing. Within its transitional housing services, the organization offers financial literacy education and access to medical care, as well as a case manager to aid with the transition.

“Some stay in our program the 60 days, some stay longer, but the whole goal is whether they’re our guests or they’re from the community referrals that we help guide them into permanent, supportive housing,” Becker said.

“We’ve had a couple people already stay in our apartments for a few months, and then they have moved on.”

In those cases, residents have been able to pay off enough debt so they can afford increased rent, and some criminal charges have dropped off.

“So then, they can go and look at some of these other apartments in the community,” Becker said. “Our leases are open-ended. They just have to give us a month’s notice that they are going to be moving out so that we can prepare for the next person to go into the that unit. And these units are fully furnished by the wonderful donors that we have in our community.”

There will be a ribbon-cutting at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.

In addition to Copper Arms, St. Francis House is taking other action to address the lack of affordable housing, Becker said.

“We work closely with our landlords in our neighborhood, creating master leases, and we are looking at the future of what is really needed in our community and do we look at different approaches to be able to meet this growing need of people needing regular housing.”