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By Andrew Tellijohn
Photo by ERIC MOORE
When ten Broeke quit the restaurant—“the day that somebody yelled at me for bringing them the wrong size spoon for their soup”—she knew she was going to devote her life to ending homelessness. Today she is the first city/county coordinator to end homelessness for Hennepin County and Minneapolis, a title she has held for less than a year.
Ten Broeke, now 37, is uniquely qualified for this position. After working at St. Stephen’s for eight years, and for more than three as a policy aide to Hennepin County Commissioner Gail Dorfman, she landed a 16-month Bush Fellowship to study the country’s best practices combating homelessness.
In her current position, ten Broeke launched a local version of Project Homeless Connect, following a model adopted in 32 other cities that brings service providers to the homeless rather than vice versa. At a one-day event in March, 250 organizations and 500 volunteers connected with 1,200 homeless people, a sizable proportion of the estimated 3,000 individuals who are without shelter in Hennepin County on any given night. Hundreds received medical care and housing information, and a few were placed in permanent homes; dozens of others got haircuts, employment assistance, and more. The next Project Homeless Connect is scheduled for December 4 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
In March, ten Broeke was part of a commission on homelessness that drafted the report “Heading Home Hennepin: The Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness in Minneapolis and Hennepin County.” If approvals go through as expected, implementation will begin in January. “It feels like this is an unprecedented opportunity to make substantial changes,” ten Broeke says. “We’ve been doing a lot of good things. We hadn’t had a plan until now.”
Ending homelessness is an ambitious goal, ten Broeke acknowledges, but she is firm in her belief that she will be looking for new work within the next decade. “I really do believe someday we will work our way out of this job,” she says.
Andrew Tellijohn is a Minneapolis writer.
To volunteer for project homeless connect, call 612-673-2525.
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