FY26 Year in Review
End of year retrospectives are often saved for December, but with Alliance’s fiscal year ending June 30, we wanted to take the opportunity to look back on what has been another big year for the organization.
The biggest news of FY26 was of course the October opening of Kyle Garden Square and the 59 new residents who moved into the building with its 24/7 onsite supportive services. Following properly celebrating with residents and our partners at the Grand Opening in April, the building has now been nominated for a 2026 ReScape Award from Minnesota Brownfields and a 2026 Top Project – Renovation from Finance & Commerce. We are so happy to have brought this project to completion.
In other larger apartment building news, we saw the following happen this year:
Entered into a purchase agreement on St. Paul’s Home in Minneapolis, received our first funding for the rehab of the building from Sunrise Banks and then Hennepin County, and are currently in the process of applying for further funding from the State and City.
Were awarded funding from both Hennepin County and the City of Minneapolis to rehab our 80 homes at Hiawatha Commons.
Were awarded funds by Minnesota Housing to stabilize future cash flow at 3301 Nicollet.
Began the process of applying for funds from the State, County, and City to rehab the 44 homes at Gateway Lofts.
Moved ever closer to closing on the financing and starting construction on 2116 Nicollet. We’re hopeful both will occur within the next couple of months, meaning we’ll be able to open approximately 50 new homes (and our new offices!) in late 2027.
Turning to our scattered site buildings, we completed an insurance project to get new roofs and siding on several Northside properties following hail damage from a few years ago, utilized two rebate programs, the City’s Green Cost Share Program and CenterPoint Energy’s Low Income Rental Efficiency, to pay for 90% of 7 new boilers, 3 furnaces, and 18 water heaters across 11 properties, and continued providing our relational and community based property management and maintenance at each property.
The biggest project in our scattered site portfolio, however, continues to be our efforts to transition these often century old, duplexes to 8-unit buildings to new owners while keeping them affordable into the future. This process is taking longer than we anticipated, but we should have more of a status update on this process in the next few months.
Another large part of the last year has been our policy work. While we know Minneapolis needs many more new homes like Kyle Garden Square, we also need to change the policies and systems that allow homelessness and housing insecurity to exist in the first place.
Accordingly, Alliance staff has worked in coalition with other housing providers to impact policies at the City, County, and State level. This work include legislative testimony by both Executive Director Jessie Hendel and Alliance resident and Board Member Tyrone. You can find our legislative wrap up here.
Other news for FY26:
Had a successful MPLS Homes 2025 breakfast last September
Passed another annual financial audit.
Launched our new website.
Moved to a new donor database.
Phew. It has been quite the year, and things don’t stop now. On to Fiscal Year 2027!
Let’s Build Long-Term Stability, One Home at a Time
All who engage in strengthening Alliance are equally valued, whether donor, volunteer, public advocate, board member, resident, or staff, your involvement directly supports safe, dignified housing for those facing the greatest barriers.