20 Mar 2024

Homelessness down 7% in Minnesota since 2018, says 2023 study

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A new study reports a 7% decrease in homelessness in Minnesota since 2018.

The statewide study, conducted by Wilder Research, has been regularly carried out since 1991 as an effort to shed light on the causes and consequences of homelessness in Minnesota.

The 2023 study, conducted one evening in October of that year, show nearly 11,000 people across the state experienced homelessness that night. it includes those in emergency and domestic violence shelters, transitional housing programs as well as those living outdoors, on transit or temporarily doubled up in housing.

This graphic shows one-night homeless counts by year going back to 1991. (Courtesy of Wilder Research)

Rebecca Sales, co-director of the Minnesota Homeless Study, said that while the cause of the decline isn’t immediately known the attention the problem received during and after the pandemic — in the form of eviction moratoriums and housing assistance — likely was a factor.

“We’re hoping if that’s the case then we know if government and providers are putting significant funding investments into this .. that number can be driven down.”

Sales added: “Everyone should have a home. I think that’s point blank when it comes to homelessness, nobody wants homelessness to exist. It’s a complex, challenging issue.”

She also noted that the years between 2018 and 2023 likely saw peaks and valleys in terms of homelessness numbers due to the strain of the pandemic. And that the number of homeless likely is higher in some groups of the population than others.

Diverse experiences

While the problem of homelessness is often stereotyped as people living on the streets or sleeping in underpasses, Sales said, it can involve families living in hotels, 18-year-olds on their own and some living in cars.

There are a variety of experiences for the homeless. Some might go into a shelter for 30, 60 or 90 days, but that might not be where they stay the entire time. Some may stay in an emergency shelter for a few nights, couch hop, stay with a friend, sleeping in a car and then go back to the shelter.

“I think that level of variability really speaks to how difficult it is to experience homelessness, and also just the creativity and fortitude that people have to have … when they are trying to support themselves in figuring out a way to get stable housing,” Sales said.

The study began with providers in the field noticing that there was a lack of data on those experiencing homelessness.

In order to provide a comprehensive count of individuals facing homelessness, six tribes in Minnesota — Bois Forte, Fond du Lac, Leech Lake, Mille Lacs, Red Lake and White Earth — began partnering with Wilder in 2006 to also conduct the Reservation Homeless Study. These results allowed combined reservation counts with the statewide counts.

According to Sales, any number regarding homelessness counts should be regarded as a low estimates, due to the number of those in more difficult to reach situations, including as those living remotely.

More details to come

Going forward, Wilder will report more details from the study in May from 4,600 in-depth interviews conducted in October.

These insights will highlight issues such as health, housing, service needs, impacts of childhood trauma, racial and other disparities and specific challenges faced in rural areas.

For more information on the study, visit mnhomeless.org.

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20 Mar 2024

Twins starter Anthony DeSclafani says he’s trying to “hold out optimism” as he awaits assessment on arm

by | posted in: News | 0

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Anthony DeSclafani is trying to remain optimistic. When he travels to Texas next week to visit with noted orthopedic surgeon Dr. Keith Meister, with whom he has a long-standing relationship, maybe he’ll get some good news.

But when it feels like a stabbing pain every time he throws the baseball, he knows he has to brace for all possibilities, the worst of which would be Tommy John surgery to reconstruct a torn ulnar collateral ligament.

The Twins have called DeSclafani’s injury a forearm strain, but they’ll know much more in the coming days.

“This thing can only pop up so much before something has to be fixed,” DeSclafani said. “I’m going to hold out optimism. You always want to try and avoid going under the knife. Maybe the MRI will show I can keep going. I don’t know. We’ll see.”

The Twins starting pitcher has never had the surgery — which would take him out of action for the entire season — but he has dealt with recurring flexor and elbow issues.

DeSclafani, 33, did not pitch for the San Francisco Giants after July 23 last season, dealing with the same injury that has led him to this place. He received plasma-rich platelet and stem cell injections back then and subsequently spent the offseason getting his arm into a good spot physically before reporting to camp.

But it’s hard to imitate the stress put on the elbow during the offseason throwing at an indoor facility, he said, and upon his arrival to camp, after throwing live batting practice, he started to feel that pain once more. After taking some time off to let it calm down and strengthen it, DeSclafani ramped back up to the point where he was throwing in a minor league game on Saturday. It was pretty clear to him that something wasn’t right.

He felt relatively good in his first inning of work, touching 94 mph and throwing strikes. By the second inning, the pain had increased to the point he didn’t want to throw the ball because it hurt so bad. Next week, he will finally get some answers from a doctor who has looked at his elbow throughout the course of his career.

“I know he’s going to give me the right thing to do here,” DeSclafani said. “I know I’m getting older, but I’m still hoping I can play baseball for years to come so I want to do what the best is for my future, as well.”

Varland ready for rotation spot

Wednesday was “just one of those days” for Louie Varland.

A few walks, a single here, a single there and suddenly the Detroit Tigers had put up eight runs in a hurry. It was the first sub-par start for Varland this spring, who has looked impressive in his quest for a rotation spot.

“I felt fine,” Varland said. “I mean, I felt good stuff-wise.  Wasn’t doing exactly what I’d like, I guess.”

With DeSclafani sidelined, Varland is set to break camp with the team he grew up rooting for as a child in the St. Paul area, something he called “a dream come true” and his goal since 2019, the year the Twins selected him in the 15th round of the draft.

“Shoes need to be filled, innings need to be thrown, and I think I’m ready to do that,” Varland said.

Briefly

Max Kepler was scratched from Wednesday’s lineup with left pectoral tightness. “Hopefully it’s just precautionary more than anything, but we’ll see,” bench coach Jayce Tingler said. … Reliever Jorge Alcala left Wednesday’s game alongside a trainer after being hit on the fingertips by a comebacker. Tingler said the reports seemed to be positive postgame. … Byron Buxton, who was scratched from Monday’s lineup because of his back, was in the lineup on Wednesday.

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20 Mar 2024

Twins relievers ready to step up with Jhoan Duran, Caleb Thielbar sidelined by injuries

by | posted in: News | 0

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Jhoan Duran felt his side begin cramping on Sunday while throwing warm-up pitches. A day later, magnetic resonance imaging revealed a moderate oblique strain.

“It’s something that happened (and it’s) frustrating,” Duran said through interpreter Mauricio Ortiz. “But it’s something I’ll recover from.”

The Twins expect to have further clarity on the length of their closer’s absence in the next week or so, but he could be out a month or so. For reference, left-handed reliever Caleb Thielbar missed about a month with an oblique strain last season. He returned very briefly and then was out for seven weeks with another oblique strain.

Thielbar will start the year on the injured list while dealing with a hamstring strain, and while he and Duran recover, others in the bullpen, which has been projected to be a major strength of the Twins, will need to step up.

“It feels great to know there’s guys that can do the job,” Duran said. “I just hope that it’s not for a long time that I’m out.”

When it comes to who will pitch the ninth inning in Duran’s absence, manager Rocco Baldelli and president of baseball operations Derek Falvey mentioned Griffin Jax and Brock Stewart as options.

“I’ll be ready if the team asks me to handle it. I think Brock will be ready,” Jax said. “I don’t necessarily know what direction the team is going to go in terms of like it be one guy versus two guys, three guys, whoever they view fits that matchup well, but I’ll be ready for sure.”

Jax finished last season with a 3.86 earned-run average — a particularly tough stretch early in the season inflated his season numbers — and was one of the Twins’ most reliable arms out of the bullpen.

He primarily pitched in the eighth inning last season, serving as a setup man for Duran. He had some save opportunities himself, finishing with four saves on the season. There’s a huge difference, he said, between pitching in the final two innings of a game.

“After pitching the eighth and pitching the ninth a couple times, I understand why closers make a lot of money,” Jax said. “It’s an awesome job, it’s a lot of adrenaline and just to know that the team’s giving you the ball to stop the game at the end, it’s pretty cool. I mean I try not give it too much more weight than any other inning, but at the same time, I know internally it’s a big deal.”

Stewart, who was lights out during his breakout season in 2023, earned himself plenty of late-inning trust, as well. While he started the season in Triple-A and was limited to just 28 major league games because of injury, he posted a 0.65 ERA in those games, striking out 12.7 batters per nine innings.

“I view them as the same,” Stewart said of the eighth and ninth innings. “Just trying to get three outs, one pitch at a time, one out at a time. Just try to go out there and do the same thing I would do in the eighth inning or the seventh inning. Just try to get that hitter out.”

It’ll take a lot more than just Jax and Stewart to cover the losses of Duran and Thielbar.

The Twins brought in a number of relievers in the offseason — including Justin Topa, Jay Jackson, Steven Okert and Josh Staumont — and have three open spots in the bullpen to fill between now and Opening Day next Thursday.

“It’s going to take the depth. We’ve got good guys, even guys that maybe were slated to start in Triple-A,” Stewart said. “I think we’re confident in our group. This is the deepest bullpen the Twins have had in maybe ever — for sure a long time —so we’re just going to use the depth and try to go out there and get outs and help the team.”

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20 Mar 2024

Congressional leaders sell $1.2 trillion spending package to members before shutdown deadline

by | posted in: Politics | 0

WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders from both parties looked to put a positive light on a $1.2 trillion spending package that lawmakers are working to approve before funding expires at midnight Friday for a host of key government agencies.

Text of the legislation had not been released as of Wednesday afternoon, but lawmakers and aides were expecting an official unveiling later in the day. The package, which is expected to pass, will wrap up Congress’ work on spending bills for the year — nearly six months after the fiscal year began.

This year’s dozen spending bills were packed into two packages. The first one cleared Congress two weeks ago just hours before a shutdown deadline for the agencies funded through the bills.

Now Congress is focused on the second, larger package, which includes about $886 billion for defense, about a 3% increase from last year’s levels. The bill also funds the Departments of Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, Labor and others, with non-defense spending expected to be relatively flat compared to the prior year.

Leaders worked to sell the package to members. In a closed-door meeting with GOP lawmakers in the morning, Speaker Mike Johnson described a few of the policy changes that House Republicans were able to secure in the latest negotiations. Those included a prohibition on funding for a United Nations relief program for Palestinian refugees that extends through March 2025. He also noted the bill funds 8,000 additional detention beds for noncitizens awaiting their immigration proceedings or removal from the country.

“The Homeland (Security) piece was the most difficult to negotiate because the two parties have a wide chasm between them,” Johnson said at the GOP leadership’s weekly press conference. “I think the final product is something that we were able to achieve a lot of key provisions in, and wins, and it moved in a direction that we want even with our tiny, historically small majority.”

The House is expected to vote on the second package on Friday, giving lawmakers more than a day to examine the legislation, but in doing so, leadership is bypassing a House rule that calls for giving lawmakers 72 hours to review major legislation before having to vote on it.

That is riling some House Republicans, but following the rule would surely invite some lapse in federal funding, even if just for a day or so, for several key federal agencies.

Once the bill passes the House, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. said he will put it on the Senate floor.

“Even with bipartisanship, it’s going to be a tight squeeze to get this funding package before the weekend deadline,” Schumer said.

Democrats celebrated staving off the vast majority of policy mandates Republicans had sought to include in the spending bills, such as restricting access to the abortion pill mifepristone or banning access to gender-affirming health care.

“We’re exactly in the position that we knew we were going to end up,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar D-Calif. “We knew that House Democrats, Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans and the White House weren’t going to tolerate any significant harmful cuts and crazy policy riders.”

The spending in the bill largely tracks with an agreement that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy worked out with the White House in May 2023, which restricted spending for two years and suspended the debt ceiling into January 2025 so the federal government could continue paying its bills.

“We have had to stick to some difficult toplines and fight off literally hundreds of Republican poison pills, not to mention some really harsh, almost unthinkable, cuts proposed by House Republicans,” said Sen. Patty Murray, the Democratic chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “But now we have a good, bipartisan bill that protects absolutely essential investments in the American people.”

McCarthy was ousted from the speaker’s role a few months after securing the debt ceiling deal. Eight Republicans ended up joining with Democrats in removing McCarthy as speaker. And some of those unhappy with that debt ceiling deal also expressed misgivings about the latest package.

Johnson is expected to bring the bill up for a vote through a streamlined process that requires two-thirds support for the bill to pass. The earlier spending package passed by a vote of 339-85 with Republicans providing all but two of the no votes.

“If this bill sits out for two weeks, it will get pilloried like a pinata,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas. “So they want to jam it through over the next 48 hours.”

“I hope there will be some modest wins. Unfortunately, I don’t expect that we will get much in the way of significant policy wins based on past history and based on our unwillingness to do use any kind of leverage to force policy wins, meaning a willingness to walk away and say no,” said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va.

One of the changes Johnson touted for members was prohibiting — through March 2025 — funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which is the main supplier of food, water and shelter to civilians in Gaza. Republicans are insisting on cutting off funding to the agency after Israel alleged that a dozen employees of the agency were involved in the attack that Hamas conducted in Israel on Oc. 7.

The U.S. is the biggest donor to the agency, providing it with about $364 million in 2022 and $371 million in 2023. After Israel made its allegations, the Biden administration paused funding for the agency. Republicans seek a more lasting prohibition.

But the prohibition does concern some lawmakers because many relief agencies say there is no way to replace its ability to deliver the humanitarian assistance that the United States and others are trying to send to Gaza, where a quarter of the 2.3 million residents are starving.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said in a recent speech on the Senate floor that any individual who participated in the Oct. 7 attack must be held responsible. But not innocent civilians.

“Punish the 14. Don’t punish 2 million innocent Gazans,” Van Hollen said.

But House Republicans are describing the agency as “part of the problem” that Israel is confronting. About three dozen wrote Appropriations Committee members saying, “in light of UNRWA’s record of troublesome allegations and disturbing revelations since Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attack on Israel, we believe that going forward no further U.S. taxpayer funds can be given to the agency.”

Johnson also touted to colleagues a 6% cut to foreign aid programs and only allowing the American flag to be flown over U.S. diplomatic facilities as wins, according to a Republican congressional aid not authorized to speak publicly. Under the Biden administration, U.S. embassies have been invited to fly the pride flag or light up with rainbow colors in support of the LGBTQ community.

Johnson said that after the spending package passes, the House would next turn its attention to a bill that focuses on aiding Ukraine and Israel, though lawmakers are scheduled to be away from Washington for the next two weeks. The Senate has already approved a $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, but Johnson has declined to bring that up for a vote.

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