Monica Nilsson remembers being dismayed and disturbed as she looked out over the rows of mats on the church basement floor knowing that soon there would be a person sleeping on each one of them. She was left to wonder in a country as wealthy as ours, ”how is it possible that people are having to live like this? Surely, if people knew, things would be different.” She was volunteering with her brother who was completing community service, so he could graduate from college. There were around 50 people staying that night, all of whom were tired, many of whom were trying to find work, living with a mental health concern, untreated trauma or addiction. Volunteering that night deepened her commitment and set her on a path to changing people’s perceptions about and working to bring an end to a person’s homelessness.

A Safe Place to Be

Monica grew up in a politically conservative Catholic family. She was drawn to the social justice teachings of the church and was angered when family ridiculed people who were homeless and panhandling. In her early teens, she volunteered to serve meals to homeless individuals and families and felt a deep connection to their experience of not having a safe place to be or sleep. Her own family went through challenges when she was in high school, which resulted in Monica finishing her senior year while living with a friend’s family. She realizes how lucky she was, because she had friends with enough wealth to give her a place to stay when she was in need.

After high school, Monica and a friend moved into a studio apartment, and she worked full time in retail jobs that she could get to by walking or taking public transportation. She says she benefited from the social compact that still existed in the 1980s that if you worked full time, you could afford housing, some sort of transportation, health care, clothing and food. But that social compact no longer exists, and many people who work full time, just like Monica did, sleep in shelters every night.

Jesus in a Distressing Disguise

The words of St. Teresa of Calcutta about serving Jesus in a distressing disguise can fill Monica with emotion and are a guide to her. The work she is doing to change public perceptions about homelessness is just as important as the direct service work she does. Recently, she co-authored an article to bust homelessness myths ahead of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on whether cities can punish people for sleeping outside when shelters are full. One of the myths busted is there is enough shelter to meet the demand pointing out that in 2023, 4,000 people were turned away from shelters in Hennepin County alone. She wrote the commentary Among the Homeless, You’ll Find People More Like You Than You Realize early in the pandemic. In it she writes about grandparents, people with jobs, military veterans and people with pets who are all homeless. She ends it with “As you shelter in place, we ask that you keep in your hearts and minds the people who spend their days in our communities with no place to be.”

Housing is a Right

Monica believes housing is a right and that we could bring an end to homelessness, if we wanted to. But in our capitalistic society, housing is a business. Up until about the 1960s, cities like Minneapolis and St. Paul had buildings to house mainly individuals for a dollar a night that had a twin bed, a chicken wire ceiling to keep air flowing and a shared bathroom down the hall.  The rooms were spartan, but they kept people from sleeping outside. Today, for-profit developers have no incentive to build housing like that, because there is no money to be made from it. The average rent in Minneapolis/St. Paul and surrounding suburbs is well over a $1k/month. It is estimated that if you make a minimum of $20/hour you can afford to house yourself. Monica knows a lot of homeless people working full time making less than that. Also, people living on social security supplemental income who aren’t working, earn $874/month, which is impossible to live on. Their only hope is for their health to improve, so they can return to work.

Homelessness is a result of many things including income that doesn’t match the cost of housing, a lack of a support system, mental and physical illness, economic insecurity, racial disparities and domestic and family violence. Currently, a lot of resources and attention are focused on reducing chronic homelessness. This creates the impression among recently homeless people that they can’t get help finding housing, because they haven’t been homeless long enough. And homelessness has become even more political in today’s polarized political climate. How much money is available to support work to end it is dictated by who has political power. The unwillingness to spend what it actually costs to address the issue creates an “either-or” mentality when it needs to be an “and.” 

Even Just One Person

A lot of people talk about making homelessness rare, brief and nonrecurring, which sounds great, but when you work closer to the ground you see that it is not working for everyone. Today, more people are becoming homeless faster than people are being moved into housing. While there are better systems in place to get people into housing, the demand for it is greater. Monica is the board chair at  Peace House, a community that offers a safe place for all who walk through the door, and she knows from talking to community members that they don’t want to be homeless, and they’re struggling to remain hopeful about finding housing they can afford. There also isn’t enough supportive housing for the number of people who need it.

Encampments have gone up in cities across the country, which have forced the public to face the problem of homelessness. Monica has never met one person who wanted to be homeless. When asked how she has managed to do this work for over 30 years, it's because she gets more than she gives, from people whose life circumstances are much more difficult than hers. In her home office she has two paintings. One depicts a visit she made to an encampment earlier in her career when she was going through chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. The people at the encampment gave her levity, joy, kindness and care when she needed it. The other is of a young homeless woman holding a sign that says, “Keep your coins, we want change.” Monica wonders how many people would see this young woman and her activism if she was on the street today. 

Monica admits that it is hard to remain hopeful, so she keeps the tale of the starfish close, because it reminds her of the power in making a difference for even just one person. She takes comfort and finds hope in knowing there are many people like her doing what they can to bring an end to someone’s homelessness.

Note to Readers

Monica was two years ahead of me at the all girls Catholic high school we attended in St. Paul. She along with another classmate, Ann Treacy, who is doing a lot to make the world a better place, are also Trash Warriors who have picked up a lot of bags of garbage at Fort Snelling State Park along the Mississippi River.