(bright gentle music) - [Voiceover] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

- "R-Town," the show about Rochester, learns about the Coalition for Rochester Area Housing.

We also hear the calming vibrations during a singing bowl meditation and catch up with local art and artists at the new SEMVA Gallery location.

All that coming up next on "R-Town," the show about Rochester.

(jazzy upbeat music) - [Announcer] Coming to you from 125 Live in Rochester, Minnesota, "R-Town."

(jazzy upbeat music) - In 2020, a county housing survey revealed that Olmsted County has one of the largest racial home ownership gaps in the nation.

Today we're joined by Chao Mwatela and JoMarie Morris, who have been part of the Coalition for Rochester Area Housing and are here to share more with us about the Coalition's work and the recent Black Indigenous People of Color Home Ownership Community Co-Design Report.

Welcome both to "R-Town," Chao and JoMarie.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- So JoMarie, before we get into the specifics of the recent report, could you tell us a little bit about what the coalition is and how it got started?

- Sure, the Coalition is a cross-sector organization that really collaborates, invests, and leads in innovative housing solutions to meet our community's needs.

The Coalition started about five years ago and it has five really leadership members, which includes Mayo Clinic, Olmsted County, City of Rochester, Destination Medical Center, and Rochester Area Foundation.

And that was just this need for affordable housing and the sense that, we weren't doing enough in silos, that we really needed to come together if we were really gonna move the needle on affordable housing in our community.

- And the Coalition has some housing priorities.

Can you walk us through what those are?

- Yes, and this is really based on what you had just referenced earlier, the 2020 Comprehensive Housing Needs Study, which really showed where our housing gaps were, right?

And so the Coalition looked at that information from the study and from that came up with really a blueprint of five priorities.

Those priorities include creating more home ownership options, increasing home ownership for our BIPOC communities, increasing options for our seniors, to really preserve some of that affordable housing we already have in the community, and to provide housing for those folks that earn 50% or less of AMI.

So those that are not meeting the median income or less that are really struggling to find housing in our community.

- Right, and one of those priorities is about home ownership for BIPOC communities and pathways to that.

Chao, can you talk to us about, what are some of the specific racist practices that are really contributing to this gap in home ownership for our BIPOC community?

- Yeah, certainly.

And I think, you know, it's hard to answer that question without referencing back to history and the idea that for a lot of communities of color, actually pretty much all communities of color, there was a time in our history where there was specific laws and racial covenants that restricted home ownership or completely eliminated the ability for communities of color to own homes.

Now we know that, you know, that has since come to pass in the Civil Rights Act of 1968, that changed that and then an amendment in 1988, I believe, in the Fair Housing Act, to create home ownership opportunities.

But there's still practices embedded from that past that we see show up today, right?

So we think about the generational wealth gap, things that are passed down from generation to generation that allow people to have possibly a down payment.

But thinking about it beyond the fiscal gap, but the knowledge gap, how do I go through the process of doing that?

The other practices that include the ability to navigate the process itself, right, in terms of credit score, et cetera.

Those structures were built within communities that were able to, over generations over time, build that credit.

So how does that show up for communities that didn't have that opportunity, right?

So even though they may not outwardly look like racist practices, they're still embedded in historical practices that eliminate those opportunities for communities of color.

- Thank you.

And often when we're looking at systemic issues, like racism and housing, we are talking about, as you just mentioned, I mean, there are these asymmetries of power.

A big part of the work that you were doing with the Coalition was around co-design.

Can you talk a little bit about what co-design is and how it's different from community engagement in its ability to address these power structures?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So traditional engagement, as we've seen, right, usually encompasses maybe creating a survey of the (indistinct) community and have them respond to that survey or perhaps having a focus group or having a community town hall where people come into that space.

Those methods are great for engagement for some folks but not for others, right?

Because they don't think about who is able to show up into a space, who has access to the survey material, the technical portion that has you respond to a survey that you are going to use on your phone or your computer, et cetera.

Community co-design is very specific in reaching out to folks who don't respond that way, right?

Or who might not have access or feel comfortable coming into spaces where they might be the only person who holds that identity.

So it is going out into community, finding people from those communities, and then using and utilizing the trusted networks that they have to really get into and understand the barriers from the perspective of those communities.

And then provide them the opportunities to reflect on solutions.

Would this be something that would work for your community, as opposed to what we've traditionally done, right?

You have a solution and then take it to the community.

- Great, thank you so much Chao and JoMarie, we will be right back with you after a short break.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on "R-Town."

We relax with a singing bowl meditation session.

We also continue our conversation about the Coalition for Rochester Area Housing.

But up first, we head downtown to check out the new Southeastern Minnesota visual artist location in this week's R Culture segment.

(gentle piano music) - I think a lot of people buy art because they've encountered something that they like and it touches them and they want to keep it.

I think most people come across a piece of art by accident.

They don't have, "I'm going out today to find a painting for above my couch."

That's not how you find your artwork.

It's something that speaks to your soul.

(gentle piano music) SEMVA stands for Southeastern Minnesota Visual Artists.

It's in the counties down here in the southeast corner of the state.

(people chattering) (gentle piano music) A lot of what we have here right now is art that's been produced in the last couple months.

So these are things that this group of artists have been working on coming out of the isolation with the pandemic.

We closed the gallery Memorial Day last spring and started moving in here in September.

(people chattering) (gentle piano music) The pandemic has taken away foot traffic.

People have more of a purpose now when they're out.

We see more people are just, now they're out just to be out.

So we get more foot traffic moving through.

People have come out of the clinic and walked through and whether they're residents or guests here in the hotel, they're excited to see us downtown again.

We were four blocks down Broadway before and a lot of people didn't walk through that way.

So they really never rediscovered where we had been in that interim period.

And they have told me, downstairs in the shop, how they're just excited to see us back here and excited to come and people sit up here in the mezzanine and they have their cup of coffee and you sit and if you're doing your shift and you walk on through, some of them are talking about what's on the walls and commenting and back, and you can step in and do a little bit of that discussion with them.

So that's real fun.

We have photography, wood carving, we have two ceramic artists currently.

I am also ceramic artist.

My first joy was painting.

That was my first thing as an artist.

The paintings are acrylics, oils, watercolor.

The jewelry artists who are all coming in with different approaches and different beads and metals, finishing.

So everybody has their own pieces that they love to work with and that they create their designs through.

(gentle piano music) Oh, I forgot to mention the glass art.

Not all of us blow our own horn.

Maybe there's something to the secluded artist who's happy in their studio and .

.

.

just prefers not to be in the spotlight.

It's good when you see somebody smile when they're looking at your work, that's your fulfillment.

(gentle piano music) The group that's here has put a lot of time in, and so tonight is kind of like a big thank you and appreciation, what I feel like, for the artists that have been involved.

And I want to thank them for staying and getting this up and going.

(gentle piano music) - [Announcer] For more information about this story and other "R-Town" features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter @KSMQ #RTown, or ksmq.org/rtown.

(upbeat music) - This is Danielle Teal with "R-Town" Spotlight.

I'm super excited about today 'cause we're gonna talk about food.

I love food, okay?

And I have these amazing guests, Josh and Jeff from Nautical Bowls, welcome.

- Thanks for having us.

- Yes, happy to have you.

And Josh, I'll have you start off first.

Share a little bit about yourself and how you got involved with Nautical Bowls.

- Sure, actually this lovely gentleman sitting here got me involved.

I was off doing some other things on a different part of the country and he called up and said, "Hey, I got something going, you gotta come check it out."

And the second we went down to visit the founders, I was like in right away.

Health food, trying to switch to that style of life.

I grew up in this town so it's kind of good to be home.

- Yeah.

- And from there, we just kind of built it from the ground up, I guess.

- Perfect, thank you so much, Josh.

And Jeff, this is not your first rodeo.

You have done business and food before.

Share a little bit more about yourself and how you got into Nautical Bowls.

- Yeah, my family, my father started Beetle's Bar and Grill back in 2004 and just kind of always been involved in the food scene and restaurant business.

And what got me involved with Nautical Bowls is actually, it was a stint where I was vegan for seven months and trying to find different options for that and realizing the need for healthier alternatives and different foods is really what got me involved in getting into Nautical Bowls.

- So let's talk about that a little bit more because there is this healthy component.

It is super popular right now.

What is a Nautical Bowl?

What was inspired by the Nautical Bowl, too?

- So an acai bowl is a way of super food consumption.

Generally, you'll see more of like a one base to two base on the menu.

We just happened to have five and they've built bowls up from there.

The bottom is like a frozen sorbet, fruit whipped with fruit, and then they top it with all the goodies from all around the world.

- It's like a salad, you eat all the goodies first.

(laughs) - Yeah, you kind of wanna dig right down and get 'em all in one.

- Right.

- But it's all outsourced from all around the world, so it's pretty neat to be part of it.

- And Nautical Bowls has been around for a while.

Can you share a little bit more about the name and the inspiration behind it, Jeff?

- Yeah, the founders are from Minnetonka originally, that area, and it was a concept that they saw out in California and they saw a need to be filled back here with it.

And so they brought it and they started their own concept in 2018.

After a couple years of having a lot of success with it, they decided to get into the franchising world.

- Perfect, and what is the inspiration for you both doing this?

- Well, I guess reuniting with a friend for one, and family, which is also great.

And just, gosh, it's fun to kind of build something, create jobs for people, and be alongside a new up and coming thing is really cool.

- That's pretty special.

We're so glad to have you in Rochester.

Where can people find Nautical Bowls?

- Nautical Bowls is located in the same complex as Beetle's Bar and Grill, across the street from Thesis and Tyrol.

The address is 230 20th Avenue Southwest.

- Mm hmm.

- Awesome.

Thank you so much for being on the show.

- Thank you.

- Thank you for having us.

- Thank you so much.

This is Danielle Teal with "R-Town" Spotlight.

(upbeat music) - Hello, this is Michael Wojcik with your "R-Town" Legislative Rundown.

The legislature is back in session and that means politicians trying to follow up on their campaign promises.

We know that with every session, different items are likely to be priorities and because this session there is a trifecta with one party in power in both the House, Senate, and Governor's mansion, there's more likely a chance of seeing some things get done.

That said, because of the close margins in both the House and the Senate, bipartisan bills are still more likely to be done and even small wavering within a particular party can derail an otherwise important effort.

We don't know exactly what's going to happen, but there are some key priorities that are likely to be taken up this year in the legislature.

First and foremost, with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, we expect to see action on reproductive rights in the State House.

We also expect to see the state surplus addressed.

Now that's a very substantial number on the order of $18 billion, but once you pull out one time funds and inflation, it gets to be quite a bit less than that, but still substantial.

Typically the first year of a biennium is dealing with bonding bills as well.

And we expect to see something that will come out on bonding as well.

Paid family and sick leave has been a priority for the party in power for some period of time and we do expect to see some legislation related to that.

And finally, K-12 education funding, in particular special education funding, which has been difficult for local governments, is also likely to be a priority this session.

Now those five priorities we do expect to see action on.

One that we're not so sure about is legalization of marijuana.

This has been a hot topic for a long period of time, but it appears that in early indications, there may not be the support there to get a bill entirely done.

So we know it's going to be discussed in both the House and the Senate.

We'll see if there are votes in the Senate to get something done on that particular issue.

Even though we're early in the session, we're already seeing some bills move.

The named House File One and Senate File One both deal with what is called the Pro Act, which would basically codify in law the protections that were previously afforded in Roe v. Wade.

Now at a federal level, Roe v. Wade has been overturned, but at the state level, there's still a state decision that keeps that in place.

However, the law would further enshrine those rights.

Driver's License For All bill is moving in the House.

And what this would do is allow undocumented workers to receive a driver's license.

Public safety advocates see this as a way of making our roads safer.

Obviously it's a contentious issue when you're dealing with undocumented immigrants.

House File 35 would require both the revenues and expenses of the state going forward to be projected to include inflation.

Currently that is not the case.

Revenues include inflation calculation, expenses do not.

And as a result when you hear about budget surplus, it's not actually an entirely honest number.

Finally, House File 37 passed a bipartisan House with a vote of 111 to 19, all local legislators voting in favor.

This would prohibit discrimination on the basis of hairstyle.

This is Michael Wojcik with your Legislative Rundown.

(relaxing vibrational music) - Hello, my name is Naura Anderson.

I am the founder of Threshold Arts.

We're here at The Chateau Theater and today we are hosting a singing bowl meditation with YMCA of the North.

So Threshold Arts is a community arts organization and we are relatively new operators of The Chateau Theater here in downtown Rochester.

Goal is to program the space with a variety of different things at different times of day that the community can come in and really enjoy this space.

So the singing bowl meditation is an opportunity in which you're invited just to come and sit and relax.

And Natalie, who is our practitioner, she has been trained on playing these crystal bowls.

They play at a specific frequency that it takes your brain and your body's energy kind of to a different level and allows you to fall into a very deep state of relaxation, which is something that I think we could all really use just every day to invite yourself to take 45 minutes to slow down, to give yourself time to relax and be present.

It does take you to another place.

I felt very relaxed coming out of it.

I felt like I had just taken a really refreshing nap while lying on a yoga mat or a blanket.

So when we awarded our contract to be the operator of The Chateau here, Natalie actually came to one of our open houses, approached us herself, and said, "This is a program that I lead.

Would you be interested in potentially hosting it here?"

It was right in line with some of our goals for programming and the space really essentially fell into our lap.

We didn't have to go out seeking it, she came to us.

The singing bowl meditation is supported through a ForeverWell Grant, which is a program of the YMCA, and it's a collaboration that we're really grateful for, early in our stages here and look forward to developing as our time at The Chateau continues.

(upbeat music) - We're catching up with Chao Mwatela and JoMarie Morris, joining us to share more about the work of the Coalition for Rochester Area Housing and the recent BIPOC Home Ownership Co-Design Report.

Welcome back both of you.

So before the break, we were talking a little bit about how the co-design process was different and differs from community engagement.

JoMarie, can you tell us a little bit about who the co-designers were and how they were identified in this process?

- Absolutely, so we had 10 co-designers and they really represented really diverse backgrounds in various BIPOC communities, but we selected them based on some pre-identified personas.

So we wanted to look at, okay, are there BIPOC lenders in our community that do mortgage banking?

Are there BIPOC realtors in our community?

Are there people that had been wanting to buy a home that weren't able to buy a home?

Are those folks that were successful in buying a home, what do they bring to the table?

So it's really working through all of those different identities, and many of those co-designers represent several different identities, right?

So some of them represent folks that maybe did complete, successfully, the home ownership process and from the BIPOC community.

Maybe they did successfully some kind of credit information or some classes or pre-education.

But just getting a really, really diverse background.

And you know, the thing that I think was most important and that I learned the most during this process is, what's exciting about it is, bringing people to the table that we don't ordinarily see, right?

So these community members, it's a very iterative process.

So not only do we meet with these 10 co-designers, but between each session they go out to their individually identified communities and they get more information, bring that back to us, to make more recommendations and to really highlight what needs to move the needle for us.

- And Chao, you had a role co-facilitating the sessions with the co-designers.

How did you ensure that they were empowered during this process?

You both mentioned these aren't necessarily community members that are often asked to be at the table and given those tools.

So can you tell us a little bit about that and what are some of the main themes that kind of came out from the co-designers?

- Yeah, absolutely.

So I think it was really important for us to first tell the co-designers why there were selected and making sure that they understood what the co-design process was and how it differed from traditional engagement.

And asking them for their own input on how they think they would navigate conversations.

And then continuing to emphasize and reemphasize that they are literally experts in their lived experience and that no one else in that space or in that room or any boardroom or council member could ever replace that.

And so taking that lived experience and the networks and trusted resources that they had and connecting that with their communities, but also checking in with them.

You know, JoMarie mentioned that they had two weeks to go out and talk to community members, checking in with them every so often to make sure that it was going well and offering any support that they might need.

And then, based on those conversations, synthesizing them and then thinking through, "What are the emerging themes that we're hearing?"

And some of those included things like education, and we often talk about education as if we're just talking about, okay, somebody who's seeking a home.

But it was education that spans way more than that.

Really early exposure, prior to somebody even thinking about purchasing a home, but significantly after the purchase of a home is what we heard about quite a bit.

We heard about navigation, the process of being long and convoluted, even for somebody who kind of knows what they're doing, how much more complex it is for somebody who is going through it for the very first time.

The idea of mentorship, having somebody from their own community, who looks like them, right, and is able to walk 'em through the process that is not engaged in that at all so that they don't feel as though there's a conflict of interest and that they're really supported.

And then others, like safety and security, knowing that those structural racial barriers are being addressed in other spaces so that they can feel safe walking into a lending institution or working with a realtor who's culturally competent or culturally humble, right?

And that also included things like representation in all of those spaces.

'Cause some of 'em said, "It's really hard to walk into a space and feel like you don't belong there."

So those were the overarching themes that we heard from co-designers.

- Wonderful.

In the report, there are series of different recommendations and we're not gonna be able to touch through all of them, but I was interested in, you know, the financial and lending institutions as stakeholders, and they play such a major role in creating those barriers.

Can you outline for some of the key recommendations about how these financial and lending institutions could actually assist in eliminating these barriers and offering opportunity?

- Certainly, so we thought about it in terms of what the co-designers expressed as a life cycle of owning a home.

So things that lending institutions needed to do before they ever worked with a BIPOC community member, during the process of working with them, and then after.

So some of those would include things like going through a DEI audit, you know, not knowing what they don't know about their own cultural competence and/or acuity and getting recommendations that they would implement.

It also looked like looking through the lending practices and being really scrutinizing, is it dominant culture practices that are represented there or are there other considerations specific to BIPOC communities that they need to embed and kind of think innovatively about how they would change that.

And then on the other end of it, right, as someone's going through the process, are there things that are barriers, like the technical stuff that they might use, all the e-signatures that you get when you're signing paperwork.

How do we change that?

After home ownership, providing guidance maybe on a refinancing process or maintenance that somebody might not quite know about.

So spanning the whole process of going through that.

- Wonderful, thank you.

We'll be linking to the report with this interview as well.

But JoMarie, as we're wrapping up here, could you tell us a little bit about what the next steps are for this report and the Coalition's work?

- Yes, great question.

And the reality is, this is just the start of our work.

So we're gonna continue to engage with the BIPOC communities.

We're gonna work with our community partners to really figure out what are the action steps to move this forward, and one of them was possibly having a forum for BIPOC home ownership, bringing all these stakeholders together.

Another one is creating a mentorship program.

How would that work?

Again, working with the BIPOC communities, working with folks like IMAA and the Diversity Council, Three Rivers that already has some great programs and utilizes some programs that provides language services.

So really, again, really embracing the report, but looking to each of these stakeholders to say, "Okay, what can we do collaboratively to make this work?"

Because it's not gonna be work that's done in isolation.

We all need to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

- Great.

Well thank you both for joining us.

Thank you so much for your work and your continued work on this.

And thank you all for joining us today.

For more wonderful content produced right here in Rochester, please be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter at #RTown.

I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara for "R-Town," the show about Rochester.

Be well and stay safe.

We will see you next week.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (gentle music) - [Voiceover] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.