What is a Sacred Settlement?

A Sacred Settlement for the homeless is a community of small, dignified homes designed to provide shelter, stability, and support for individuals experiencing homelessness. These settlements are often faith-based, fostering a sense of belonging, purpose, and holistic care through shared resources and communal living.

Are you opposed to the homeless?

Absolutely not! We all agree that there needs to be solutions to helping the homeless throughout the State of Minnesota. We are opposed to opening an unregulated permanent Sacred Settlement with minimal engagement from the city and neighbors. There is little that can be done once the settlement is in place if things go wrong and the settlement isn’t a success. This is one of our main concerns with the current proposal. The Church is only accountable to themselves once the settlement is in place.

Our Proposal: A collaborative team from the neighborhood with an equal seat at the table that works alongside the Church to create the policies, ensuring they’re beneficial for the church and residents of the settlement and mitigating the concerns of the neighbors.

The Church says it will do background checks, does that resolve the safety concerns?

The church has said it will do background checks, but these are voluntary and not required by the law. When asked at an information session about the specifics, the church wasn’t able to elaborate on how they’d perform the checks.

Our Proposal: The neighbors want to ensure background checks are consistent and done with a reputable source and the safety requirements are clearly listed for who is admissible and who is inadmissible.

Have you tried working directly with Church of the Open Door?

We have directly engaged the leaders at Church of the Open Door during community meetings they invited us to and other venues outside of those wider meetings. We did not received adequate responses or plans addressing our concerns at these meetings.

We have toured the Sacred Settlements at Prince of Peace and Mosaic Church in Saint Paul as well as conducted interviews with neighbors in the area. The changes we’re proposing to the Maple Grove settlement account for everything we’ve learned from the existing settlements and neighborhood response. The existing settlements were formed before the law – and they required neighborhood input and approval before proceeding.

Update 3/10/25: We did meet with Church Elders on March 6th, 2025 and are currently awaiting a response to our proposals for further collaboration.

Does Maple Grove currently have a need for a Sacred Settlement or Homeless Shelter?

Maple Grove currently has about 35 people who are identified as Homeless, as reported by the city. This is a minimal number when compared to the population size of Maple Grove, and the proposed Sacred Settlement isn’t necessarily targeting those local homeless individuals – they may come in from other cities.

We believe all of our neighbors deserve the dignity of a home, which is why we are advocating for more community input on how to solve this problem. If a Sacred Settlement is the answer, we want it to be successful for both our neighbors and the future residents.

Our Proposal: Residents to this settlement are targeted to be local residents of Maple Grove without a home currently.

Will residents have to be drug/alcohol free while living in the Settlement?

Church of the Open Door has stated that residents will not be required to maintain a drug for alcohol free lifestyle while living at the Settlement – however no final policy has been determined yet. We are concerned that this is an enabling model allowing individuals who may be experiencing mental health or substance use issues to continue the path that led them to homelessness. This is a concern for safety.

We would rather see an empowering model that gives resources and incentives to graduate from the program and restricts drug/alcohol use while on site. Additionally, we have not seen any models that indicate that tolerating drug and alcohol addiction is beneficial in helping those struggling with addiction. Among people who are or have been previously homeless, 36% of deaths were related to substance use disorders.²

Our Proposal: Collaboration between the neighborhood and the church on a policy that balances independent rights and mitigates the concern of the neighborhood.

But Church of the Open Door has stated that people do not need to have a mental illness or substance use disorder to live in the settlement, right?

Church of the Open Door has told us that they currently plan to have 1/3 of the tiny homes built to be occupied by “intentional neighbors” who have not previously been homeless. This is the minimum amount required by the Sacred Settlement bill. The Church has the ability to expand beyond 12 tiny homes in the future if they choose to.

The Sacred Settlement Law also defines that the residents who were “chronically homeless” must have a “a diagnosable substance use disorder, serious mental illness, developmental disability, post-traumatic stress disorder, cognitive impairments resulting from a brain injury, or chronic physical illness or disability, including the co-occurrence of two or more of those conditions.” The law does require a plan for safety policies – but neighborhood residents are currently unaware and not being involved in shaping those policies.

Our Proposal: We want to collaborate on a plan and a policy that ensures that those struggling with mental health issues and addiction have resources available to assist them. We also want to have the opportunity to limit how quickly the settlement can expand so that we can reference historical data points at the Open Door settlement for how things are working and if any changes need to be made prior to an expansion.

Was the City of Maple Grove consulted on this?

The Sacred Settlement Law allows for this to move forward without approval from the City Council or the community. At a December 2024 City Council meeting, several neighbors with this organization and some apart from us shared their concerns with the Sacred Settlement. The city informed us that at this time, there is nothing they can do and any change would have to come from a legislative change.

An informational meeting was held in November 2024 to a small group of neighbors who received flyers.

This is a concern for safety – schools nearby and on site at the church will potentially have people with active addiction and mental health issues onsite.

Our Proposal: We want policies ensuring that adequate support will be available and provided at all times. Additionally, we are asking for a zero tolerance policy on weapons.

Do Residents of the Settlement have an employment requirement?

Church of the Open Door has stated there is no requirement for employment to reside in the settlement. The only requirement is paying a modest rent of $200 and being active in the community. Panhandling is said to be restricted, but there are no specific details available at this time about the area this applies to or how this restriction will be managed.

Our Proposal: We are requesting that No Panhandling by the residents be allowed within the Maple Grove city limits. Sacred Settlement Mosaic allows panhandling if it’s more than two miles away from the settlement – we would like to encourage the residents of this settlement to use the Churches opportunities for purposeful work and other potential sources of income rather than panhandling. In our initial discussion with Church Leaders, we learned that the Church and Neighbors are aligned on this policy.