When I joined Randi in our virtual call, the first thing she did was give me a tour of her new home. Randi moved into her own apartment in Brainerd, Minnesota in July 2022, after living at Haven Housing @ Ascension Place, a transitional housing program, for four years. For her, it’s not just a new home, it’s a homecoming. After struggling for 25 years with addiction, homelessness, and estrangement from friends and family, Randi has built a new life in the town she called home since childhood.
One wall of her home is covered in orange sticky notes, each with reminders, resources, and contacts helpful for her work as part of the Minnesota Council on Homelessness’s Lived Experience Advocacy Network (LEAN). “Northern Minnesota is really underrepresented,” Randi explains. The experience of being unhoused or dealing with addiction in rural Minnesota is different than in larger cities like Minneapolis, as people piece together what few resources exist near them and stay with friends and family or in abandoned homes in the country.
It’s an experience that Randi knows firsthand. “I’ve been in shelters, and on the street, in trailer homes with no running water. That’s who I thought I was.” For 25 years, Randi struggled with addiction, cycling through periods of sobriety and relapse and episodes of homelessness. Over time, she alienated friends and family members. In 2018, while in a chemical health treatment program, she discovered Haven Housing after visiting friends who lived there. Randi knew it was the place for her—she needed support to stay sober, and she wasn’t yet ready to live on her own. “I really identified as an addict. All my friends were addicts; my family was addicts; I’m a third-generation addict,” she recalls. “I had to figure out what the ‘other Randi’ looked like.”
Her stay at Haven Housing helped her figure that out. Though she was excited to move into Haven Housing @ Ascension Place, which is home to 32 women and non-binary people, it was hard at first to feel like “the new girl,” and Randi mostly kept to herself. She was surprised by how supportive and engaged the staff were, from the case managers to the cooks. At one point, shortly after she’d arrived, staff noticed her behavior had negatively changed. Staff put her on a contract outlining what behavior was needed for her to successfully stay in the program. Though many people would have been angry or annoyed “it was what I needed,” she says, to stay accountable. She began attending multiple support groups and sobriety meetings. She began intensive therapy. And she threw herself into learning life skills, helping out around the building and in the kitchen, and eventually taking on responsibility for the shared garden in the courtyard. As she progressed in her sobriety, another side of the new Randi emerged; a natural organizer and advocate.
Randi soon joined staff, residents, and volunteers for community conversations, neighborhood cleanups, and National Night Out. She emerged as a leader for the resident council in the building, helping keep meetings on track and organizing her peers to bring their concerns to staff. And, she joined the Advocacy and Community Engagement committee at Haven Housing, where she would eventually gain the confidence and skills she needed to talk with lawmakers about her experience. “Haven Housing helps people share their voices,” she says. “It was a safe place to speak up … We’re coming in when we’re not at our best. Self-confidence is low and people rub each other the wrong way. We don’t recognize how much potential and power we have, but Haven Housing gives us that safe space.”
Now, four years sober, Randi is a Certified Peer Recovery Support Specialist. She’s excited about the 2023 legislative session and the opportunities for her and her colleagues to advocate for change and more resources for housing and health in rural Minnesota.
Randi has also reconnected with her friends and family. When she has time for herself, you can find her riding her bike to a local open mic night to support a friend, trying out a new pie recipe, or doing arts and crafts projects with her many nieces or nephews during a slumber party. Or, perhaps in a boat on a lake. Over the summer, she and her son, her father, and her nephew went on a fishing trip for her son’s birthday. Those are moments that Randi doesn’t take for granted.
“I’m super grateful,” Randi says, reflecting on her time at Haven Housing. “If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely go back. I would recommend it to any woman. I’m a completely different person.” She is particularly grateful for the “kindness, patience, amazing strength, and compassion,” of Ascension Place Manager Allison Skoglund. And her advice to current and future residents at Haven Housing @ Ascension Place? “Get outside of your comfort zone. As much as you put in, you will get 10 times out of it, whether at Haven Housing or just in your life. If you start doing those things, your confidence will grow.”