Union Gospel Mission receives $8.85M from state for new downtown Duluth center

DULUTH, Minn. (Northern News Now) - Duluth secured nearly $25 million in Minnesota’s recently passed bonding bill, and more than a third of those funds will be going to a single nonprofit in downtown Duluth.

Union Gospel Mission (UGM) will receive $8.85 million in state funding for a new building on Second Street. Executive director Katie Hagglund says the space will transform the services they provide and the makeup of downtown Duluth.

“I think it was so much more than just a new building for Union Gospel Mission. It’s really just a piece of the bigger pathway forward collaboration that’s happening to reinvent our homeless response system in the community,” said Hagglund.

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The Mission Engagement Center will offer a 24/7 drop-in space with meals, laundry services, showers, indoor and outdoor spaces for guests and other free resources. Social workers and medical staff will also be on site.

“It also provides a place where folks can just be off the street, and that’s been one of our challenges,” Duluth mayor Roger Reinert said.

The new location will move the nonprofit closer to other critical resources. The building will be directly across the street from the St. Louis County Government Services Center and just blocks away from Chum and the Damiano Center.

“Folks who are in our community who are unhoused, who are in need, end up traveling from one end of downtown to the other looking to meet basic services,” Reinert said.

UGM currently serves 300 people a day out of a building on First Street, which was originally designed as an auto repair garage. Leaders say the new space will allow them to better meet the needs of their guests and the surrounding downtown community.

“With UGM being able to relocate to a location that’s better for the folks that we serve and work with each day, it also opens the door for economic redevelopment opportunities along our existing space on First Street,” Hagglund said.

UGM plans to build 40 units of permanent supportive housing above the center. They are now looking to secure an additional $20 million for those units from Minnesota’s Housing Finance Agency. Their application for funding was rejected last year, but Hagglund feels it will be accepted this year given they now have bonding dollars.

UGM hopes to break ground on the Mission Engagement Center next spring and open the doors in 2028.

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