Fort Snelling Historic Preservation by the STS Homes Program

About the Program

Category: Arts, Culture and Historic Preservation (Best in Category)

Year: 2011

The Hennepin County STS Homes program works diligently to provide a union recognized pre-apprenticeship training program for offenders. The program strives to decrease recidivism, increase affordable housing and to provide revenue to the country. The effort to find reuses for the Fort Snelling Upper Post buildings is continuing and accelerating with the use of labor provided by individuals that are currently incarcerated and working on the STS Homes crews. To make available funding stretch as far as possible, Hennepin county proposed a unique approach and has been using its “Sentence to Service” (STS) Correctional Crews to provide carpentry skills and rehabilitation to historic buildings and affordable housing located in Hennepin County and surrounding areas. The work that has been done by the STS crews at Fort Snelling is to be commended. The success of the “Save Americas Treasures,” better known as (SAT), is a Grant-funded, mothballing effort that led the Minnesota legislature to appropriate $500,000 in 2008 for STS crews to rebuild and restore a collapsed portion of the roof at the Guard House by re-pointing, selective replacement, and cleaning the masonry walls at both the Guard house and the Post headquarters.