As deadline looms, Minnesota struggles to spend COVID funds set aside for rental, mortgage assistance
The plan was to use $100 million of Minnesota’s federal CARES Act money to pay for the COVID-19 Housing Assistance Program.
The plan was to use $100 million of Minnesota’s federal CARES Act money to pay for the COVID-19 Housing Assistance Program.
A Q&A with Jamal Osman, who won the Aug. 11 special election for the Minneapolis City Council seat representing Ward 6.
The task of organizing tenants poses all sorts of social barriers. But physical barriers can be important too.
The newest update allows landlords to evict tenants who have “significantly damaged property” or if the property manager or their family needs to move in.
It took four months for the state to put a rental assistance program amid the economic fallout of COVID-19 — even after there was a general agreement on the issue among Republicans and DFLers.
A moratorium on evictions has kept countless families in their homes these past two months. But that minimal and temporary safeguard will be effectively erased when Gov. Walz’s order expires.
The proposal is modeled on Washington, D.C.’s, Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, or TOPA, which allows tenants match bonafide offers for rental properties when owners put them up for sale.
The city is looking to establish “straightforward and consistent” rules requiring developers to include affordable units as part of all new housing projects. Not everyone is on board.
Housing advocates and officials across the metro are boosting efforts to raise awareness of the need for Section 8 housing.
City Council President Lisa Bender and Council Member Jeremiah Ellison are writing new language based on feedback from landlords, renters and colleagues that followed the release of draft ordinances.
“They have emergency situations, or a family member passes away,” said one renter, and soon people in crisis risk eviction and future denials of housing. Proposals are being developed to address these and other tenant issues, drawing pushback from some landlords.
The state of Minnesota is hardly the only funding source for affordable housing projects — but it is often a key source.
Four years after allowing the structures, Minneapolis has permitted 137 ADUs.
One proposal, which has bipartisan support, would allow those who donate to affordable housing projects to take a dollar-for-dollar credit off of their state income tax bill.
Built to address the needs of those who’d been living at the Franklin Hiawatha homeless encampment, the navigation center must close by May 31, when the property owner — the Red Lake Nation — plans to break ground on an affordable housing complex.
The mayor talks affordable housing, public safety, and learning to code.
Right now, a growing number of Minneapolis renter households are spending more than half their incomes on housing.
As the debate around the city’s housing crisis takes center stage, the organization sees an opportunity to elevate their crusade for better living conditions and landlord accountability.
“We are just scratching the surface of what’s needed in terms of rehab,” said Dale Slagter, Kandiyohi County’s housing rehabilitation manager. “There is a lot of need out here.”
The mayor presented his 2019 budget in a 45-minute speech to about 50 people inside City Council chambers Wednesday morning.