Mayor Jacob Frey committed City of Mineapolis leaders to a new partnership with state, county, school district, and even federal officials to try to find new ways to use state and federal money to expand and maintain affordable housing in the city.
There’s also a bill before the Minnesota Senate that would appropriate $45 million to the city for rehabilitation and maintenance of deeply-affordable housing units.
“We know how to do it. We’re already doing it. Now, we’re going to scale it up,” said Abdi Warsame, executive director of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. He joined Mayor Frey and others for a press conference at the State Capitol following a Senate committee hearing on spending bill. “We’re going to do it much faster. We already turned some of these units. We already have a plan to relocate some of our families and move them back in. What the $45 million does for us is it gets us to sustainability much sooner.”
Frey will begin what he calls a 'convening of city, state, and local officials' to begin to find ways to maximize what resources they can to better provide housing.
“Basically, my entire life, public housing has been underfunded, and we’re seeing the repercussions of that,” said Frey at the press conference.
According to a press release from the city, it closed on a historic 919 affordable rental housing units last year, nearly three times the total number of closings between 2011-2018. Of these 919 units, 264 are deeply affordable – meaning they are for households with incomes at or below 30% Area Median Income (AMI). That is nearly 6 and a half times more than the number of 30% AMI units closed compared to the previous seven years.
“So, this is sounding the alarm. We all need to act,” said Frey. “The city of Minneapolis, we are a critical part of that. We need to take responsibility, we are taking responsibility. We can’t do it alone.”
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