On December 8, 2005, over 100 housing and homelessness advocates packed a joint hearing of the Senate Housing Subcommittee and the House Jobs and Economic Opportunity Committee.
For two hours, the committees heard from advocates about the need for affordable housing resources throughout Minnesota. Speakers outlined potential solutions to get us closer to our goal of ending homelessness and ensuring that affordable housing infrastructure exists to spur economic development in the state.
Mary Brooks, director of the Housing Trust Fund Project, was the featured speaker. She launched the Housing Trust Fund Project in 1986. Mary has amassed nearly 30 years of policy and capacity-building experience in affordable housing, as well as unparalleled expertise in housing trust funds.
The Housing Trust Fund Project is a special initiative of the Center for Community Change. The Project operates as a clearinghouse of information on housing trust funds throughout the country, and provides technical assistance to organizations and agencies working to create or implement these funds.
Since the Project’s inception, housing trust funds have become one of the leading vehicles for addressing critical housing needs in this country.
Today, more than 350 housing trust funds operate in cities, counties, and states throughout the country. These funds provide approximately $800 million each year to support affordable housing.
The Housing Trust Fund Project has been the primary provider of technical assistance to more than half of these housing trust funds.
Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless invited Mary Brooks to spend the week in Minnesota to help advise on the current efforts at the Capitol to pass a deed surcharge for affordable housing.
The legislative hearing was the culmination of a busy week that included a daylong training on housing trust funds, a funders briefing on housing trust funds, a media visit with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and a series of technical assistance meetings to guide state and local efforts to secure dedicated housing resources.
Over the last month, Minnesota’s campaign for dedicated housing funds was infused with the energy and enthusiasm of 75 organizations statewide that signed on to support the efforts at the Capitol. All endorsers look forward to proactively seeking new resources for housing and homelessness programs after a series of program cuts over the last several years.
Minnesota’s budget outlook has improved and we now have a projected surplus in the state. The housing and homelessness community agree it is time to seek significant, new, and dedicated resources for low-income rental assistance and affordable housing.
The policy proposal, introduced during the 2005 Legislative Session, would add a deed surcharge to the existing deed tax to generate the revenue for much-needed low-income housing assistance.
The surcharge could raise significant new resources for Minnesota’s housing programs. A 20 percent increase to the deed tax could raise over $25 million each year, and a 50 percent increase would raise over $60 million each year.
The funds would be dedicated to two of Minnesota’s most flexible statewide housing programs — half to the Housing Trust Fund for rental assistance, and half to the Challenge Fund for production and rehab.
For more information, view the Coalition’s policy brief on this issue, and sign on to the initiative by contacting the Coalition’s state policy director, Rachel Callanan, at callanan@mnhomelesscoalition.org or (612) 230-3285.