Multi-million dollar investment set to tackle gap in Hennepin County affordable housing
A big part of the metro area will soon have more affordable places to live due to a nearly $13 million investment.
This week, the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners approved the funds set to go towards 14 projects, creating 1,498 affordable housing units.
“Building up the ecosystem of affordable housing is one of the highest priorities of the county right now,” Julia Welle Ayres, director of Housing Development and Finance for Hennepin County, said.
The 14 projects will be spread out to several cities including Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Medina, Rockford and Minneapolis, where nine will break ground — including in the Uptown neighborhood. The complex isn’t named yet, but developers are calling it 1301 Lake Street, after its location.
“This project in particular is such a good example of the kind of work we’re trying to do, this project is going to create 120 units of affordable housing,” Welle Ayres said of the Uptown project.
While the investment is steep, there’s much more needed to address this issue — Hennepin County is working towards filling a more than 30,000 affordable unit gap countywide. Helping the lowest income community members is a big focus, the county says — of the 1,498 incoming affordable units, 43% will be for the lowest income community members. That includes households at or below 30% of the area median income.
Hennepin County also reports there will be 90 supportive housing units that will “serve households experiencing homelessness, people leaving mental health treatment, and youth with foster care experience.
Community partners will help with this, including affordable housing developer CommonBond Communities.
“Our wait lists are longer than you can imagine,” Heidi Rathmann of CommonBond Communities said. “People are really having a difficult time not just here in Minneapolis, but all over the state.”
“Everyone wants to be able to have a choice of where they want to live,” Rathmann said.
Also this week, Hennepin County approved nearly $2 million to help with affordable home ownership.