Minneapolis Public Housing Authority requests $35M in state funding

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A bill that seeks $35 million in state money to fix leaky roofs and other deficiencies in hundreds of affordable-but-aging public housing units throughout Minneapolis is getting mixed reviews from legislators.

The funding would be the largest “non-federal” pot of money ever awarded for the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority and would help make up for “decades of under-funding” from the federal government, the city says.

Rep. Hodan Hassan, a Minneapolis DFLer, is the chief author of the MPHA funding bill. House File 4169 was heard at the Minnesota House of Representatives’ Housing Finance and Policy Committee Wednesday and laid over for possible inclusion in a housing omnibus bill.

Hassan and other bill supporters say the money would erase a roughly $33 million maintenance backlog for 700 housing units. The improvements would benefit 3,100 existing and 3,800 future residents. If left “unaddressed,” the city said, the backlog will rise to $70 million by 2034.

At Wednesday’s hearing, a number of people spoke in favor of the bill. But not everyone was on board with the request, which is well above the committee’s $10 million budget target for housing in fiscal years 2024-25.

At least one lawmaker questioned, among other things, why taxpayers in Minnesota cities with housing needs of their own should foot the bill for Minneapolis.

“I have a tough time having the people from Roseville to pay for public housing in Minneapolis,” said Rep. Brian Johnson, R-Cambridge. “… We don’t have the funds to do $35 million. There’s needs all over the state.”

Known as “scattered site housing,” the dwellings in question include deeply affordable single-family, duplex, fourplex, and “sixplex” homes throughout the city. Nearly 90% of the residents are Black, 86% of the units are female-led households, and roughly two-thirds are households with five or more people, according to the city.

Some of the homes are “falling apart,” Hassan said at the hearing. “Some of them need AC units to be installed. Some of them have leaky roofs. And [much of] this housing is family housing units that children are growing up in. And these are families that are the most needy.”

Other testifiers in support of the bill included Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minneapolis Public Housing Authority executive director Abdi Warsame.

Frey said the requested funding is “long-overdue” and a long-term solution to the problem.

“Once this $35 million, coupled with the city’s $5 million ongoing investment, is made, you’ve got an opportunity to solve the problem. … We believe in this work. And with $35 million, we can really end the conversation in a really positive light.”

Warsame argued that the state money would benefit minority-owned businesses, as well as residents. Last year, he said, minority-owned businesses performed roughly 42% of labor hours for maintenance work in the public housing units at issue.

“This money will do more than just provide safe, stable, affordable housing for thousands of families for decades,” Warsame said. “This money will make more homes ADA-accessible, it will deliver energy efficiency, and it will invest in minority-owned, women-owned and low-income” businesses.

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