Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey is Leading on Housing

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey campaigned on a promise to address the city’s affordable housing crisis. 

In May, he announced an ambitious plan to deliver on his campaign promise and yesterday, we saw his plan take shape in his first proposed budget for 2019.

We commend the Mayor for his leadership to dramatically increase funding for affordable housing. His proposed 2019 budget recognizes that we need many tools in our toolbox to combat the housing challenges that many of our city’s residents experience. Mayor Frey’s specific commitments include $40 million of City funds – combined with an additional $10 million of state and federal funds – directed toward affordable housing. This includes:

• 21.6 million towards the Affordable Housing Trust Fund
• 3.4 million towards Naturally Occurring Affordable Housing Preservation
• 5 million towards affordable homeownership on City owned lots
• 3.3 million towards Stable Homes, Stable Schools, a collaboration with Minneapolis Public Schools, Minneapolis Public Housing and Hennepin county to stabilize kids and their families

In his remarks, Mayor Frey said, “The reality is that we can’t put affordable housing investments off til tomorrow because tomorrow is too late.” We couldn’t agree more.