Minnesota NAHRO

You are invited to participate in Affordable Housing Plan Input Sessions Monday, June 27

Minnesota Housing is in the process of developing its program budget for the next two years--the 2012-2013 Affordable Housing Plan.  As part of the process, Minnesota Housing is convening a series of three multifamily-focused sessions to be held on Monday June 27.  All three sessions will be held at Minnesota Housing in the State Street Conference room. Please register today!

Prevent and End Homelessness - 10:00am – 12:00 noon

Preserve Existing Affordable Housing – 1:00 - 3:00pm 

Provide New Opportunities for Affordable Housing – 3:00 – 5:00pm

Keep reading for background, meeting materials and a list of discussion questions. 

Affordable Housing Plan

The Affordable Housing Plan is Minnesota Housing’s program budget for October 1, 2011 through September 30, 2013. The budget is the primary tool by which the agency achieves its strategic priorities and goals. It encompasses all sources of funding for agency activities: federal resources, state appropriations, bond proceeds and agency generated resources. We know that vailable resources are inadequate to meet the state’s affordable housing needs abd anticipate that the most flexible and desirable resources will be even more scarce than they have been in the recent past.  This is your opportunity to provide input on this plan. The Board of Directors will review a draft budget plan at the August, 2011 meeting and will approve a final budget plan at its September, 2011 meeting. 

Meeting preparation and follow-up

We want to learn about your ideas on how to most effectively deploy the available resources to achieve the agency’s priorities in the context of the current environment.  To help us have a shared understanding of the environment in which we are operating, Minnesota Housing staff has prepared an environmental scan that provides information on affordable housing needs, other demographic data, market conditions and other factors that influence affordable housing financing. 

In the interest of time, we will not be taking time during the meeting to walk through the environmental scan. We encourage you to review the Environmental Scan before attending the meeting. Note, if the audio presentation does not start automatically, choose the "view slideshow" option.

To further aid the discussion, we will be asking participants to discuss the questions outlined below.  We expect to use an internet survey tool to ask follow-up or more specific questions after the meeting.

Discussion questions for all three sessions:

1. What are the biggest challenges to: preventing and ending homelessness, preserving affordable housing, providing new affordable housing opportunities, that government assistance could help with?  What types of government assistance are most needed to address those challenges, eg deferred loans, low-interest amortizing loans, grants, other?  Are there ways to stretch the government assistance to help meet the identified challenges for as many households as possible?

2. Are there populations that have been underserved with Minnesota Housing’s assistance due to the type or level of assistance provided?  What are they, what are the funding needs and how should funding be modified to meet their needs?

3. Are there anticipated changes in your business in response to the current environment that might impact the types or level of assistance from Minnesota Housing?  What are they and how would they impact Minnesota Housing’s assistance?

4. Is there a certain level of funding that is necessary in order to make an activity or program effective, both for the households to be served and from an administrative perspective?

5. Are there innovations in programs or products or gaps that have never been addressed that you would like Minnesota Housing to pursue or collaborate with you to pursue?

6. What are the most cost-effective expenditures Minnesota Housing makes in your opinion and why?

7. Given the discussion today, what would be your highest funding priorities?

To date we have gathered considerable stakeholder input from five Regional Housing Dialogs that were held in St. Peter, St. Cloud, Mountain Iron, Bemidji and Fergus Falls during the month of April and May, in addition we have had a chance to hear from our partners at the MN NAHRO Spring Conference and from attendees at the 2011 Minnesota Indian Housing Conference held the first week of June. We also held simlar session on homeownership and community development issues during the first week of June.

Please register today. We are looking forward to meeting with you on Monday, June 27 to talk about funding ideas and priorities for Minnesota Housing’s program budget for the next two years.