2024 City Budgets: Affordable Housing as a Local Priority

December marks the end of the year and the passage of city budgets. Earlier this month, the Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul reached the end of their budgeting processes. These new budgets have demonstrated the cities’ commitment to affordable homeownership through new and continued investments.

Minneapolis and St. Paul are reliable partners in achieving Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity’s mission to produce and preserve affordable homeownership. This year we are excited to share how local investments will support our work and ensure racial equity in homeownership. Now let’s dive in deeper to learn more about each city’s budget!

The 2024 Minneapolis Budget

In 2022, the City of Minneapolis passed a biennial budget for 2023-2024. This prompted the development this year of a 2024 supplemental budget to update any necessary funding impacts. In Minneapolis, the primary program utilized by Twin Cities Habitat is Minneapolis Homes, which provides essential funding to support affordable homeownership through helping to close Twin Cities Habitat’s development and affordability gaps.

Under last year’s passed biennial budget, Minneapolis Homes will continue to receive $4.5 million in funding for 2024. This continued funding will be essential due to increasing costs of production and growing affordability gaps as the cost of owning a home continues to outpace income. While these investments are helpful, they will not keep pace with continuing increases in the costs of development. It’s vital that we advocate for the City to provide new, ongoing updates to create and preserve more affordable homeownership options.

Twin Cities Habitat will build up to 150 affordable homes at The Heights.

The 2024 St. Paul Budget

Looking towards the capital city, the City of St. Paul also passed its 2024 budget. This budget cycle was extremely exciting as amendments were accepted to include Tax Increment Financing (TIF) agreements which will allocate $9.78 million to Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity. This funding will support the first phase of acquisition and development at The Heights. This first phase will cover two blocks and will build 74 new affordable homeownership units.

Twin Cities Habitat is excited for the Heights partnership, through which we will build over 140 affordable homeownership units on the Greater East Side of St. Paul. A big project has big gaps, and our organization has been continually advocating with city staff and elected officials to ensure affordability throughout the development.

Local investment in affordable housing is essential in creating and preserving affordable homeownership opportunities. Twin Cities Habitat regularly advocates to our partners at the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul to continue to build on current investments to increase our work throughout the Twin Cities. However, we can’t do this work alone. With support from our advocates, we can continue to work toward creating a more equitable Twin Cities and expand homeownership opportunities to more families.

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