Twin Cities Habitat's Local Priorities: Preserving Affordable Homeownership

Guest blog co-authored by Emily Kirkevold, Government Affairs Manager, and Mike Robertson, A Brush with Kindness Program Manager

For the Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity Government Affairs team, summer means advocating for local-level priorities in preparation for city budgets. This requires connecting with local-level elected officials and staff to advocate for a strong affordable homeownership investment. The Mayor’s recommended budget is expected to be released in late August, and we’re sharing our priorities with YOU to ask for your help in supporting our request!

This year will be increasingly important for advocacy as the City of Minneapolis is facing a budget deficit, which may require the defunding of important programs that provide resources for creating and preserving affordable housing.

City of Minneapolis

The City of Minneapolis has been a leader in affordable housing investment, and an integral partner of Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity through a variety of funding streams, from new construction to homeownership preservation to foreclosure prevention counseling. These programs are vital for Twin Cities Habitat to continue our work to build and preserve affordable homeownership throughout the city of Minneapolis.

To build on our past work and advocacy efforts, our number one priority for the 2025-2026 City Budget is the Affordable Homeownership Preservation Grant.

The Affordable Homeownership Preservation Grant

Since, 2018, our A Brush with Kindness home repair program has partnered with the Resident Navigators of Minneapolis’s Regulatory Services division to help resolve open housing orders and citations for low-income homeowners. Starting as a pilot using unspent Neighborhood Revitalization Program funding pledged by several neighborhood groups, the partnership was expanded by the City using American Rescue Plan Act funding and has completed 30 complex critical home repair projects, with more in the pipeline.

In this partnership, City Housing Inspectors refer homeowners unable to resolve housing orders to the Resident Navigators, who help the homeowner complete an application for repairs through A Brush with Kindness. From there, the A Brush with Kindness team does a home assessment, develops a work scope, and completes the work to satisfy the housing orders using skilled staff, volunteers, and licensed trade subcontractors. Often the citation-related work on the outside of the home is the tip of the iceberg, and the work scope will also include interior health and safety work as well as exterior repairs and painting.

For most of our clients, the home they live in is the safest, most affordable housing option for them. In fact, given the soaring cost of housing of all types in our market, we believe that the A Brush With Kindness program functions not only as a homeownership preservation program but also as a homelessness prevention program. Many of our clients have extremely limited financial resources and would likely wind up unsheltered if they were unable to stay in their current homes. Ensuring that the residence is safe and habitable and preserving it for the benefit of the community and future generations is core to our work.

As we continue to focus on racial equity in housing in our homeownership creation programs, we also believe that preserving homeownership for non-white clients is a critical part of addressing the long and racist history of housing policy in our communities. We are particularly conscious of the additional barriers that many Foundational Black Americans and other BIPOC homeowners face in acquiring their property, and we are committed to supporting these clients in maintaining their homes in safe and decent condition.

Twin Cities Habitat’s contract with the city to provide these services is ending in December 2024, leaving a gap in support for low-income homeowners. The creation of a consistent ongoing source of funding will be essential to continuing our work and keeping up with the rising costs of home maintenance.

Our budget priority is asking for $590,000 a biennium to continue this relationship and reach more homeowners.

Sign up for Advocacy Action Alerts to lend your voice for investment in affordable homeownership at the local, state, and federal levels!