Minneapolis’ Corridor Housing Strategy named as an Innovation Award finalist

The City of Minneapolis Corridor Housing Strategy is one of three programs selected nationally as a Fannie Mae Foundation Innovations Award in Affordable Housing finalist.

The programs were chosen for their uniqueness, effectiveness in addressing important problems, significance, and potential for replication by other government entities.

Minneapolis Corridor Housing Strategy aims to increase affordable housing along the city's transit corridors by giving neighborhood organizations an early and comprehensive role in planning, acquiring critical sites on transit corridors, and awarding priority housing funding to development that is tied to jobs and transit. This unique effort is based on key partnerships with the Center for Neighborhoods, the Metropolitan Design Center , the Family Housing Fund and the Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC).

Other finalists are the City of Los Angeles’ Systematic Code Enforcement Program, which proactively inspects rental units in Los Angeles, and the State of Vermont’s Housing and Conservation Board, which supports the compact development of affordable housing while conserving the working landscape, nature areas and historic properties.

Representatives from each program will deliver a public presentation before the National Selection Committee at Harvard University on May 11, 2005. The winning program will receive a $100,000 grant to encourage replication of its innovation in other jurisdictions. The winner will be announced on July 27 at the 2005 Excellence in Government Conference, in Washington, D.C.

The Fannie Mae Foundation Innovations Award in Affordable Housing is a program of the Fannie Mae Foundation, the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, and is administered in partnership with the Council for Excellence in Government.

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Updated July 19, 2005

Published Jul. 19, 2005