Mayor's Update - May 6, 2003
1. NPR today!
2. Housing update
1. I will be on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation today (Tuesday, May 6) at 2:00 CST talking about the financial difficulties cities across the country are wrestling with. You can listen online here: www.npr.org
2. Affordable Housing update
As you may know, I unveiled the City of Minneapolis’ Affordable Housing Thermometer at my State of the City last week. The City has set a goal of creating and preserving 2,100 units of affordable housing between now and the end of 2005 (an ambitious goal for affordable housing at or below 50 percent of Metropolitan Median Income).
The City Council also received its annual Affordable Housing Report last week.
A few of the more significant accomplishments:
- We nearly doubled the number of total multi-family units started from 1,149 in 2001 to 2,143 in 2002.
- We funded construction of 838 units of housing for households with incomes less than 50 percent MMI.
- We increased production for those most in need. Over 70 percent of the units the City supported were affordable below 30 percent MMI.
- We increased funding for affordable housing by 32 percent from $8.1M in 2001 to $10.8M in 2002.
- We decreased the number of affordable housing units that were demolished. The City only demolished 16 affordable units in 2002.
I came into office with affordable housing as a top priority. I hope you feel as good as I do about our accomplishments in the first year.
Published May. 6, 2003