Housing Update - July 11, 2003
Housing Update from Mayor R.T. Rybak
1. Top Managers appointed to CPED.
2. Year-to-date accomplishments in housing.
1. Top managers appointed to CPED.
Today we announced that Lee Sheehy, Interim Executive Director of the Citys new Office of Community Planning and Economic Development (CPED), has appointed two accomplished community leaders to serve as the core management team of the agency: Mike Christenson as director of Planning and Strategic Partnerships and Lee Pao Xiong as director of Housing. For more background on Christenson and Lee Pao, please see Community leaders named to key City housing and development posts
Working with the City Council, I have set out an ambitious housing vision for the City of Minneapolis that includes development of affordable lifecycle housing and workforce housing, works towards addressing issues of homelessness, and increases minority homeownership. I am confident that Lee Pao and Christenson will help realize this vision and achieve these goals. I expected that by September 1, both directors will have proposed goals for the coming year and a game plan for how we can make it happen.
While their arrival is sure to kick our housing and development activities into a higher gear, we have made great progress in the first six months of 2003. Here are few of the highlights:
- Despite extremely difficult financial times, we honored our commitment fund affordable housing beyond the initial $10 million capitalization of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. By eliminating certain lines of business and managing our money wisely, we were able to put an additional $1.35 million into the Trust Fund. We also made available approximately $1 million of additional funds towards affordable housing from funds carried over from 2002, program income and the Empowerment Zone.
- In March 2003 we appointed the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Committee who revised our funding guidelines for the $5.6 million in our fall funding round.
2. Year-to-date accomplishments in housing.
It’s important that we’ve secured a significant amount of money for affordable housing and that we’re making major strides in improving how we do business; but what is most critical is that we get dollars approved for housing projects so we can get those units completed and families into them quickly. Our housing staff has been hard at work; here’s a snapshot of what we have done this year and where we are going:
- In May 2003 we approved $4,439,396 for 454 multifamily units that are affordable below 50% metropolitan median income (MMI); 194 of these units are affordable to families making less than 30% of MMI.
- By years end, we anticipate 2,200 units with City financing will be " closed" and under construction. So far, we have closed on over 1,000 multifamily units (867 of which are affordable below 50% of median income) with total City financing of $25,562,114.
- By the end of the year, we expect 1,105 units to be completed. So far, we have completed 275 units, 83 of which are affordable below 50%. We are on-track to meet our goal of completing 650 affordable units in 2003.
For the latest information on our progress, please visit http://www.mcda.org/Housing/multifamily/progress.htm
Published Jul. 11, 2003