DULUTH — More than 160 homes in northeastern Minnesota will be renovated or built thanks to historic state funding directed to a Duluth housing nonprofit.
Duluth housing nonprofit lands historic $62.5 million in state aid
One Roof Community Housing will funnel millions toward apartments and single-family homes.
December 18, 2023 at 10:06PM
Minnesota Housing, the state's housing finance agency, gave One Roof Community Housing $62.5 million for a slate of affordable projects, an amount about four times more than the nonprofit typically receives from the agency in a given year.
"We're really over the moon about how useful this will be for us to increase production," said Jeff Corey, executive director of One Roof. "We may not even need to do an application for single-family work next summer, which, in my 25 years, we've never not applied."
The largest project — 72 affordable apartments for seniors near the former St. Mary's Medical Center in Duluth — is now fully funded. The city awarded nearly $4 million in pandemic relief aid for the construction of Brae View, and state money will cover the rest of the $32.4 million project. It will include space for a child-care center, a sorely needed resource within the city. Essentia Health and the St. Scholastica Monastery donated the land.
Two dozen rundown apartments in Grand Marais will be repaired, and $525,000 for 25 no-interest home-buying loans will be available. More than $5 million will go toward the purchase and rehab of nearly 30 homes in the Duluth area and $10 million for the construction of 36 Community Land Trust homes in Duluth. Another eight will be built in Grand Rapids. Those are sold to people with low and middle incomes for about a quarter less than market value.
None of the projects could be completed without the state aid, Corey said, and legislators prioritizing housing in 2023.
The Minnesota Housing board of directors approved developments totaling $348 million throughout the state, an agency news release said.
The projects will build and renovate 4,720 single-family homes, apartments and manufactured home community lots.
"Never in our state's history has a day come when a larger investment in housing has been awarded," Rep. Michael Howard, DFL-Richfield, chair of the housing finance and policy committee, said in a statement. "Building a lot more new homes of all kinds, of all types, all across the state is necessary if we are to address our state's deep housing shortage, which continues to drive up the cost of housing for all Minnesotans."
Most of the northeastern Minnesota projects will begin next year.
The proposal suggests removing the 20-year protection on the Superior National Forest that President Joe Biden’s administration had ordered in 2023.
