News

The first time Skip Duchesneau got a phone call from the owner of the Prairie Rose Apartments, in 2008, he declined the man’s offer to sell him the 16-unit complex in Red Lake Falls, Minn. Duchesneau, the president of property development and management firm D.W. Jones, Inc., had visited the property before and concluded that ...

New York City-based energy management provider, Bright Power, released the findings from a 2-year pilot program, EnergyScoreCards Minnesota, to test the feasibility and impact of energy and water benchmarking in over 550 multifamily buildings across the state. The findings show that not only is statewide benchmarking feasible, the act of benchmarking can lead to significant ...

Newport Laboratories belongs to a new breed of employer in Worthington, a city of 13,000 in southwestern Minnesota known primarily for pork processing. Newport, a locally founded firm that was acquired in 2012 by a French animal health care firm, performs diagnostic testing and manufactures veterinary vaccines. The company, one of several animal health firms in ...

Policymakers and business leaders say a lack of available rentals is stunting economic growth. In addition, the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency and several partner organizations will funnel about $17.2 million into affordable housing projects in the seven-county Twin Cities metro area. All together, the funding announced Thursday will go toward 51 projects that open up or preserve ...

An abundance of resources and programs to make housing easier to obtain are available to aspiring and first-time homeowners, but at the East Central Housing & Community Dialogue in Braham Oct. 6, facilitators of these programs revealed not enough of those in the lending and housing industries are aware of them, especially in rural Minnesota.   Read ...

During a ceremonial ribbon-cutting and open house, newly moved-in residents, veterans groups, project partners and community leaders heralded Upper Post Veterans Community as vital in helping reach the goal of ending homelessness among military veterans in Minnesota. Austin Poons, a veteran who served in the United States Army in the 1970s, was one of the first ...

Military veterans and their families struggling with homelessness now have new homes and resources to help end the cycle of homelessness, with the completion of a 58-unit affordable-housing community at Fort Snelling. During a ceremonial ribbon-cutting and open house, newly moved-in residents, veterans groups, project partners and community leaders heralded Upper Post Veterans Community as vital ...

Greater Minnesota Housing Fund (GMHF), based in St. Paul, supports efforts that provide affordable housing options for families and individuals throughout the state. This includes young people just getting started in life and parents working to support their children, along with new immigrants, multigenerational households and the formerly homeless. Founded in 1996 through a joint effort ...

As the need for affordable housing grows, nonprofits work to make sure all Minnesotans have a place to call home. Stable housing is so intricately tied to stable families and communities that it’s difficult to separate the two. When people have stable housing, they’re better able to pursue their work, family and educational goals. When kids ...

The personal stories represented in GMHF’s 2006 photo exhibit “Portraits of Home” reveal the deeply challenging circumstances faced by working families, new immigrants, children and vulnerable adults struggling to persevere despite poor housing conditions and few resources. As revealing as these photographs are, they tell only a whisper of the stories of the people captured in ...

Polaris Industries Inc. has donated $300,000 to construct a 41-unit apartment building in Roseau, the northern Minnesota town where about 1,600 employees manufacture Polaris all-terrain-vehicles and snowmobiles. The grant, made by Polaris’s foundation, was given to Greater Minnesota Housing Fund so Tamarack Place Apartments could be built by summer 2016. County, city and company officials have long ...

NOAH Impact Fund executes pilot projects to demonstrate the viability of the investment program. The Fund builds on the best practices nationally of affordable housing developers that have acquired and manage new portfolios of existing unsubsidized affordable housing. In August 2015, the Fund financed the equity portion of a $6.8 million acquisition, rehabilitation and preservation of a ...

The foundation is preparing to embark on a $19 million fundraising campaign that will provide partner funds to the Olmsted County Housing and Redevelopment Authority. The county HRA will in 2016 levy a property tax to fund affordable housing efforts. That levy could raise as much as $2.5 million, but a recent HRA business plan based ...

A century after its construction, The Lonoke apartment building in Minneapolis is undergoing a renovation that development partners say is an important step toward ending homelessness in the city. Minnesota-based developer Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative found strong neighborhood support for converting The Lonoke from market-rate apartments into 19 units of affordable housing for low-income households ...

Olmsted County entered a new era Tuesday in its efforts to curb an affordable housing crisis in the community. With a resolution unanimously approved Tuesday, the Olmsted County Board of Commissioners assumed new duties as the Olmsted County Housing and Redevelopment Authority, and the county board also expressed its intent to levy a new property tax ...

Grants ranged from a $1 million to St. Paul-based Greater Minnesota Housing Fund to create a lending program for new workforce housing in greater Minnesota to $30,000 for a St. Paul organization that blends tennis instruction and school help for low-income kids. Among nonprofits providing services in St. Paul, the largest grant was $300,000 to the ...

transforming the 100-year-old property into a new 19-unit affordable-housing community with support services for area homeless and people in need of permanent housing. Rehabilitation of the building, to be renamed The Lonoke, located at 1926 Third Avenue South in Minneapolis, includes renovating the 19 existing one-bedroom apartments with upgraded mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, new ...

For many years, CEE, Neighborhood Energy Connection, Minnesota Multi Housing Association, Family Housing Fund, Greater Minnesota Housing Fund, and Elevate Energy have collaborated in twos and threes on various projects — but until now the six of us had never worked together quite like this, behind one shared vision: We aim to increase efficiencies in ...

For many years, CEE, Neighborhood Energy Connection, Minnesota Multi Housing Association, Family Housing Fund, Greater Minnesota Housing Fund, and Elevate Energy have collaborated in twos and threes on various projects — but until now the six of us had never worked together quite like this, behind one shared vision: We aim to increase efficiencies in ...

And they’ll need places to live at affordable prices because many won’t be highly paid. A recent survey showed a critical shortage of affordable housing in Olmsted County, and now area leaders are digging in to address that problem. Creating affordable housing key to DMC success, said Warren Hanson, Founding President & CEO of Greater Minnesota Housing ...