Happy Earth Day! 🌎 For thirty years, GMHF has been committed to building housing that’s not only affordable, but also sustainable, more energy efficient, and better for our communities and our planet.
A cornerstone of that work is the Minnesota Green Communities Initiative, a partnership between GMHF, Family Housing Fund, and Enterprise Community Partners. Together, we helped make green, healthy building practices the standard for affordable housing in Minnesota by combining strong building standards, technical assistance, capital, and policy advancement.
Launched in 2005, this initiative grew into the largest sustainable building program in Minnesota and a national model for integrating Green Communities criteria into affordable housing building and design standards statewide.
As former GMHF President and CEO Warren Hanson reflected in the initiative’s 2014 report: “By working together, Greater Minnesota Housing Fund and the Family Housing Fund were able to make the case to state government that building green and healthy housing was the right thing at the right time.”
Read the program report here.
Today, GMHF is still focused on efforts to support energy efficient, sustainable, and resilient affordable housing across Minnesota. In 2025, we secured $11.7M in new public, private, and philanthropic commitments for our Energy Loan Fund, strengthening the ability to deliver innovative financing to support high performance buildings. This work is helping build field capacity by piloting new development approaches, testing creative capital solutions, and sharing insights across Minnesota’s housing ecosystem.
Because when sustainable building practices and affordable housing come together, entire communities benefit — today and for generations to come.
The Williams: A Big Step Forward for Affordable Housing in Saint Paul