City/Town: Bemidji

Legislative District: Senate District 2

Party: Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party

Candidate responses in italics.

Q1: Housing plays a critical role in economic stability, health, and quality of life for individuals and families. However, disparities in housing continue to affect communities of color, people with disabilities, rural communities, and other historically underserved populations. What meaningful actions should be taken to acknowledge, address, and eliminate housing inequities and advance housing opportunities for all Minnesotans?

Here are some key actions that if taken would offer greater opportunities for helping citizens of Minnesota access housing: One, enact housing policies that allow more diverse housing options. Two, build more affordable housing. Three, identify the communities that are most disproportionately affected then support those communities with the needed inputs. Four, create economic opportunities within those targeted communities so that economically those residents can work towards increased income possibilities. And finally, utilize data that is gathered by state to direct these strategies.

Q2: Supportive housing combines affordable housing with support services that help people who face the most complex challenges to live with stability, autonomy, and dignity. Supportive housing provides better outcomes and is fiscally responsible. What will you do to ensure community members who are unhoused or unstably housed receive the support they need to obtain or keep their own homes?

The need for supportive housing is very evident across our state. Building the housing units and the support services that are needed for people facing complex challenges requires collaboration across many social, county, city and state service providers. Working together those entities can formulate steps to maintain existing housing/support and to work on increasing the availability of this even more within communities across the state.

Q3: Homeownership is a way to build generational wealth, provide family and household stability, and support community vibrancy. More and more Minnesotans are priced out of owning a home because of rising housing costs, including purchase price, homeowners’ insurance, and property taxes. What steps will you take to increase opportunities for renters and first-time homebuyers to purchase homes, condos, or cooperative ownership models?

Minnesota has options for citizens looking to buy a home. Using the FirstHomeBuyers Hub buyers can find grants. loans and step by step application assistance. The critical issue is that costs due to inflation are severely limiting the amount of funds citizens have to purchase homes. State programs will not be able to cover these costs if inflation is not brought under control and if this is coupled with slow or stagnant pay increases the poorest among us will not be able to afford housing. This then would indicate that communities will need to increase if possible the number of homes available for lower income residents.

Q4: In the last several years, bipartisan action to streamline building of new homes and apartments has passed in several states, including: allowing for multifamily buildings in select commercial areas, limiting parking requirements, allowing smaller homes on smaller lots, and more homes per lot in residential areas like duplexes, fourplexes, and accessory dwelling units. What reforms do you support to modernize zoning to both enable homes to be more affordable statewide and improve city tax bases?

Zoning for housing can have statewide guidelines but it is important that local jurisdictions have the flexibility when determining zoning for housing. Working together cities and the state will need to make plans for future housing that reduces costs and increases housing opportunities especially for the citizens that increasingly can’t afford to own. This will necessitate higher density housing so that the land resources support more people without undue sprawl.

Q5: Despite housing being the largest cost in the average household budget, housing receives only a small fraction of the total state budget at just 0.3%. A lack of ongoing reliable funding for housing in Minnesota’s state budget has resulted in an undersupply of stable homes affordable to our workforce, our elders, and our families. In recent years, a constitutional amendment for housing, which would dedicate revenues from a sales tax increase to housing, has gained momentum at the legislature. What revenue options will you champion to more adequately meet our need for reliable funding for homes we can afford?

Balancing state budgets is a given. In order to increase spending to support housing then there are basically two options: Increase taxes or cut spending in other areas. As a legislature it will require great amounts of input data, discussion, citizen meetings and ability to work through differences. A statewide increase in sales tax might be one of the options that gets traction.

Q6: If you have other housing policy priorities, especially specific to your district’s housing needs, please share them here.

In every community across this district many homes are becoming run-down and dilapidated. It would be of some value to research the feasibility of partnering with local technical colleges and high schools to offer renovation projects for home owners while providing training for new prospective workers. These projects would help revitalize blighted areas of towns and give homeowners assistance in helping this to happen.