Funding to Empower Rural, Native, and Manufactured Home Communities
MHP has received two transformative grants from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), totaling more than $22 million. These funds will amplify MHP’s capacity-building work with rural, Native, and manufactured home communities, addressing critical housing and community development challenges.
One, a $20.3 million Preservation and Reinvestment Initiative for Community Enhancement (PRICE) grant, secured in collaboration with Northcountry Cooperative Foundation (NCF), will focus on preserving and revitalizing manufactured housing communities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas. The other, a $2.3 million award through HUD’s Rural Capacity-Building for Community Development and Affordable Housing Grant program, will fund MHP’s ongoing technical assistance to rural and Native leaders nationwide.
As of December 1, 2024, MHP staff has begun the closeout process for their partnership with the Santo Domingo Tribal Authority (SDTHA). The Santo Domingo Pueblo, known as Khe-wa to its residents, is located between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, along the Rio Grande. Recognized for its rich traditions, many community members still speak Keresan, along with English and some Spanish. With over 5,000 enrolled members, the Pueblo has a variety of departments providing services to its residents.
The SDTHA, established in 1995, focuses on affordable housing development for the community. They aim to provide safe, sustainable, and culturally appropriate housing that supports traditional family values and self-sufficiency. SDTHA has implemented a master plan that integrates affordable housing with economic development and infrastructure improvements.
After facing significant organizational challenges, including management issues and financial shortfalls identified in a 2019 HUD-ONAP monitoring review, along with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, MHP assisted the SDTHA with overhauling its staff and operations. MHP improved the SDTHA’s internal capacity and secured funding for new housing development projects. This support included the creation and updating of internal policies, resolving its monitoring findings with HUD-SWONAP (Southwest Office of Native American Programs), strategic organizational planning, and a Housing Needs Assessment.
Additionally, MHP assisted the SDTHA with grant writing for the Competitive Indian Housing Block Grant (IHBG) using resources from MHP’s Strengthening Rural Communities Grant (SRCG). Although the application scored well, it resulted in a tie with several other applicants and did not receive funding. Fortunately, due to the strong score of the application and overall improvements, the SDTHA is now well-positioned to apply for both the IHBG and the Indian Community Development Block Grant (ICDBG). This will allow them to continue planning for projects that had been on hold due to monitoring issues.
MHP visits the Yankton Sioux Housing Authority in South Dakota
MHP Community Development staff recently visited the Yankton Sioux Housing Authority, as part of their on-going work with the Yankton Sioux Tribal Nation. MHP staff and the project team conducted team building sessions and process mapping to support the Housing Authority as they explore opportunities enhance program operations. Together, the project team toured several vacant properties that they plan to rehabilitate utilizing a recent award of $1M from their Tribal Council for this work. Once rehabilitated, these properties will be home to several local families in need of affordable housing!
Location: 451 Lexington Parkway, North Saint Paul, MN 55104 (Wilder Foundation)
Register for the 2024 edition of MHP’s post-election breakfast! Join us for a dynamic, bipartisan panel discussion as experts from both sides of the aisle break down the election results and their impact on the future of housing! Coffee and light breakfast to be provided.
Abou B. Amara, Jr. is legal and political analyst and attorney at Gustafson Gluek PLLC. Prior to entering legal practice, Mr. Amara worked for nearly a decade in a variety of public affairs capacities, including in Congress, the Minnesota State Legislature, and in Minneapolis City Hall.
Amy Koch has been a commentator and political strategist at Hylden Advocacy & Law since 2016. Prior to this career, Ms. Koch served in the Minnesota Senate from 2005 to 2013. She was Minnesota’s first female Senate Majority Leader.
Attend Virtually
MHP is offering a virtual attendance option for individuals not based in the Twin Cities metro area.
2024 Duluth Area Housing Forum – MN House Candidates
The Our Future Starts at Home campaign welcomes you to attend our 2024 Duluth Area Candidate Forum to hear from 2024 House Candidates about their platforms and vision to make MN a better place to call home, and their stance on long-term housing solutions.
The event will be moderated by Tatianna Kirk of Divine Konnections, with invitiations to 2024 House Candidates of Districts 8A, 8B, and 3B.
Join us for a workshop bringing together local officials, community leaders, experienced and emerging developers, funders, lenders, housing industry professionals, and other stakeholders to address the challenges and opportunities the Northeast region of Minnesota faces
When: October 22, 2024, 9am-4pm / Where: Black Woods Event Center, 195 Highway 2, Proctor, MN
The Our Future Starts at Home campaign welcomes you to join our Home is a MN Value – Mankato Area Event to listen to the housing experiences of our neighbors, build momentum for housing solutions statewide, and advocate for safe and healthy homes we can afford!
The event will include storytelling, and advocacy activities with light refreshments. Hear from Community Speakers, and Featured Speakers.
Starting in the spring of this year, MHP staff began providing community development technical assistance to Buckeye Ridge Habitat for Humanity in Marion, Ohio. This Habitat is a dynamic social service and rural housing nonprofit organization that develops/rehabilitates affordable homes for families in four rural counties of Ohio, just east of the Appalachian Region. In partnership, Buckeye and MHP are determining target communities for affordable housing unit creation, developing a strategic action plan that will include multiple years of development on sites throughout the service area, and identifying funding sources to support the developments. MHP staff are providing tools to enhance project planning, assign resources, and demonstrate project feasibility (like project proformas). MHP is helping Buckeye access funding through multiple sources such as local CDFIs, the Federal Home Loan Bank, and various loan/grant products from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency. This project also includes developing a revolving predevelopment funding pool and exploring opportunities to expand Buckeye’s homeownership education and counseling impact across the community. MHP staff are thrilled to be a part of this amazing project!
Take Five is MHP’s series that asks the same five questions of a variety of people intersecting with MHP, from staff to housing advocates! We are excited to welcome Community Development Intern Olivia Hurley.
MHP’s Housing Institute has been bringing communities and housing partners together since 2010. This, the ninth round, is MHP’s broadest Institute to-date, supporting 14 communities in Northeast Minnesota. Local elected and government representatives, small businesspeople, faith-based leaders, nonprofits, regional housing organizations, and more come together at MHP’s peer-to-peer workshops to drive creative housing solutions across the Iron Range and in neighboring communities. The curriculum represents the housing landscape in the Northeast and encourages a data-driven and equitable, inclusive approach.
Over the course of 18-months, teams put together housing initiatives and, with MHP’s support, create action steps to achieve their housing and community development goals. The teams’ projects are now taking shape! In Grand Rapids in July, MHP facilitated a deep dive into the housing development process. Teams explored applicable development strategies and how to identify and overcome barriers in the pre-development phase; including being proactive in land use and zoning and identifying environmental and surveying requirements. Skilled builders and developers provided valuable feedback in real time on the projects.
The workshops identify the true cost of construction, call out the need for subsidy, and showcase successful strategies that have yielded real results within the region. Teams are now teed up to explore the financial components of their projects in October – crucial to a project’s feasibility and maximizing competitiveness for future funding rounds at the state and regional levels.
MHP would like to thank Bob Barth of WSB Engineering, Breanne Rothstein at Thrive LLC, Ben Olsen and the Lagom Modular Team, Dave Bergland at Northland Cooperative Foundation, Brian Wessels and everyone at Intent Built, and Brooke Tapp at One Roof Community Housing for their generous contributions of time and effort that made this workshop so successful.
