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St. Paul and Ramsey Co. invest in affordable housing

City and council join forces to spend $74 million in federal relief money on affordable housing fund.

ST PAUL, Minn. — East Metro leaders are making a significant investment in affordable housing, using federal COVID relief dollars.

St. Paul's Mayor announced the city will dedicate $37 million of American Recovery Plan Act funding into a housing fund for families who earn 30 percent or less of the Twin Cities median income. In the Twin Cities the 30 percent mark would be $31,450 for a family of four.

"This is a giant step forward as we continue to engage in the broad array of efforts to ensure everyone in our community has secure, stable housing," Mayor Melvin Carter told reporters Monday morning.

"We in St. Paul lost five members of our community last winter just because they didn’t have a warm place to sleep."

That combined with a $37 million commitment of ARPA money made in August by the Ramsey County Board, will provided a combined $74 million for what is known as "deeply affordable housing" in St. Paul and surrounding communities.

The money will go toward supporting renters and building up to 1,000 units of new, permanent affordable housing.  And the money can help leverage other affordable developments in coming years.

"We are currently facing a gap of 15,000 affordable housing units that we need throughout our county, in order to meet the housing needs of our community," Ramsey County Board Chair Toni Carter explained.

"In Ramsey County, about 37,000 families are at or below 30 percent of the area median income."

Both Mayor Carter and Board Chair Carter pointed out that the homelessness crisis in the city has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, so it made sense to use part of the federal aid for projects that will address the most basic of needs.

Arline Datu, who serves on the board of the faith-based advocacy group ISAIAH, said she was thrilled with the news.

"This is $74 million toward affordable housing, and in St. Paul we desperately need it," Datu told KARE.

Datu lost her husband, her job and her home during the Great Recession and is now retired. She said she feels fortunate compared to the many homeless in the city, but she understands the uncertainty that renters face.

"My rental place came under new management in just the last few years, so that my rent has gone up consistently five percent every year. I am now retired and on a fixed income, and that’s just untenable for me."

She said it's important to know that people struggling to find an affordable place to live all have faced different challenges. She knows firsthand that a family's circumstances can change quickly.

"I was making decent money. I was supporting three kids and sending them to college, and I thought, 'This is great!' Then my husband died just before I lost my job. Who would’ve foreseen that? Who would’ve foreseen the downturn in the economy?"

The City and County's affordable housing push is also good news to those at the Frogtown Neighborhood Association, who are working with other partners to convert a century-old 8-plex on Sherburne Avenue into an affordable housing 6-plex.

"We know Frogtown is home to families, so we’ll have two four-bedroom units, three two-bedrooms, and one accessible one-bedroom unit," Danielle Swift, a community organizer for the Frogtown Neighborhood Association, told KARE.

Her group is doing the project in partnership with several other local nonprofit organizations including Model Cities, Hope Community, Housing Justice Center and Historic Saint Paul. The collaborative recently received a grant from Ramsey County to pay for much of it.

News of the city and county development brings her more hope for sustainable housing in the Frogtown area, which how lower than average family incomes.

"You do what you can. And you know as we start to move in this direction there will be more resources to fund this sort of housing in the coming years."

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