When housing costs soar, Minnesota tenants and homebuyers get creative 

The cost of keeping a roof over your head is going up in Minnesota.

Keeping housing affordable is a tangled problem that communities have tried to solve in many ways, from rent control measures like the one passed in St. Paul to rent subsidies for low-income tenants and down payment grants for first-time homebuyers. 

As the local housing market heats up, less common approaches also are getting more attention. Housing cooperatives became popular decades ago in New York and Washington, D.C., and are slowly gaining ground in Minnesota. Community land trusts are also growing as a way to take single-family homes out of the speculative housing market and price them within reach of people who otherwise couldn’t afford to buy a house. 

MPR News guest host Twila Dang talks about why some of these creative approaches are making inroads in Minnesota. 

Guests: 

• Jeff Washburne is executive director of City of Lakes Community Land Trust which works with homebuyers in Minneapolis. 

• Victoria Clark is the executive director of Northcountry Cooperative Foundation based in St. Paul which helps tenants of mobile home parks and apartment buildings convert to cooperatives.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

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