McKnight money to help foreclosure crisis
The Minneapolis-based McKnight Foundation said today it's giving $10 million to help communities recover from the foreclosure crisis.
The McKnight funds target efforts both in the Twin Cities and outstate Minnesota. It will give $5 million to the Twin Cities-based Family Housing Fund, and another $5 million to the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund, which serves 80 outstate counties.
"These funds will be used to help local community development organizations and small cities buy and rehabilitate foreclosed homes -- boarded and abandoned foreclosed homes," according to Warren Hanson, chief executive of the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund.
The funds will also help new owners purchase the homes. Hanson says Rochester, Duluth, and St. Cloud are some of the cities hardest hit by foreclosures.
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Last week, the Pohlad Family Foundation also announced $20 million in funding to help address the recession.
Marina Lyon, director of the foundation, said some of that money will be made available as $8,000 grants for home purchases in north Minneapolis and the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood of St. Paul.
"We picked those neighborhoods for two reasons. One is that they were the most devastated by the foreclosure crisis. There are many vacant homes. And secondly, because while there's a lot of money going into this, both of those areas have a stigma about potentially being a difficult place to live," said Lyon.
The Pohlad Family Foundation funding is also meant to support small businesses and non-profit organizations that have been hit hard by the recession.
