On Monday, November 2, MPHA will open its project-based voucher (PBV) Request for Proposals (RFP) for property owners and developers to apply for new state-funded rental assistance to help preserve and produce up to 250 units of deeply affordable housing across Minneapolis. This new funding comes from Minnesota Housing’s Bring it Home (BIH) program. Interested property owners, builders, and housing developers should submit proposals between November 2 and December 18.
“Project-based vouchers are one of the most powerful tools MPHA has to help deliver the deeply affordable housing our city needs,” said Abdi Warsame, Executive Director/CEO of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. “I applaud state leaders for delivering new funding to this proven program through Bring it Home. Amid our state and region’s affordable housing crisis, this new funding is going to help MPHA and its partners preserve and produce hundreds of deeply affordable homes across Minneapolis.”
Project-based vouchers are among the most effective tools MPHA has to help produce and preserve deeply affordable housing in Minneapolis. The federal PBV program is a HUD-funded housing subsidy program that ties the federal rental assistance directly to a specific unit. This differs from the traditional tenant-based voucher program, which is connected to an eligible household. The BIH PBV program will be modeled after MPHA’s highly successful federally funded PBV program.
Project-based vouchers provide property owners and developers a long-term source of revenue via federal- or state-funded housing subsidies in exchange for keeping units affordable (available to households earning up to 50 percent of the Area Median Income) for the length of the PBV contract, commonly a renewable 20-year agreement. The program also provides property managers access to a list of potential residents through MPHA’s various voucher waiting lists. For the tenant, PBVs take the burden off households needing to secure their own housing from a voucher-eligible landlord and instead creates a pipeline of subsidy-ready units across the city for qualifying families and individuals.
Since 2019, MPHA PBVs have accounted for more than half of all deeply affordable homes built in Minneapolis. Projects MPHA has supported with PBVs include the newly opened Native American Community Clinic, the ongoing office-to-apartment conversion at the Flour Exchange, and the recent rehabilitation of Clare Apartments and upcoming Clare 5 housing project, both of which serve people living with HIV/AIDS. Further, the agency has committed to helping develop at least 150 new units of deeply affordable housing each year as a part of the agency’s 2023-2027 strategic plan.
About Bring it Home (BIH)
Last year, Minnesota Housing awarded MPHA a two-year, $21 million grant to administer BIH in Minneapolis. The $21 million award is estimated to fund the equivalent of 600-700 federal vouchers, which MPHA is using for both tenant- and project-based programs. Minnesota Housing and MPHA finalized the necessary funding agreement earlier this year, enabling MPHA to begin administering BIH this past summer.
In August, MPHA began offering BIH vouchers to households on its existing federal Housing Choice Voucher waitlists. Following that work, MPHA successfully opened its tenant-based BIH voucher waitlist to the public in October—the first time MPHA had accepted public applications for any tenant-based housing assistance voucher since 2019.
While agency staff are actively processing all the applications submitted during the three-day application window, MPHA anticipates adding as many as 1,500 households to the BIH waitlist via a lottery among eligible applications. The agency estimates having enough state funding to initially issue 300-350 BIH tenant-based housing vouchers to households from the waiting list. MPHA will notify tenant-based BIH applicants via RentCafe whether their application was added to the waitlist by November 1.
How to Apply*
Interested property owners, builders, and housing developers should review the BIH PBV RFP and follow the instructions to submit proposals. All proposals need to be submitted between November 2 and December 18.
*This RFP for BIH PBVs is different from the tenant-based BIH waitlist, which was opened between October 13-15. The application window for tenant-based BIH vouchers is now closed. Households who successfully applied for tenant-based BIH vouchers will be notified of their status via RentCafe by November 1.
