Last week, the MPHA Board of Commissioners approved a new, five-year strategic plan to guide the agency’s work through 2027. This plan arrives on the heels of the agency’s previous strategic plan enduring through a tumultuous five years. From a global pandemic shuttering communities to an international reckoning on race and injustice igniting in Minneapolis, the world has been reshaped in ways previously unimaginable.
“Despite the challenges and uncertainty over the last five years, MPHA staff remained resolute in their commitment to the health and safety of residents and voucher-holders,” said Abdi Warsame, Executive Director/CEO of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. “Through dueling international crises, the agency maintained its high-performer status—quickly rebounding its occupancy rate following local lockdowns, maintaining high rates of rent collection with supports like RentHelpMN, and delivering high-quality, well-maintained units to MPHA residents.”
“The agency’s new strategic plan is everything MPHA aspires to over the next five years—a vision for a stronger, more connected MPHA,” said Tom Hoch, Chair of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority Board of Commissioners. “The new plan is tightly centered around the MPHA resident and voucher-holder experience, ensuring the agency leverages innovative strategies and partnerships to prioritize the preservation and production of deeply affordable housing in Minneapolis for generations to come.”
This plan reflects the new reality MPHA is living in and is the result of hundreds of touchpoints with agency staff, leadership, board members, residents, voucher-holders, and community partners over the last seven months. In total, MPHA conducted 24 key informant interviews, three listening sessions, and gathered 242 team member, 804 public housing, and 891 HCV participant feedback surveys.
From these inputs, agency staff and its consultant developed a draft plan that was further refined in collaboration with MPHA leadership, the Minneapolis Highrise Representative Council, and MPHA Commissioners through last fall. In the months immediately preceding its passing last week, MPHA staff held near-daily meetings with the plan’s various stakeholders to tighten the final pieces of the plan in preparation for board consideration last week.
What resulted was a clear, comprehensive, and detailed plan that outlines six primary goals for the agency over the next five years, including:
- Provide and preserve deeply affordable, high-quality housing for Highrise residents.
- Build new and expand partnerships with federal, state, and local governments, in addition to philanthropic entities to support MPHA residents and those who are on our waitlist.
- Provide and preserve deeply affordable, high-quality family housing.
- Increase supply of deeply affordable housing by at least 150 units per year.
- Position MPHA as an employer of choice.
- Continuously improve organizational performance to retain MTW status and highest HUD performance rating.
Accompanying these six goals are 30 strategies and nearly 100 actions to deploy in pursuit of these goals over the next five years.
With the plan’s recent passage, the agency is poised to take advantage of every opportunity before it, building a better future for MPHA residents, voucher-holders, and staff. But this work is not MPHA’s alone. It is going to take board members, staff, residents, voucher-holders, and partners, working together, to bring the new strategic plan to life over the next five years.
