The past week has marked a busy time for MPHA leaders, taking advantage of numerous opportunities to showcase the agency’s recent accomplishments both locally and nationally. From a gathering of the nation’s largest housing authority leaders in Washington, DC to assembling a variety of state and local leaders at MPHA sites, there has been no shortage of attention paid to the agency in the past week. Below is a roundup of the agency’s many notable happenings:
Council of Large Public Housing Authorities Conference
Members of MPHA’s leadership team travelled to Washington, D.C. to attend the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities (CLPHA) 2023 Fall Conference. This conference is an opportunity to learn from the country’s largest housing authorities on strategies to address the nation’s affordable housing shortage. It is also an opportunity to engage with HUD leadership on a wide range of topics. During the conference’s “Ripples of Hope” segment, MPHA ED/CEO Abdi Warsame was able to update attendees on the agency’s nation-leading Family Housing Expansion Project (FHEP) and share the agency’s recent successes in securing millions in one-time and ongoing state and local investments to support the agency’s preservation and production activities. Both updates made MPHA leaders popular during breaks in the conference, with fellow CLPHA agency leaders looking to learn from MPHA’s successes.
$1.3 Million Grant from Minnesota Housing
At the same time MPHA leaders were in Washington, the Minnesota Housing Board of Directors approved a $1.3 million grant to MPHA’s wholly owned and controlled nonprofit, Community Housing Resources (CHR) through the Stable Housing Organization Relief Program (SHORP). Like recent funding secured at the Minnesota Legislature and through the City of Minneapolis, this new grant funding will support capital improvements to the agency’s portfolio of nearly 700 deeply affordable family homes.
“I am really grateful to have received this grant on behalf CHR, and truly believe funds will have major impact on the lives of so many residents in CHR – live in newly remodeled, warm homes during the winter,” said MPHA Director of Affordable Housing, Rashid Issack.
Preserving this critical portfolio of deeply affordable family housing is a top agency priority. As of January 2023, the portfolio’s backlog of capital needs stood at $31 million. If left unaddressed, the need becomes $65 million by 2027. Currently, the agency is committing more than $2 million annually into capital repairs into the portfolio, but that investment is insufficient to address the portfolio’s needs. If left to only MPHA’s annual contribution, over the next 10 years, the portfolio of homes will end up in far worse condition than they are today and in jeopardy of becoming uninhabitable.
Minnesota Senate Capital Investment Committee Tours MPHA
In addition to the new state funding, MPHA welcomed members of the Minnesota Senate’s Capital Investment Committee to discuss the state’s previous investments in MPHA through Publicly Owned Housing Program (POHP) bonds. 
MPHA staff led Chair Sandra Pappas, Senator Karin Housley, Senator Zaynab Mohamed, and Senator Jordan Rasmusson, along with Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic, on a tour of 630 Cedar to learn about how POHP bonds were used to help funding fire suppression installations in the building.
Senators also learned about the need to better align Minnesota’s bonding resources with various HUD financing/repositioning tools. Currently, public housing and housing redevelopment authorities across the state are incompatible with POHP dollars to fund the (re)development of publicly owned housing that has (or intends to) use HUD financing/repositioning tools.
HUD Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Richard Monocchio Visits
Earlier this week, MPHA welcomed HUD Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Richard Monocchio and Great Lakes Regional Administrator Diane Shelley to showcase some of the agency’s recent accomplishments and partnerships with local and state government.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey led a roundtable discussion on housing policy and funding innovations at MPHA’s Elliot Twins. Joining the discussion were state housing leaders Senator Lindsey Port, Representative Michael Howard, and Representative Frank Hornstein. Leaders celebrated the recent $5 million grant to MPHA from the Minnesota Legislature, the City of Minneapolis 2040 comprehensive plan and its importance for developments like the FHEP, the success and expansion of Stable Homes Stable Schools, and restoring the long-dormant Minneapolis housing tax levy sending $5 million annually to MPHA supporting preservation and production activities.
Additionally, agency staff provided HUD leaders with tours of three buildings—the Elliot Twins, a FHEP site, and the Hiawatha Towers. The Elliot Twins showcased the agency’s recent $27 million landmark renovation, the FHEP provided an example of MPHA delivering an innovative blueprint for housing authorities across the country to deliver quality, cost-effective, deeply affordable family housing, and the Hiawatha Towers displayed the agency’s recent success to secure all the funding necessary to install fire suppression in all 42 agency high-rises by 2025.
