Affordable Housing

[martykoessel]

Happy New Year, everyone! It seems that there is no thread devoted solely to affordable housing. Independently of ethical concerns, making sure that there is adequate affordable housing directed toward the bottom end of Minneapolis' workforce is a key element in assuring the economic health of our urban area and is certainly a top priority of current city leadership. Given construction costs, the wider political environment, and the lack of glamour of affordable housing projects vis-a-vis more elegant structures, creating sufficient affordable housing is a difficult nut to crack. Would it be worthwhile, on this forum, to have a continuing discussion about ways to tackle this issue?

[Anondson]

There is a thread over in the Anything Goes forum.

[martykoessel]

There is a thread over in the Anything Goes forum.

Thanks for directing me there. Maybe I was stuck by the extremely limited reaction to the Drake Hotel fire, which made me wonder how much avowed urbanists really care about the issue. Do we go bonkers over exterior cladding issues and push the huge issue of how to house low-income people to the sidelines? Over the holidays, I thought a lot about how to boost our empathy levels during an era when less generous thoughts appear to be on the rise.

[martykoessel]

Ok, since I started this here, any thoughts on how to replace the last-resort-housing-for-homeless-families lost through the Drake Hotel fire?

[EOst]

You can try to make it up piecemeal, but it's almost inconceivable how Hennepin will find that many units at a price the county can afford. There just aren't a lot of opportunities like the Drake Hotel that combine large numbers of units, a central location (easily busable for kids), low prices, and willingness from management.

[SurlyLHT]

I don't recommend it at all. But the Frenz buildings on 22nd S that are trying to turn into a COOP are over half empty. There are 4 buildings.