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MAP: Is Affordable Housing Distributed Fairly Across the Twin Cities?

HousingLink data highlights how uneven affordable housing availability can be.

Paying for rental housing is no easy proposition in Minnesota. Last month, the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s annual Out of Reach report ranked the state worst in the Midwest and 24th nationally. A breakdown of the report by the Minnesota Housing Partnership estimated that 54 percent of renters can’t afford a modest two-bedroom apartment. But apartments can have a hard time winning neighbors over even when they don’t specifically serve low-income renters—as recent debates have shown. In St. Louis Park, some residents criticized the proposed Eliot Park Apartments development that would build two new apartment buildings with a total of 138 units on Cedar Lake Road. Said Patch reader MMG: All of a sudden, all I am seeing in this city…

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'We Hope People Will Want This in Their Backyard'

Take tour of Kingfield affordable housing development.

Sometimes, when a builder proposed an affordable housing development, neighbors panic, because they don't know what the project will be like. Now, local group PORTICO is offering Southwest Minneapolis residents a chance to learn, with tours of their Nicollet Square development in Kingfield. "Our Executive Director often says that we want people to come who think of Cabrini Green when they hear 'affordable housing,'" PORTICO spokesperson Sarah Mollet told Patch, referring to a poorly-maintained, crime-ridden former housing project in Chicago. "We want to show them another way you can do affordable housing, that it can really be beautiful and healthy for the neighborhood." Now in its second year of operation, Nicollet Square offers homeless …

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