We Support
Yes To Homes Coalition
Who We Are
The Yes to Homes Coalition is a bipartisan group of leaders and organizations from across Minnesota, including housing advocates, community organizers, home builders, businesses, labor, environmental, and faith-based groups, and transportation advocates.
Why Yes to Homes
Every Minnesotan belongs in a home that is safe and affordable, yet this is increasingly out of reach as increased competition and too few homes drives up prices. Research shows Minnesota needs more than 100,000 new homes to meet the needs of all our neighbors. Across Minnesota, restrictive rules about what kinds of homes can be built where are preventing us from having the homes we need, with sizes and prices that allow everyone to find a home they can afford.
Together, Yes to Homes advances proven, practical housing policies that help communities create more homes and expand opportunity statewide.
Our Solution
To meet this need, an all-hands-on-deck approach is required. The Yes to Homes coalition is a broad, bipartisan movement with concrete solutions that will jumpstart the production of the kinds of homes Minnesotans want and need, but can’t currently find. Allowing more homes of different types and sizes will increase affordability, allow families to stay in Minnesota, improve local economies, reduce urban sprawl, and make home a reality for more people.
Housing Justice League
Who We Are
The Housing Justice League is a group of community-based organizations advocating for policy change and building grassroots support for housing justice in Minneapolis.
HJL members include HOME Line, Inquilinxs Unidxs por Justicia, The Alliance, Housing Justice Center, Jewish Community Action, Harrison Neighborhood Association, and Powderhorn Neighborhood Association.
Why the Housing Justice League
Everyone deserves the chance to make Minneapolis their lasting home, and we know our community is stronger when neighbors who rent can invest in their housing and build ownership models that help their families grow and thrive.
But now more than ever, corporate landlords are pushing low-wealth renters and would-be home buyers out of Minneapolis. After the 2008 foreclosure crisis, homes across the city were scooped up by corporations and investment firms, leading to a doubling of the city’s single-family home (SFH) rental stock. This consolidation of ownership of single-family rental housing, along with increased corporate development in multi-family housing, creates unstable rental conditions as corporate buyouts lead to rent hikes and mass evictions.
The affordability crisis in our city for renting families will continue if setting prices is left up to corporate landlords and developers, and our racial homeownership gap, which is already the largest in the country, will continue to grow.
Our Solution
Together, we are advocating for a strong Tenant Opportunity to Purchase (TOPA) policy that would give all renters the first right to purchase their building when it goes for sale, or transfer that right to a buyer of their choosing. This critical policy protects families from displacement, thwarts corporate speculation and profiteering, and gives our neighbors the chance to create new models of ownership and build wealth. Unfamiliar with TOPA? Learn more below!
Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA)
What is it?
A Minneapolis Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act would promote the transfer of property ownership to tenants and affordable housing developers by enabling tenants to exercise a first right of purchase when the landlord chooses to sell. Landlords would be required to give tenants notice and allow a period of time for tenants to express interest, make an offer, and secure funding. If tenants are not interested in owning the property, they can assign or sell their right of first refusal.
Why is it Important?
TOPA is a tenant empowerment tool that seeks to address the power imbalance between property owners and the renters who pay the mortgage.
TOPA has already been shown to be successful right here in Minnesota, where all residents of manufactured home parks have the right of first refusal when the owner intends to sell for redevelopment and permanently close the park.
In Washington, D.C., TOPA has been used to improve or preserve more than 16,200 affordable homes.
Just Cause Eviction Protections
What is it?
Just Cause Eviction Protection requires landlords to have a valid reason to end a tenancy or refuse to renew a lease. This means tenants can't be evicted or forced out simply because their lease is ending, instead, landlords must provide "just cause."
These just cause reasons include nonpayment of rent, repeatedly paying rent late, breaking the lease after receiving notice, the landlord or their family needing to live in the unit, major renovations that make the unit uninhabitable, or converting the property to condos or non-residential use. Additionally, just cause protections require landlords to provide a written notice explaining the reason for lease termination.
Why is it Important?
From rural Minnesota to the suburbs and the cities, all Minnesotans deserve to know why they are being evicted and have a reasonable amount of time to relocate. Just Cause is a common-sense policy that benefits constituents from all political parties.
If you were told you had only 2 weeks to leave your home, your first question might be “Why?” and your second thought might be “How can I find new housing in such a short amount of time?” Just Cause is a policy that ensures that the “why” is answered, and that sufficient time is allowed to prevent families from ending up on the street.
A statewide Just Cause policy will lower unnecessary evictions and lease nonrenewals, and help Minnesotans thrive. Like TOPA, Just Cause is already shown to work in Minnesota. Residents across the state living in manufactured housing, as well as all renters in Brooklyn Center, already benefit from Just Cause protections. So do renters in properties that receive federal low-income housing tax credits. In Brooklyn Center, research shows that the policy successfully kept residents housed by decreasing evictions.
Source of Income Protections
What is it?
Source of income (SOI) discrimination occurs when a landlord refuses to rent to a housing applicant because of their form of income: housing assistance. This assistance can take a variety of forms, such as Bridges, emergency rental assistance, and Section 8 (Housing Choice Voucher) programs. Source of income protection would ensure that Minnesotans receiving rental assistance have access to housing on the same basis as those without.
Why is it Important?
Housing assistance is a valuable tool to help families find affordable housing and remain stably housed. Eligible families and individuals can wait years to qualify for housing assistance, then years more on waiting lists to receive it. If property owners are allowed to discriminate against people who use rental assistance to pay rent, then under-resourced families are denied the opportunity for a home. And, not only does this assistance help renters, when used, it can be guaranteed income for property owners.
Research bears out that in jurisdictions with legal SOI protections, families have greater success finding housing, and housing authorities have higher voucher utilization rates. Such laws prevent homelessness, deconcentrate poverty, and expand choice.
