Why is workforce housing important to Minnesota businesses?

Finding adequate housing for the workforce of Minnesota is a continuing challenge.
An estimated 350,000 Minnesota households pay more than 30 percent of their
pre-tax earnings each month for housing; over 150,000 pay in excess of 50 percent.

In the faster-growing suburbs of Minnesota, the availability of cost-effective and
workforce convenient housing is a concern to 80 percent of business owners and
operators, according to a HousingMinnesota Committee on Workforce Housing
survey. Metropolitan Council job growth projections estimate 45 percent of new
and expanded jobs will be in the lower paying service professions, those most
likely to be affected by a housing challenge. Statewide, projected population
growth is outpacing the supply of low cost workforce housing by approximately
6,000 units a year.

What guidelines does TwinWest support in providing workforce housing?

The TwinWest Chamber of Commerce supports long-range planning and the creation of policies to expand the supply and preservation of housing. Among them:

• The creation of a long term, widely supported, quantifiable statewide plan of action addressing housing needs and goals for the next decade.

• Examination of the regulatory requirements for builders and developers interested in creation of necessary workforce housing and incentives to eliminate those costs that are counterproductive.

• Integration of transportation and housing.

• Inducements to local communities to enact comprehensive mixed-use housing.

• The leveraging and expansion of private sector housing investments to serve those with the greatest need.

• A "triaging" of public services to address housing and the multiplicity of other needs for those most at risk.

• The creation of public-private community land trusts to ease costs and promote permanently affordable housing.

• The preservation and repair of existing housing stock.

• The creation of incentives for employers who provide assistance to employees regarding housing issues.