Meeting Date: September 25, 2024
To: Human Rights Commission
From: Emery John, Community Development Intern
Title
2024 Fair Housing Month presentation
Body
Action Requested:
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Summary Report:
The City of Northfield adopted a Fair Housing Statement in 2023. The Fair Housing Statement is meant to be a living document. An annual proclamation acknowledges the importance of Fair Housing and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to our community. An annual proclamation also acknowledges that there are still barriers to equal housing and our community actively works to break those barriers down. An annual proclamation also fulfills the City’s obligation to Affirmatively Further Fair Housing as a recipient of Federal Funds through the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG).
The Housing and Redevelopment Authority passed its Fair Housing Month resolution with support from the Human Rights Commission this spring. The HRC requested more information about how Fair Housing should be measured and tracked.
Today I am outlining some aspects of Fair Housing, namely affordability and equity. We can understand these initiatives through both quantitative and qualitative metrics. Two recent housing studies, one by Maxfield LLC and the other by Enterprise in partnership with HCI, speak to both affordability and equity in housing in Northfield.
Maxfield quantifies the affordability of housing in Northfield by renters and homeowners, measuring for whether households are spending more or less than 30% of their income on housing. This metric is considered standard for assessing “Cost Burden.” In Northfield, 21% of owner households are cost burdened, compared to 18% in the Twin Cities, and 15% in our Primary Market Area (PMA). In contrast, 35% of renter households in Northfield are cost burdened, compared to 44.9% in the Twin Cities, and 42.8% in the PMA.
Northfield is committed to providing equitable access to our housing programs. Housing Vouchers are an important source of housing aid nationwide. Northfield’s vouchers are administered through Rice County, not locally, leaving our HRA with little control over that particular program. We do, though, offer other housing programs, like programs for repairing housing, down payment assistance, and emergency housing. Staff is currently restructuring our funding and applications for these programs to ensure they can be efficiently and equitably administered.
When the Maxfield study is finalized and published (in the next few weeks) I will make sure the HRC gets a copy. Between that study and the Enterprise study, we believe we have - if anything - too many baselines with which we can measure Fair Housing moving forward. More importantly, though, the studies presented us with a variety of solutions and recommendations to further Fair Housing in Northfield.
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April is recognized nationally as Fair Housing Month