Governor Tim Walz (D) announced a ten-year economic expansion plan, which offers long-term steps to continue improving Minnesota’s economy. In order of priority, the plan’s themes include housing, workforce, entrepreneurship and small business, childcare, infrastructure and technology, healthcare, youth engagement and youth employment and community.
The plan asserts that every person in Minnesota has a home that is affordable, and proposes these potential strategies:
- Expand supplemental income supports those families and individuals can use for housing costs.
- Provide increased support for integrated services to link housing with employment health and education support.
- Strengthen financial and homebuyer assistance for Black, Brown, Indigenous and all people of color as a means of increasing homeownership and reducing Minnesota’s disparity in homeownership rates.
- Increase state resources for full range of housing needs, including the development of new housing, the preservation of existing affordable housing and resources to help people pay for their housing costs.
The report also calls for increased investment in the full continuum of housing, as well as efforts to modernize housing policy, making it easier to build high-quality and affordable housing.
