Lower Housing Costs for Minnesotans

A plan to lower housing costs by building more homes and stopping rip-offs.

Build more homes, faster.
More housing in rural communities.
Make owning a manufactured home more affordable.
Support renters and stop rip-offs.
Help Minnesotans buy homes and afford rent.
Prevent and reduce homelessness.

As Governor, Amy Klobuchar will work every day to lower costs and make life more affordable for Minnesota families. That starts with housing.

Housing is the biggest expense most families face every month, and Minnesotans deserve to have access to homes they can afford.

This affects people across our state – young and old, urban, suburban, and rural. The median age of a first-time buyer in Minnesota has risen to 40 and half of Minnesota renters now spend more than 30 percent of their paycheck on housing.

Amy Klobuchar will lower housing costs by putting us on a path to end our housing shortage by building 100,000 homes, including in rural communities; supporting manufactured homeowners; ending rip-offs by out-of-state companies; and making it easier for Minnesotans to buy homes; and addressing homelessness.

1. Build More Homes, Faster

Minnesota has a shortage of approximately 100,000 homes. The fastest way to lower housing costs is to build and rehabilitate homes to reduce that shortage. As Governor, Amy Klobuchar is committed to filling the housing gap by putting us on a path to build at least 100,000 homes, condos, and apartments.

She’ll do that by reforming permitting, cutting red tape, and removing the delays and fees that drive up costs. Amy Klobuchar is fighting so builders can build and Minnesotans have homes they can afford. And now that the bipartisan 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act – which Klobuchar shaped and which includes her Housing Supply and Affordability Act – is law, she will work to ensure Minnesota receives resources from new federal housing programs.

Reform permitting and set deadlines that the government meets, or you get your money back.

Working with cities to set consistent deadlines for housing permit applications, so each application gets a decision quickly instead of sitting for months, or even years, without a decision.
Create a standardized permitting form so cities and builders can reduce paperwork while maintaining local control.
Work to secure federal rewards for cities created by the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which creates a $200 million-per-year Housing Innovation Fund for communities that measurably increase their housing supply.

Cut red tape by streamlining building codes and removing costly mandates.

Work with cities to remove mandates and redundant requirements that raise construction costs.

Put vacant state land to work.

Use state-owned surplus property and vacant office sites in towns and cities across the state, releasing suitable parcels for housing. Build on vacant land the state already owns to lower costs, while conserving our public lands and parks.
Publish a searchable statewide inventory of surplus public land suitable for housing to ensure Minnesota is ahead of the new federal requirement that communities receiving Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds publish databases of undeveloped public land.

Reward communities that choose to build.

Create a Minnesota Pro-Housing Incentive that rewards cities that want to build housing. Cities that voluntarily agree to build more housing, including renovating vacant commercial buildings, should be rewarded when applying for state funding.
Align state incentives with the new federal BUILD Now performance incentives to encourage communities that receive CDBG funds to use them for new affordable housing construction, which the new law allows for the first time.

Incentivize private investment in housing developments.

Make the State Housing Tax Credit permanent to incentivize private investment in housing and rental buildings across Minnesota.

2. More Housing in Rural Communities

Rural and small-town Minnesota faces a unique version of the housing shortage: high infrastructure costs, aging housing stock, and limited access to assistance. For years, major employers and communities in Greater Minnesota have struggled to house the people they need to grow and thrive. In 20 rural counties, more than half of renters spend more than 30% of their income on rent.

As Senator, Amy Klobuchar worked with Senators Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) to change the law to give nonprofits and local and tribal governments that develop building sites for families more flexibility to get rural projects built.

As Governor, Amy Klobuchar will support rural communities that want to build more homes, including by incentivizing the conversion of vacant commercial space into housing and the rehabilitation of abandoned residential properties. This is just one part of Amy Klobuchar’s plan to strengthen economic development in rural Minnesota. Read Amy Klobuchar’s full plan to expand Minnesota’s rural economy here: AmyKlobuchar.com/rural.

Lower the cost of building in small towns.

Launch a Rural Housing Loan Fund, a low-interest revolving pool to help rural developers cover the high infrastructure costs of building in small towns.
Use the State Housing Tax Credit to incentivize private investment in housing and rental construction across Greater Minnesota.
Convert vacant commercial space to housing, helping small-town owners turn empty storefronts and upper floors into apartments, with incentives for renovation.
Rehabilitate vacant and abandoned buildings by creating competitive grants.
Protect rural renters by directing Minnesota Housing to help owners access the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) rural rental assistance that they can now receive after their mortgage ends.

3. Make Owning a Manufactured Home More Affordable

Factory-built starter homes are one of the most affordable paths to homeownership. Amy Klobuchar’s family knows this personally – her husband, John, grew up in a manufactured home until he was in the 6th grade. Treating manufactured housing fairly expands supply at the price point Minnesotans most need. Manufactured home owners often face unique burdens: many families own their home while renting the land beneath it, which leaves them exposed when a private equity owner raises fees, neglects upkeep, or sells the land. As Governor, Amy Klobuchar will work to support owners of manufactured homes and remove barriers that undermine them.

Support owners of manufactured homes from deception.

Guarantee residents a real opportunity to purchase the land under their own homes. Require park owners to give notice before a sale and a genuine window for residents to make an offer to buy the land in their communities. Compete for the reauthorized federal PRICE grants, extended for seven years under the new 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, to repair and preserve manufactured homes and communities, including helping residents purchase their parks.
Protect residents from deceptive, hidden charges and poor maintenance. Shield manufactured home park residents from unpredictable and excessive increases in their lot fees, and eliminate the practice of compounding late fees and multiple increases within a single year. Require park owners to provide transparent, itemized billing for all services and guarantee residents secure payment methods.

Remove barriers to building manufactured homes.

Incentivize the removal of burdensome rules that effectively ban the addition of high-quality manufactured housing. Update state codes and certify compliance with new federal standards.
Promote new Federal Housing Administration (FHA) financing established by the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which families can use to buy manufactured homes.

4. Support Renters and Stop Rip-Offs

Predatory pricing is driving up housing costs. Large out-of-state companies – from tech companies to private equity firms – are coordinating prices, using complicated corporate ownership schemes, and targeting neighborhoods to raise costs. Sometimes, these practices are outright illegal.

The state of Minnesota has sued the software company RealPage and six large corporate landlords for using algorithms to illegally fix rent prices. The lawsuit was filed in coordination with the federal government and a bipartisan group of nine other states. As Senator, Amy Klobuchar called for an investigation into RealPage in 2022, held hearings into these issues, and introduced a bill to take on price fixing using algorithms. We must do more to take on price fixing and predatory practices that increase housing costs for everyone.

Protect renters from unfair discrimination.

Adopt commonsense protections that already exist in many states that ban landlords from rejecting renters just because they use housing vouchers.

Ban price-fixing algorithms.

Stop companies from using shared algorithms to coordinate rent prices. As Senator, Amy Klobuchar introduced a bill to take on price fixing using algorithms, and as Governor she will work to ban this practice in Minnesota.

Require transparency and fair treatment from institutional landlords.

Make large institutional landlords report acquisitions and rent increases and release this information in a public database so Minnesotans can see whether they are pushing up local rents. In addition, the Senator supports the Senate-passed ROAD to Housing Act, which puts caps on the number of homes owned by large institutional landlords.

5. Help Minnesotans Buy Homes and Afford Rent

While assistance exists for families struggling to afford a home or pay their rent, too often it is impossible for them to access it. Homebuyers must often submit identical information across multiple agencies. Renters must navigate a patchwork of programs and forms. As Governor, Amy Klobuchar will make it easier for Minnesotans to access existing housing assistance so families can afford their homes and stay in their homes.

Amy Klobuchar is committed to making government accountable to Minnesotans – and turning the page on a bureaucracy that forces people to jump through hoops to get the support they need.

Simplify the path to home ownership.

Combine state down-payment assistance, local grants, and federal assistance into a single application, and provide counseling to help homebuyers access this assistance.
Bring small-dollar mortgages to Minnesota, facilitated by the FHA’s new pilot program for mortgages under $100,000 established by the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.

Make rental assistance easy to find and more accessible.

Create a No Wrong Door network so any Minnesotan who contacts a state agency or local provider is connected to the rental assistance they qualify for, rather than forcing renters to navigate a patchwork of programs.
Preserve existing affordable housing, so the rental homes taxpayers have already funded stay affordable.

6. Prevent and Reduce Homelessness

Homelessness is a solvable problem – and Minnesota has proven it. Our state has driven veteran homelessness to its lowest level ever recorded and stands poised to become just the fourth state in the nation to effectively end it. That success is a blueprint: when Minnesota connects people in need to housing and support, homelessness falls.

As Senator, Amy Klobuchar has led efforts to reduce homelessness, authoring bipartisan legislation that was signed into law to support homeless veterans; cosponsoring the Homeless Children and Youth Act to help homeless youth; and pressing HUD to provide more housing security to teens and young adults aging out of foster care.

As Governor, she will reduce homelessness by connecting people to the housing and services they need, lowering housing costs, and expanding on bipartisan work to end veteran and student homelessness.

Prevent and reduce homelessness by connecting people to support.

End the cycle of homelessness by establishing a No Wrong Door network that connects people to housing and supportive services through a single point of contact.

Simplify the Local Affordable Housing Aid (LAHA) and Statewide Affordable Housing Aid (SAHA) programs by streamlining administrative requirements, clarifying eligible uses, and reducing duplicative reporting.

Continue work to end veteran homelessness.

Expand the Homeless Veteran Registry that lets state agencies, counties, and partners coordinate to ensure housing for every veteran.

Leverage Klobuchar’s bipartisan law to connect veterans in rural and underserved areas to the federal vouchers and case management they have earned by serving our country.

Prevent student homelessness.

Launch a statewide initiative to end homelessness among Minnesota’s students and their families, building on the success of Minnesota’s bipartisan work to end veteran homelessness.

Identify students who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and connect them to help. Coordinate support across agencies, including early identification of students experiencing housing instability, targeting resources to students and families who qualify for housing assistance, and building partnerships among state agencies, local governments, school districts, community partners, and families.