The Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority met Tuesday morning at the Valley Technology Park in Crookston.
Director Kari Kirschbaum said the Economic Development budget for 2025 will be the same as in 2024, but she asked the board if she could hire another person to focus on housing and daycare. “The number one thing the community has fed back to us through our community outreach meetings is we need daycare, and we need housing. Our housing study from 2023 says that we have 100 percent of what we need in low-income housing, but our gap is we don’t have the $200,000 to $450,000 housing, and there is a substantial need for that, and we don’t have anything over the $450,000 available for those looking for the more upscale homes. I think it says we need about 15 over the next five years for people looking for that level.”
Crookston has lost over 500 people over the past 10 years, and that has caused a loss in the tax base, so having an extra employee to help with housing and daycare is important. “A lot of it is because people in management and middle management can’t find homes to buy or to live in here, including our City Administrator had a hard time even finding a place to rent, so he has been scouring and looking for something to be able to come into the city,” said Kirschbaum. “We are looking for a staff member to come in to work with the four or five different items out there with housing trust funds, land trust, tax funding, all these different moving parts with housing that we can housing and make it happen, but we have to have somebody focused on it to work on Minnesota Housing partnerships, to work the Greater Minnesota Fund and the North Star Land Trust to get the housing we need.”
Daycare is another important aspect of growing Crookston as the city currently has a shortage of daycare openings, which means people have to look to other communities to get their childcare. “People are traveling to Grand Forks, Fisher, and to Fertile,” said Kirschbaum. “We toured the Warren daycare facility. They are a town of 700 and built a facility for over 100 kids. For Crookston to do something like that, we need somebody to work with childcare providers to come up with the right facility for Crookston to do something that works for our community.”
LOCAL HOUSING TRUST FUND
The CHEDA board approved using $150,000 to get a match to develop a Local Housing Trust Fund. The Minnesota Housing Finance Agency will provide a 1 to 1 match of $150,000 to give CHEDA $300,000. Funds must be used for households at or below 115% of the State median income ($128,000 in June 2023). “We have the funding within our housing fund to take $150,000 to match with the DEED fund to give us $300,000 to work on developing some housing, which is a great thing,” said Kirschbaum. “There will have to be two hearings at the City Council meetings as part of the process.”
BUILDING ANOTHER HOUSE ON EICKHOFF BOULEVARD
The board approved putting out a request for proposals to build a house on one of four lots the Crookston EDA owns on Eickhoff Boulevard. “We will develop what we want the house to look like, just as we are closing on the last house this week, but we want to build another one,” said Kirschbaum. “We bought three lots from Bob Herkenhoff, and he donated one to the EDA.”
