U.S. Senator Tina Smith met Monday with local leaders from Crookston and the surrounding area to discuss the shortage of affordable housing. Smith also spent time touring Vertical Malt learning about the Malt business from owner Adam Wagner and his plans for further expansion.
Craig Hoiseth, Executive Director for the Crookston Housing and Economic Development Authority and Jeff Fagerstrom at Northwest Minnesota Housing Cooperative (NWMHC) both touched on the cost to build a new home. Hoiseth said many communities have seen a reduction in housing for flood mitigations projects over the past twenty years. Adding the price to add houses back to the market has continually increased while salaries in the area have not followed suit. Fagerstrom referenced a housing project NWMHC had worked on and when they recently looked at adding a second phase to a project from 10 years ago, the infrastructure costs had tripled. Smith said it was striking on her tour of rural communities the disparity between someone’s income and the cost to build a home. “It’s so striking to me that in rural communities all over Minnesota there is this mismatch between how much it costs to build housing people want to live in and how much income people have to live there,” said Smith. “The housing market isn’t working the way it should be working. I said if you don’t have a safe, good place to live nothing else in your life works. Your job doesn’t work. Your education doesn’t work. Your family doesn’t work, and this is something we need to get to the bottom of. It’s why I’m spending so much time in the Senate working on it and want to see what we can do at the federal level to be a good partner with communities like Crookston to build the housing Crookston families want to live in.”
The need for support for affordable housing was also discussed. It was mentioned that many of the available programs available have income thresholds or other obstacles that keep the money to getting to people who could use it. Red Lake Falls Mayor Allen Bertilrud suggested a tax credit for businesses to invest in affordable housing in the community as a positive benefit to both the community and the companies with high tax burdens. Smith said she doesn’t want to be moving backward when it comes to supporting affordable housing. “There has been a reduction in the amount of money that is spent supporting housing,” said Smith. “And that has a ripple effect through the communities. In fact, the Trump Administration, in their budget proposals for this coming year, is proposing even more cuts. For example, we don’t want to move backward when it comes to supporting housing tax credits that help developers build the kinds of housing that people want in communities like Crookston.”
During her tour of Vertical Malt, Smith learned about the malting process and said it was exciting to hear about a success story during a challenging time for agriculture. “Vertical Malt is doing some great stuff,” said Smith. “And it’s wonderful to see them taking off. They’ve been at it for about three years and have some great ideas for how to expand. It is adding value to a great Minnesota crop and creating new markets for barley. At a time when there is a lot of challenges in agriculture, it’s great to see a success story like that. And I’m excited to see where they are in another couple of years as they continue to grow.”
Smith started the day in East Grand Forks and after visiting Crookston she visited the Minnesota Wheat Growers office in Red Lake Falls and will continue her tour of Northwest Minnesota on Tuesday
