Home is the foundation for a healthy and productive life.
The new Bring it Home, Minnesota program will create 3,000 to 5,000 rent vouchers.
However, we need over 200,000 vouchers to ensure every qualifying Minnesotan receives a voucher.
We’ll continue to advocate for those most in need until everyone gets the rent support they deserve from a fully-funded Bring it Home, Minnesota.
To achieve more vouchers, we need dedicated revenue for Housing in the Minnesota State Budget.
To achieve that, Bring it Home, MN organizations have allied with Our Future Starts at Home Campaign. Our goal through that campaign is to get a constitutional amendment on the ballot that asks voters to approve a new revenue stream for housing.
Supporting Our Future Starts at Home offers a clear, straightforward path toward doubling the number of state rental vouchers, representing a significant step toward universal vouchers.
This strategic realignment helps consolidate the power and muscle of housing advocates and directs that strength toward a statewide transformational campaign.
Along with presenting a unified front, Our Future Starts at Home simplifies the ask and provides clarity for lawmakers and funders by having one message and campaign. Simple wins.
Our Future Starts at Home will need to win the hearts and minds of state legislative representatives and everyday voters. If the amendment makes its way onto the ballot, it will take an “all hands on deck for housing” moment to win a statewide ballot initiative. If that initiative fails, it will set back all housing advocacy for many years.
For these reasons, we need every willing organization and housing advocate to put their muscle behind Our Future Starts at Home. We proved with Bring it Home that a small coalition of devoted advocates can create historic change when they work together. An even bigger coalition behind Our Future can accomplish even more.
Today, 75% of people who qualify for rent vouchers don’t actually get one.
Why? Because the voucher program is vastly underfunded. Our kids, our seniors, our working parents, our communities are paying the price. This lack of investment is a daily penalty on tens of thousands of our friends and neighbors and fellow Minnesotans.
Rent vouchers help people with lower incomes find and stay in their homes. Having a voucher means a family doesn’t have to pay more than 30% of their income toward rent. It keeps rent affordable so budgets stretch farther.
We know rent vouchers are a key component of a healthy, just, equitable housing system. Studies show families do better when they get the rent support they deserve.
Bring it Home, Minnesota closes the gap in funding so every family gets the rent support they deserve.
We need a long-term solution to address the deep and abiding racial and economic inequities families face in every corner of our state.
We need to fully fund Bring it Home, Minnesota.
Systemic barriers have disproportionately kept diverse communities from thriving. A fully-funded Bring it Home, Minnesota can help further close these gaps in our state’s housing system.
Every family - Black, brown, and white, Asian and Indigenous - deserves better.
A fully-funded Bring it Home, Minnesota will keep rent affordable so budgets stretch further. Families can start saving for a house, college, or a rainy-day fund. Kids can get clothes that fit and food that’s healthy. Seniors can afford life-saving medications. Rent vouchers let people stay in the homes and communities we love. It’s time to fully fund Bring it Home, Minnesota!