Metro Area Sales and Use Tax for Housing

In 2023, the Minnesota Legislature approved a new Metro Area Sales and Use Tax for Housing for metro counties and cities. Tax revenues will fund the new Local Affordable Housing Aid (LAHA) program to:

• Provide emergency rental assistance
• Build or rehabilitate affordable housing
• Reduce homeownership disparities
• Support nonprofit affordable housing owners and developers

This new sales tax is estimated to generate $20 million a year for Hennepin County.

The Legislature also approved a Statewide Affordable Housing Aid (SAHA) program. This program is funded through appropriations. Both programs have the same criteria for metro-area jurisdictions. The combined programs are called LAHA/SAHA.

The funds from the new sales tax will begin to arrive in mid-2024. The county’s Housing and Development team has already begun to build up systems. They have strengthened operations to accommodate this growth by:

• Producing record numbers of affordable rental units
• Helping make homeownership more accessible
• Improving the health and safety of our homes

Hennepin County’s strategy

The county has proven investment strategies already tested through the pandemic. The county will implement a multiphase approach for the new sales tax revenue, including:

• A new ongoing eviction prevention fund by SAHA. This will continue the success of the COVID-era eviction prevention programs. It will also provide help at housing court where it is needed most.
• Building capacity of developers and owners to continue to create more affordable housing.
• Capitalizing reserves for supportive housing projects to ensure sustainability of high-impact programs. This will fund wrap-around social services that residents need to be successful for the long-term.
• Working toward production, once developer capacity is restored. Expand the work of the Affordable Housing Incentive Fund to create and preserve affordable housing. This will also continue the pandemic-era “Affordable Housing Accelerator” fund to provide higher amounts to rush projects meeting county priorities.
• Advancing disparity reduction and climate impacts in homeownership creation and preservation.

These strategies support Hennepin County’s vision of:

• Reducing disparities in housing cost burden
• Making homelessness rare, brief and nonrecurring.

These will be extra funds and won’t replace local funds for affordable housing.

Share your feedback

Repair + Grow Request for Proposals (RFP)

Hennepin County has released its Repair + Grow request for proposals (RFP), part of the county's planned use of its allocation of the new Local Affordable Housing Aid (LAHA). Repair + Grow is a one-time program that will provide assistance to local non-profit affordable housing owners-developers to mitigate or remove challenges standing in the way of new development.

Hennepin County needs a healthy ecosystem of developers and owners to expand affordable housing production for low-income residents, but many partners are still struggling due to industry-wide rental revenues decreases and operating cost increases. Repair + Grow works to alleviate some of those challenges and put affordable housing developers in a position to expand and improve their affordable housing stock.

Proposals are due on October 1 at 3 p.m. 

Apply and view the RFP on the Supplier Portal. 

View the Repair + Grow FAQs (PDF, 1MB)

Please leave us feedback related to our SAHA/LAHA implementation framework, including Repair + Grow, on our community survey.

Repair + Grow RFP Key Dates