Our Future Starts at Home is driving the movement for an amendment to the Minnesota State Constitution to dedicate sustainable, predictable, and ongoing funding to real solutions to our housing crisis.
We are a broad coalition of advocates, community and faith leaders, and housing champions who affirm that housing is the foundation to which our lives are built. All of us should have a safe, secure place to call home.
Barrett Family – Landfall, MN
Bourque Family – Brooklyn Center, MN
Housing is Our Future
We need housing to thrive—to support strong communities, strong families, and a strong economy to make Minnesota the best state to raise a child. No child in Minnesota should worry about where they will sleep tonight. Together we can ensure that all children have a roof over their head and a safe place to live.
Children who grow up in stable homes are healthier, perform better in school, and experience less psychological stress. And families with homes they can afford have more opportunity to build generational wealth – securing a future for their children.
This constitutional amendment would ensure that teachers, nurses, firefighters, and other essential workers can afford to live in the communities they’re serving. The amendment would also create critical housing and jobs for workers, strengthening local economies throughout the state.
About Us
The Our Future Starts at Home Constitutional Amendment will not only raise and dedicate critical funding for affordable housing, it will also ensure that communities have a powerful voice in where that funding goes and that we’re meeting the needs on the ground. The amendment creates three councils that will guide each of three flexible funds to make sure that Minnesotans’ perspectives are central as decisions are made about what funding is needed and how to best invest in our communities.
Nuah Family – Spring Lake Park, MN
In addition to the prescribed purposes, each fund’s strategic plan and recommended policies and monies spent must aim to:
Reduce
disparities
Support community-based solutions
Improve the condition of homes
Increase
accessibility
Decrease energy cost and improve efficiency
The Amendment will create three funds:
Household and Community Stability Fund
- Support people facing housing instability and homelessness.
- Ensure people have healthy, safe, and resilient homes.
Home Ownership Opportunity Fund
- Increase the number of homes that are affordable for ownership, including starter homes, homes for multigenerational families, households of different sizes, and accessible homes.
- Eliminate racial disparities in homeownership, ensuring Minnesotans can build wealth.
Rental Opportunity Fund
- Provide rent support to families struggling to make ends meet (Bring It Home, MN).
- Create more rental homes so more Minnesotans have a safe, stable place to call home.
2023 Bills
Constitutional Amendment Draft Ballot Language
“Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to remove barriers to homeownership, to make our rental housing safe and affordable, and to protect our vulnerable households and communities from displacement and homelessness by increasing the sales and use tax rate beginning July 1, 2025, by three-eighths of one percent on taxable sales until the year 2050?”
Vang Family – Minneapolis
The constitutional amendment for housing reflects the following campaign values
This campaign is shaped by the values needed to address our broken housing system: race equity, sustainability, and climate resilience, uplifting rural voices, and accessibility.
Ensuring the state is making the investments Minnesotans need in homes.
Securing sustainable, predictable, and ongoing funding– an essential part of fixing our broken housing system.
Creating a powerful and activated statewide housing movement that is led by frontline leaders and grassroots groups who understand how essential housing is to improving lives of Minnesotans.
Coalition Members
Our coalition of housing, faith, and community groups are fighting for securing sustainable, predictable, and ongoing funding- an essential part of fixing our broken housing system.
The Our Future Starts at Home coalition is made up of the following members:
- Aeon
- Affordable Housing Connections
- African Career Education & Resources, Inc
- Ain Dah Yung Center
- Align
- All Parks Alliance for Change
- American Indian Community Housing Organization
- The Arc Minnesota
- Arc Northland
- Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative
- BKBM Engineers
- CAPI USA
- Center City Housing Corp.
- Center for Economic Inclusion
- City of Lakes Community Land Trust
- CHUM
- Churches United for the Homeless
- CommonBond Communities
- Community Stabilization Project
- Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH)
- Dayton's Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services
- Duluth Affordable Housing Coalition
- Greater Minnesota Housing Fund
- Habitat for Humanity of Minnesota
- HOME Line
- Homes For All Coalition (240+ organizations)
- Housing Justice Center
- Isuroon
- Jewish Community Action
- Just Housing SBC
- Landon Group
- Loaves and Fishes Community
- Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers (MCCD)
- Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing
- Midwest Minnesota Community Development Corporation
- Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless
- Minnesota Housing Partnership
- Minnesota Voice
- Minnesota Youth Collective
- MSR Design
- New American Development Center
- Northwest Minnesota Foundation
- One Roof Community Housing
- Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless
- Project for Pride in Living, Inc.
- Small Sums
- Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership
- Street Voices of Change
- Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity
- Waite Park Somali Association
Frequently Asked Questions
Minnesotans, no matter what we look like or where we come from, should have safe and healthy homes. We have an opportunity to change the future of generations of Minnesotans, and to do so we need bold investments in housing now, and each year for years to come. The amendment will generate dedicated funding for housing, much like we dedicate funding for education, health care, infrastructure, and transportation. We propose a sales tax of 3/8 of 1%.
- For decades, the state has underinvested in homes-with too many Minnesota families left unhoused, home insecure, and shut out from homeownership opportunities.
- An amendment will provide stable funding, regardless of the budget or who holds power at the Capitol.
- Minnesota’s constitution says that the people of Minnesota can change the constitution to make it work for us.
- This constitutional amendment will ensure that communities have a powerful voice in where the funding goes. 72 Minnesotans with diverse housing expertise and experiences will guide the funds to eliminate homeownership disparities, provide emergency rental assistance, and build climate resilient and sustainable affordable housing. That’s community-led change.
- It includes a commitment to allocate funding with an eye toward reducing disparities, supporting community-based solutions, improving the conditions of homes, increasing accessibility, decreasing energy costs and improving energy efficiency.
A constitutional amendment is one part of a larger housing vision that also includes biennial legislative allocations, bonding, and policy changes. We need to build on the momentum of the historic investments the legislature passed this session with a long term strategy to solve a long term crisis.
The amendment will help ensure we address the housing needs of every Minnesotan, in every part of the state and create a sustainable, predictable, and ongoing funding source for addressing structural inequities in the housing system.
A constitutional amendment would empower the people of Minnesota to make our own decision about our future and the fundamental human need for housing.
A majority of the Senate and a majority of the House of Representatives must agree to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot for the next statewide election. A majority of all Minnesotans who vote in the election must vote to approve the constitutional amendment.
No. The Our Future Starts at Home constitutional amendment would guarantee ongoing funding, whereas this year’s appropriations are mostly one-time funding. We’re celebrating a historic investment that creates new opportunities for thousands of Minnesota families. And we need to build on this momentum to ensure that funding towards housing continues for years to come.
Yes! In 2008, Minnesotans voted for and passed the Legacy Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution which increases the sales tax by three-eighths of one percent from 2009 until 2034 and distributes those funds towards protecting clean water and land. It has been done before and we can do it again!
We’re working with our chief authors (Rep. Mike Howard and Sen. Zaynab Mohamed) and more than two dozen other lawmaker authors to build momentum for the amendment leading into the 2024 legislative session. We’re also working with a coalition of individual and organizational partners to build energy in communities across the entire state, and to lift up voices and stories about housing.
Get Involved
Show your or your organization’s support for the constitutional amendment.
