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
- All Parks Alliance for Change
- American Indian Community Housing Organization
- Arc Northland
- Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative
- CAPI USA
- Center City Housing Corp.
- Center for Economic Inclusion
- City of Lakes Community Trust
- CHUM
- 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
- 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
- New American Development Center
- Northwest Minnesota Foundation
- One Roof Community Housing
- Project for Pride in Living, Inc.
- Small Sums
- Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership
- The Arc Minnesota
- Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity
- Waite Park Somali Association
Frequently Asked Questions
We have an opportunity to change the housing future of generations of Minnesotans, by ensuring we have safe, quality, accessible and affordable homes. To secure this future, we need bold investments now, and each year for years to come.
For decades, the state has underinvested in homes— with too many Minnesota families left unhoused, home insecure, and shut out from homeownership opportunities. The state spends less than 1% of its budget on housing. This status quo complacency continues to exacerbate this crisis.
The politics aren’t working. A constitutional amendment will.
- Minnesota’s constitution says that the PEOPLE of Minnesota can change the constitution to make the government work for us.
- While lawmakers agree housing is important, they are not aligned on solutions and traditional legislative campaigns have been unsuccessful. We need a new approach.
- A constitutional amendment will provide predictable, dependable, ongoing funding for affordable homes, regardless of who holds power at the Capitol or how the state budget is balanced.
A constitutional amendment is one part of a larger housing vision.
Decades of underinvestment means we must continue to fight for bonds and appropriations for homes and to combat homelessness, and policy changes each year, as we always have.
We want to take advantage of a surplus that exists today. Much of the current surplus is one-time funding and won’t support ongoing needs.
A majority of the Senate and a majority of the House of Representatives must agree to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot. A majority of all Minnesotans who vote in the election must vote to approve the constitutional amendment.
Get Involved
Show your or your organization’s support for the constitutional amendment.
