Edina Neighbors for Affordable Housing

With coronavirus inflicting pain on both renters and landlords, both sides are seeking government relief.

Nearly half of Minnesota college and university students cannot consistently afford their housing costs, while more than one-third struggle to pay for adequate food, according to a new report.

Average monthly cost in the metro rose 6%, driven by demand in the suburbs.

By the Metropolitan Council’s estimates, the average of 9,500 housing units we’ve been building per year over the past decade is 30% less than the 14,000 units per year we need to keep up with demand. The affordable housing picture is worse; we’re building just one-fifth of what’s needed.

The Minneapolis Area Realtors group said the median selling price for area homes rose nearly 6 percent last year to $280,000. That benchmark has now increased by more than 5 percent every year since 2012. Prices are well above those reached in the housing bubble more than a decade ago.

A January hearing in Rochester previewed debate in the upcoming legislative session that begins on Feb. 11 over how far and how fast the state should restrict fossil fuels to reduce the effects of climate change.

Rent is increasingly posing an outsized financial burden for households earning between $30,000 and $75,000 a year, according to new research from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

A child’s neighborhood can predict how they’ll do in life, new research finds. A Brandeis University study finds stark divides along racial and ethnic lines, as well as glaring “opportunity gaps” — even in adjoining neighborhoods. A link to the full report is available here.

Persistent housing segregation lies at the root of many of our society’s problems. Trump wants to make it worse.

A guide to the Section 8 program. Learn how to apply, how to qualify for a voucher, and what it’s like to live in Section 8 housing.

Section 8 vouchers should give low-income people the opportunity to live outside poor communities. But discriminatory landlords, exclusionary zoning and the federal government’s hands-off approach leave recipients with few places to call home.

Fire, garbage and homelessness increasingly plague the Golden State. For all its forward-thinking companies and liberal social and environmental policies, the state has mostly put higher-value jobs and industries in expensive coastal enclaves, while pushing lower-paid workers and lower-cost housing to inland areas like the Central Valley.

The accumulated effects of previous growth rates will widen the gap between slow growers like Minnesota and fast ones like Texas and California.

Enrico Moretti, an economist at UC Berkeley, has found that the sorting of highly educated Americans into certain communities has led to other communities falling behind.

The biggest metropolitan areas are now the most unequal.