Repair historic and ongoing injustice in housing practices and outcomes.

Policy

Limit the effects of historical injustices through reparative and community-centered action, and limit future disparities by shifting current policies to protect communities whose disparities are largest.

Actions are grouped under the categories of Partner, Plan, and Provide to better tell the story of how policy produces results.

• Continue to advance Metro HRA efforts to reduce barriers to access during the tenant screening process.
• Livable Communities Act grants will support projects that work to repair historical injustices and intentionally incorporate an equity component
  • LCA supports equitable development policy with cities through the policy development program.
  • The Affordable Homeownership program continues to prioritize projects that increase ownership opportunities for historically excluded households, especially Black and American Indian households.
  • Priority for equity considerations in scoring are consistent across all LCA programs
• Maintain a dataset for regionwide use with equity considerations for place-based decision making.
• Invest in and support projects and activities to advance fair housing in the region, such as the Fair Housing Implementation Council, fair housing training and resources, and other similar projects.
• Provide tenant protection policy workshops in partnership with a housing advocacy organization for local and county staff.
• Conduct a study on the risk of inaction of providing affordable housing opportunities on economic and social disparities of residents in the region.
• Support research and communication tools to address discriminatory lending practices, real estate steering, and other current and historical discriminatory practices limiting equitable housing choices.
• When engaging with residents, intentionally uplift historically underrepresented populations in decision-making and cocreating Met Council policy and processes.
  

• Modify the Future Affordable Housing Need calculation to amplify the need of housing for historically excluded communities by more accurately considering economic ability of all households in allocation adjustments.
• Maintain the Livable Communities Act requirement for grantees to adopt a fair housing policy and provide best practices in fair housing policy adoption to support local government efforts.
• Explore whether to require the adoption of a local tenant protections policy to be eligible to receive Livable Communities Act grants to support housing development.

• Explore partnerships to research and develop alternative credit pathways, such as rent payment history, to support homeownership opportunities.
• In all the Met Council's housing work, develop respectful and meaningful partnerships with tribal governments and organizations, housing advocacy groups, homeless coalitions, particularly those that have majority Black, American Indian, people of color and low-income representation.
• Participate in the Fair Housing Implementation Council and provide both data and tools and technical assistance.
• Convene local governments, housing organizations, and historically over-burdened communities to align communication and best practices to continue addressing racial and ethnic disparities in housing access.
• Participate in regional efforts to reduce barriers in state, regional, county, and city funding programs that limit the entry of new affordable housing developers, especially those with Black, American Indian, and people of color leadership
• Explore partnerships to research and develop best practices for reparative housing action.

Read the next objective, policy, and actions