HOME Line’s Current Highlights

•  HOME Line started a new program to work with prisoners who are about to be released from Minnesota Correctional Facilities on how to find rental housing and not make mistakes once they are in the new housing.
•  The tenant hotline took 2,638 calls, slightly up from the same time frame in 2011.  Calls came in from 71 different counties, a sign of the geographic coverage that HOME Line represents.

Organizing

• Organizers are currently monitoring at-risk subsidized housing projects for preservation purposes in the following communities: Albert Lea, Alexandria, Benson, Brooklyn Center, Byron, Coon Rapids, Granite Falls, Lake Crystal, Lamberton, Maple Grove, Marshall, Miltona, Royalton, Saint Hilaire, St Charles, Waseca, and Worthington. In total, this affects 314 HUD-assisted units (of which 180 are Section 8 subsidized) and 369 USDA Rural Development units.
• Market-rate rental housing affected by rental license revocations and poor housing conditions continues to be a serious threat to the lower-cost rental market. Organizers engaged with residents affected by such threats at several properties in Minneapolis and Burnsville this quarter.
• An organizing intern has been collaborating with Volunteers of America to produce a “Smart Housing Workshop” geared for East African Immigrants in the Twin Cities.  There will be a brief talk given by a HOME Line attorney as well as a question and answer session.  Interpreters will be made available for tenants attending.  The workshop will take place April 24^th at the Brian Coyle Community Center in Minneapolis.

Policy Advocacy

• Organizers engaged over 156 renters on the Renters’ Credit issue. Legislators once again proposed a major tax increase on tenants with the most modest means.  Tenants responded to this proposal by writing in to HOME Line about how the Renters’ Credit helps them, they additionally called in messages and circulated petitions in their buildings. Many of those stories and recordings can be reviewed on the Public Policy Blog.

• HOME Line’s Public Policy Blog, http://homelinemn.org/blog/, provides state and federal policy updates to housing advocates and other interested parties.  The blog also includes common sense language to describe (often confusing) housing law and programs.  In the first quarter of 2012, there were 4,633 page-views of the blog.