Sponsor: Community & Economic Development
Title
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Allocation of State Affordable Housing Aid for Housing Development Projects by Emerging and Diverse Developers.
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Recommendation
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1. Approve the recommended projects and funding amounts for housing development projects selected in the 2025 Emerging and Diverse Developers Solicitation.
2. Authorize the County Manager to enter into the necessary loan or other agreements and execute amendments to loan or other agreements in a manner consistent with local regulations and requirements, in a form approved by the County Attorney’s Office.
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Background and Rationale
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Ramsey County has an urgent and evident need for affordable housing, especially housing affordable to individuals and families with household incomes less than 30% of Area Median Income (AMI) and less than 50% AMI. According to Ramsey County’s Economic Competitiveness and Inclusion (ECI) Plan, the county has a deficit of 15,000 units affordable to those at or below 30% AMI. This lack of affordable housing supply leads to greater housing instability for residents and exacerbates the county’s ongoing homelessness crisis.
To help build and preserve needed housing supply, Ramsey County seeks to expand the pool of affordable housing developers, so they better reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of Ramsey County. To accomplish this, Community & Economic Development (CED) created the Emerging and Diverse Developers (EDD) Program. Ramsey County defines emerging developers as individuals or entities that have owned or developed no more than 25 units of housing or 15,000 square feet of commercial space in the last 10 years.
The EDD Program is a single program with two parts. CED contracts with NEOO Partners to provide technical assistance through a classroom cohort model. Thirty five participants graduated from the program and their journey was celebrated at the November 18, 2025 board meeting.
The second component of the EDD Program was a competitive solicitation specifically for emerging and diverse developers. The solicitation opened on September 5, 2025, and closed on October 31, 2025. Eligible applicants could apply for development funds for the acquisition, rehabilitation, and construction of affordable housing with requested amounts not to exceed $500,000. Developers who already owned the property that they were applying for could also qualify for up to $20,000 of funding for eligible pre-development costs.
Twenty-five eligible applications were received with a total requested amount of $10,319,419. An internal scoring team reviewed and scored each application in a manner consistent with the annual housing development solicitation process, Ramsey County marketed the solicitation through its contracted technical assistance partner, two in-person community meetings, on the Ramsey County website, through the CED newsletter, and direct outreach to partner organizations and municipalities.
Four projects totaling $80,000 from the EDD Solicitation are recommended for predevelopment awards funded with Statewide Affordable Housing Aid (SAHA). SAHA is a funding source made available through the state of Minnesota and Ramsey County was allocated $802,161 in 2023. After receiving the funds, $722,161 of 2023 SAHA funds were awarded to housing development projects.
Predevelopment awards allow emerging developers to continue to hone and strengthen their proposed projects prior to future applications for construction-related funding. Additional selections from the 2025 EDD Solicitation were approved by the Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) on December 16, 2025. Those awards funded 8 projects with $2,199,500 of 2025 HRA levy funds.
The following projects are recommended for SAHA funding:
2023 Obligations from the 2025 Emerging and Diverse Developers Solicitation:
Sherburne Rehabilitation, YO Holdings, Saint Paul $20,000
818 Edmund Rehabilitation, Vertina LLC, Saint Paul $20,000
Rondo Revitalize, RME Properties, Saint Paul $20,000
1002 Jessie, Better Choices Better Communities, Saint Paul $20,000
Total 2023 SAHA Allocation for 2025 EDD Predevelopment Awards: $80,000
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County Goals (Check those advanced by Action)
☒ Well-being ☒ Prosperity ☒ Opportunity ☒ Accountability
Racial Equity Impact
SAHA funds will be used to implement eligible strategies from the ECI Plan by investing in projects and programs that specifically aim to reduce racial disparities in housing. These strategies include increasing the supply of deeply affordable rental units and the preservation of naturally occurring affordable housing. The obligation of SAHA funds also diversifies the pool of housing developers.
Ramsey County has large racial disparities between residents of color and white residents in the housing sector. These disparities include a disproportionate number of African American and American Indian residents experiencing homelessness compared to white residents. Generally, residents of color are more likely to rent than own their own home and be cost-burdened by housing costs compared to white residents. To undo these historical and lasting inequities, investment is needed in communities where wealth has historically been extracted.
Community Participation Level and Impact
The co-design on the EDD Program started in January of 2023 by consulting with organization that support emerging developers. Staff learned what supports are needed to compete in competitive government development solicitations. Lessons learned were shared back out with the community and incorporated into the procurement process that was used to select technical assistance (TA) providers. The TA partners hosted small group sessions to hear directly from emerging developers on the barriers they face in the development process, which informed the eligible uses and scoring criteria in the solicitation. This included the availability of pre-development funding. Furthermore, community was invited to two public in-person meetings at the Rondo Community Library to learn more about the EDD Program and the solicitation. This solicitation is another step towards the implementation of the community driven ECI plan.
☒ Inform ☒ Consult ☒ Involve ☐ Collaborate ☐ Empower
Fiscal Impact
The four projects from the 2025 EDD Solicitation recommended for 2023 SAHA funding have a total funding amount of $80,000. The remainder of the 2023 SAHA funds was already allocated toward housing development projects in 2023. 2024 and 2025 SAHA funds have already been allocated to housing development projects as well. Other projects from the 2025 EDD Solicitation were approved by the HRA on December 16, 2025, and funded with unallocated 2025 HRA levy.
Last Previous Action
On December 16, 2025 the Ramsey County Housing and Redevelopment Authority approved $2,199,500 of the 2025 HRA Levy to be allocated towards housing development projects by emerging and diverse developers. (Resolution H2025-015).
On December 19, 2023 the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners allocated 2023 State Affordable Housing Aid for housing development projects in the amount of $721,994 (Resolution B2023-264).
Attachments
1. Narrative Project Descriptions