Moorhead City Council 

Nancy Edmonds Hanson

A special tax to be levied by the Clay County Housing Redevelopment Authority was approved by the Moorhead City Council at its regular meeting Monday.
The tax – to be levied on property throughout the county, including Moorhead and other communities – is expected to raise $300,000 to support continued work by the agency to secure affordable housing for low- and middle-income residents.
The greatest share of funding for low-income housing comes from the federal and state governments, with $2.4 million secured so far in 2024. “But the financial strains of the pandemic have made it difficult to maintain stable operations and have the resources to compete for Minnesota housing funds as they become available,” Dawn Bacon told the council. She is director of Moorhead’s Public Housing Agency. “Programs are still rolling out, and we want our county and city to be able to secure our share.”
Dara Lee, executive director of the Clay County Housing Redevelopment Authority, concurred. “In 2023, the Minnesota Legislature appropriated $1 billion for affordable housing. We need local resources to access those funds,” she said. “Our community members are already paying their taxes to the state. We’re looking for the funding we need to bring our share of that money home.
State law permits county HRAs to levy what are called “special benefit taxes” to support housing initiatives. Lee pointed out that the Clay HRA is seeking a levy of just 18% of the maximum permited amount, far below the 58% statewide annual average; and unlike the majority of Minnesota’s 87 counties, she said, Clay has only levied the special benefit tax seven times over the past 50 years. This is its first request since 2019.
According to estimates by the Clay County HRA board, the annual tax will amount to less than $11 per household. The funds will be used to support operations; fund improvements; and secure new resources for affordable housing. This includes supporting programs aimed at ending child homelessness, providing funding for rehabilitation work for low- to moderate-income homeowners and renters; and competing for additional state and federal resources.
Moorhead’s Public Housing Authority and the county HRA colocated their staffing last year and now share program resources, Lee explained, to make up for using up the use of the agency’s reserves during COVID due to rising wages, decreased revenues, and increased costs in operations due to inflation, damages and evictions. Staffing was reduced by 12%. Programs have been streamlined, Lee said, along with dropping or merging 10 programs not considered financially viable.
“The pandemic was devastating. We’ve taken a knife to the fat. We’re down to bone,” she told the council members.
The two agencies own and operate almost 300 rental units in Moorhead and provide housing vouchers to some 1,000 families and individuals, many of them with disabilities. Clay County also operates 68 units in Dilworth, six duplexes in Hawley, and two duplexes and a 12-plex for elderly and disabled residents in Ulen.