Project-Based Vouchers Create Home
Families in Minnesota look for housing we can rely on in a community we love and at a price we can afford. Our current systems put up too many barriers for families, though. No one can build supportive housing for families in the suburbs without project-based housing vouchers from the Met Council. The Met Council doesn’t award these important vouchers every year – but they’re still needed every year. Their decision-making for how and when to award them isn’t clear.
This is why we’re organizing to get the Met Council to commit to an annual process to award project-based vouchers that lets communities plan and families know what to expect.
Meet Deanna, a former Families Moving Forward shelter guest. When it was time for Deanna and her family to move into affordable housing, the use of a project-based voucher made all the difference in the world.
Earlier this summer, Deanna gave testimony to the Met Council’s Community Development Committee on the impact these vouchers have had on her life:
My name is Deanna, and I would love to share my personal story with project-based vouchers.
For me, the housing assistance was truly a weight lifted off my shoulders after being homeless with my five children and elderly mother for a year. We were at Beacon’s Families Moving Forward for 7 months of that year looking for a place to call home. But finding a home that was affordable was far from my reach.
We tried to locate affordable housing with no luck. Then we found my current home. We have been in our home at Clover Field Market Place in Chaska for three years. The unit does have a project-based voucher. Let me tell you how much easier the transition from homeless to tenant was with that voucher.
I wasn’t worried about paying next months rent because I could afford it. It was a truly relief moving into a home with rental assistance. Life is easier with no worries about rent. Not having to worry about rent has allowed me to go back to school to pursue my dreams.
I hope we can get more project-based homes so other families get to experience the joyful relief of being in a home to create new beginnings.
Add your support for project-based vouchers by emailing the Met Council (attn: Terri Smith) at data.center@metc.state.mn.us. Submit your comments by August 31.
