State funded housing vouchers bring life changing stability
The following was shared by Maeve Olson on March 1, 2023 at the Minnesota State Capitol during a press conference on the need for bold investments in housing. It has been republished with her permission.
Hello, my name is Maeve Olson and I work for Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative as the Lead Campaign Organizer for the Bring it Home, Minnesota campaign, a campaign of over 30 organizations working so everyone gets the rent support they deserve. State-funded housing vouchers, as mentioned here today with Representative Howard and Senator Port, bring transformative, life-changing stability to families and individuals. Housing vouchers are proven to work. I personally know this is true after seeing the positive impact that a subsidized housing voucher had on my family’s life 20 years ago.
Being the oldest of four children, I helped my mother move our family multiple times. We moved at least 10 separate times before I started high school, but eventually found long-term family stability in having a home, paid for with the housing voucher program. The adjustable monthly 30% rent payment based upon a household’s income was life-changing for my single mother who had to care & provide for her four children, while making less than $15,000 a year.
Stable housing had a very real and tangible impact on my younger siblings, allowing them to focus more on learning both technical and social life skills (like coding and critical thinking), attending church and youth group volunteer events, and completing college preparation work and applications, rather than wondering if they would need to ask a school friend to stay overnight again or take a few hours to walk a few miles in the dark to get from school to wherever our family was staying that night.
For the past decade or two, only 1 in 4 qualified Minnesotans who applied for a housing voucher actually received one. My family was very blessed, privileged, and fortunate enough to receive this transformative government assistance. Being a child beneficiary of this exact state funding through vouchers, I know and can prove that housing choice vouchers work.
Being a born-and-raised Minnesotan, I frankly find it embarrassing that we, as a state with so many resources and impactful community and education programming – who pride ourselves on education and yet know that the data shows disparities – are not already offering this opportunity to every single qualified household yet already. We know that an investment in housing stability is an investment in racial equity and that we have the resources to do this – we just need the political will.
Fully funding the housing voucher program state-wide, now and for the future, is the right thing to do. We have all been affected, at some level or other, by the housing crisis and we can all impact the housing solution. In Minnesota, we create solutions and are there for one another. Everything in life – education, health, civic duty – everything starts with home. That’s why EVERYONE needs a safety net like this. Because we all do better when we all have a home. It’s time to Bring It Home, Minnesota.
