I looked up on a government website the amount of money The City of Eden Prairie has been receiving for their affordable housing projects. It is in the millions of dollars. You can look up the grant info here . $7.9 million. That’s a lot of money.
Weirdly enough, the City of EP only claims that they only received $3,723,700 in “intergovernmental” funds. I’m very curious as to where the rest of that money went?
I’ve been going through the report that tells us what the 2023 budget entails for city monies, and there still is no details. It’s all very summary oriented. Granted, we don’t want to know all the details for water plant operations, but maybe someone does. I’d personally like to know how much the city pays for the chemicals they put in our water and what all that entails. When I have to submit my income for taxes it’s one step from a colonoscopy. Why is it when it comes to who holds our tax money, we only get a summary?
Each project/building complex they choose to deem ‘affordable housing’ gets over $300,000 per year for 7-8 years. And this number has gone up dramatically in 2021, I’m assuming as part of the American Relief Fund for Covid19. The amount of awards are astounding and it’s all due to the 14.218 - COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT BLOCK GRANTS/ENTITLEMENT GRANT.
Why does this relief money have to extend 7-8 years?
What is the City of Eden Prairie doing with that money?
Why do they continually need to expand the tax base if they are getting funding from the federal government for existing affordable housing units?
What new services and projects are happening that we need more and more from the taxpayers?
How much are the building owners paying in taxes? And how much of this federal money stays with the City or does it go to the building owners?
These are all questions I’d love to see answered. Very possibly the money is directed to people who apply for affordable housing vouchers through Hennepin County, but I don’t know for sure as we aren’t given any details.
Let’s dig into what is affordable housing. I’d love to know who is getting the vouchers and what the criteria is for meeting the guidelines. I am not doubting the program because I do think there are a lot of people out there that need help.
My questions stem from - are these current Eden Prairie residents that are applying or are they people trying to get into EP housing from outside the city limits?
I know I’m raising more questions than I’m answering and this is exactly why I decided to run for mayor. I believe the transparency isn’t comparable to a see through window of information but more like a sun-shade that blocks out the light. We are intelligent people and I believe the residents shouldn’t have to go through a bunch of hoops to be able to look at data when they ask for it. I do have to say, that when I did a data request for the council’s emails, I got a response very quickly and the data was made available in a very timely manner. I do have friends that have requested financial data and never received a response. Interesting isn’t it?
I want to make it clear that I am not questioning what or how the City is using the money, only that those details should be made available to the people. Receipts. We should be able to look at the receipts and make conclusions to whether our elected officials are spending our money wisely. I know that the city employees work extremely hard to stay within strict guidelines of how they are to spend money. I worked there - I remember that we had to watch how spent every penny. Has the process gone lax? I don’t know. I wish I could say one way or the other, but there isn’t any details when looking at the budget so how would a constituent know what is acceptable spending?
About the time I left employment at the City of EP, a concerned group of citizens was forming to audit the budget. Do they still exist? I think there should be a group of randomly chosen people (not appointed seats) to be on a audit committee. It could be a monthly meeting where they look at spending and receivables and check things out. I’m sure there are at least 10 people in the community that would be able to participate. This could be done with a lot of different committees. RANDOMLY chosen people - again not appointed as they are doing now. Appointed positions are approved by the council. How is the proper checks and balances? These committees should be a random selection. That would ensure no nepotism and no partiality was happening. Like a lottery.
As far as affordable housing, I’d love to see vouchers be used for people applying for mortgages as well as renting. Renting is a waste of money, but necessary for some as a short term solution. We really need to figure out how to balance this awful inflation with rising property values, taxes and rent. If there’s funding for people to get vouchers, then it should apply to any property - owned or rented. I’m sure the federal government has a lot of rules on how they allow that money to be used. But I am going to continue to investigate this issue for sure. More to come in the next few weeks.l
Federal funding for affordable housing
Good ideas to engage people who care about the community they live in to ensure it is managed appropriately.