Duluth City Council Rejects Affordable Housing Resolution

Earlier this week the Duluth City Council voted against a resolution to spend nearly $4 million on affordable housing.

The resolution sought to give the funds to the Housing Redevelopment Authority to provide more housing options for people who either can’t afford housing at all or are paying a disproportionate amount of their income on housing.

The $3.9 million in funding noted in the resolution is leftover from Covid-era relief funding, and the City needs to spend it by the end of the year or it will lose the remaining money. The City of Duluth had originally earmarked $20 million of the funding for affordable housing.

According to a Northern News Now report, City Councilor Tara Swenson argued the best way to use the money wasn’t to give it to the Housing Redevelopment Authority, but to invest it in housing at all levels. She also said some of the money should go towards commercial and industrial development in Duluth.

Councilor Swenson also proposed giving some of the money to the Duluth Economic Development Authority in an effort to decrease taxes across the board. City Councilor Wendy Durrwachter reminded the council that in 2021, it had voted unanimously to use the $20 million dollars for affordable housing.

With the failure of the resolution, the Duluth City Council will need to develop a new plan to spend the funding. Officials say they’ll take the feedback they received on the current resolution into their planning for how to best spend the nearly $4 million by the end of the year.