In November, Minnesota Housing followed the City of Minneapolis’ lead and committed significant project funding. While there are dollars that still need to be committed, we’re feeling confident enough to plan a June 2012 ground breaking.

Spirit on Lake will serve individuals earning less than $28,950/year and households earning less than $33,100/year (2 persons). The 46 one- and two-bedroom apartments will be ready for rental and occupancy in the spring of 2013.

Developed to address the unique needs of the LGBT aging population, the units are open to all.

Spirit of the Lakes Church, who developed the concept and remains an active participant in the development of this important project, will not occupy the first floor space as originally envisioned, but we hope to announce a new and exciting tenant for the space in the very near future.

Stay in the loop about Spirit on Lake by liking our Facebook page, or sign up here to receive news by email.

• 11% earn less than 50% of the area median income (that’s under about $41,000 for a family of four)
  44% are households earn between 50% and 80% of the area median income (that’s under about $64,000 for a family of four)
• 59% are households of color
• Average household size is 2.5
• Average percent of income spent on housing is 27%, and all spend less than 30% of their income on housing.

By buying homes rehabbed by PRG, each of these families has bought a renovated home that should need no major repairs in the first years of ownership.

Our thanks to Ned Foster and Laura Tiffany and the Kopp Family Foundation for their generous offer of matching gifts.

PRG entered November with a challenge from two generous supporters: raise $35oo, and receive a 100% match, for a total of $7000 this month toward our work to prevent foreclosures, counsel new homebuyers, and rehab vacant, foreclosed homes.

Generous gifts from 37 donors has put us within reach of that goal, and your support—at any level, from $10 on up—will get us there. Please help make sure we receive all of the available matching funds by giving today. THANK YOU!

With the help of CURA, we recently put together this map showing how many PRG clients in Minneapolis have been able to avoid foreclosure over the past couple of years (the map covers the period from January 2009 through October 2011).

It’s great to see visual evidence of what our counselors see every day: our services make a difference for families and neighborhoods.

Over the past two years, PRG has awarded over $2.25 million in construction contracts. Of the workforce hired to do these jobs, 91% of unskilled and 46% of skilled workers have been people of color, and many have been Minneapolis residents. So, by putting dollars to use for strong communities and stable families, we’re not only making great places to live; we’re making great places to work, and keeping those dollars in the community in multiple ways.

In October, Assistant HUD secretary Mercedes Marquez and other HUD officials toured north Minneapolis, looking at newly rehabbed homes funded through the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

Among the speakers at this PRG-rehabbed home in the Jordan neighborhood was Don Steele, the contractor who completed the rehab work on this home, as well as the family who will purchase the home, Mayor R.T. Rybak, Assistant Secretary Marquez, and local HUD officials.

• served 233 families with free foreclosure counseling. Most of our clients have low or very low incomes.
• had a very high rate—over 80%—of success helping clients avoid foreclosure and stay in their homes.
• taught 355 families the basics of home ownership in our homebuyer workshops.
• provided free, individualized homebuyer counseling to 162 households, assisting them in making plans to move towards successful home ownership.
• acquired for rehab 16 foreclosed single-family homes in low-income neighborhoods that have requested our assistance.
• affordably sold 8 rehabbed homes to families with low incomes.

Give this month, and you’ll make twice the difference. Generous matching grants from the Kopp Family Foundation and from Ned Foster and Laura Tiffany will double all gifts made to PRG this month, up to a total of $3,500.

And as an extra thank you for helping us take advantage of this extraordinary matching opportunity, we’re offering prizes! Through a super deal from TechSoup Stock, every tenth donor at PRG’s GiveMN page this month will win a Flip video camera.*

Thank you for helping PRG transform life for families, homes and neighborhoods.

*The fine print: Gifts from PRG employees and board members and their immediate family members are eligible for matching, but are not eligible to win the Flip cameras. Four Flip cameras are available and will be awarded to the giver of every tenth donation received online during the month of November. Winners will be notified by email. Thank you and good luck!

You may be tempted to guess the name of your favorite rural Midwestern township, but no! Those lovely cornstalks are growing in the Standish-Ericsson neighborhood of south Minneapolis, right in PRG’s back yard.

Dedicated as we are to strong, sustainable neighborhoods, we at PRG were thrilled last year when we connected with a group of gardeners from Corcoran GROWS who were looking for some nearby land to grow veggies together. We just happened to have what they were looking for: a sunny lot neighboring ours, which we’d long been wanting to put to better use than our feeble attempts at growing a lawn.

At the end of its first season, Milly’s Peace Garden is looking great. Thank you, gardeners, for bringing good, green, growing things to PRG’s block!

AJ has lived in nearby neighborhoods for over fifteen years, and Annette grew up on the north side. The couple aren’t strangers to the home buying process, either. They owned a home just a few blocks from their new house, and, by luck, decided right before the housing market tanked to pare down their expenses by selling it.

Since selling that home, the couple spent several years renting, never very far from where they’ve ultimately (and more affordably) ended up buying again.

The idea of becoming homeowners again came on in a gradual way. Initially, Annette and AJ planned to buy a home that was next door to their church, with the intention of reselling it to the church once the church was able to pull together the funding to purchase it. They secured a loan and were set to buy the house, but at the last minute the financing fell apart (the house, being sold as-is, wouldn’t pass the inspection required by the FHA loan they’d acquired).

That house sold soon afterwards to another family, but Annette and AJ, with a loan pre-approval in hand and a new understanding of what they could afford, decided to look at a few homes for sale. This home stood out. They looked at other houses the same size, but some of them were even more expensive and not in such good shape. “This was so much more house for the money.”

The couple and their 19-year-old niece moved in at the end of March, and Annette’s mother will soon be joining them. It’s a nice space—an old house with the character they find appealing— in a neighborhood they love. Like Marlee and Robert, they nod to the reputation Jordan might have to outsiders. “The northside gets a bad rap,” said AJ, “but we love this neighborhood. We like this neck of the woods.”

The best thing about the house? Annette and AJ concur with their newcomer neighbors: “We didn’t have to do anything to it.”

Last October, Marlee and Robert moved in, along with teenaged sons William and Patrick, their fluffy orange cat, and their gentle German shepherd. Like many new homeowners, they have the sense that their house found them—that their buying it was somehow meant to be.

A blended family, they looked at many houses—probably a hundred, said Robert, online or in person—and nothing seemed quite right. They explored many neighborhoods. Robert lived in south Minneapolis near Grand Avenue, and Marlee in Chaska. Their sons go to school in the west metro. They began with Bryn Mawr, which they found beautiful but too expensive. They looked north from there along Wirth Parkway in the Homewood neighborhood, but the affordable homes they spotted seemed to be too big—too much work.

One house Marlee spotted online kept resurfacing in her mind. It was an old house—over 100 years old—in Jordan, and it was being rehabbed by PRG. One night when she couldn’t sleep, she looked at it online again, and noticed an open house was scheduled for the next day—a day when she and Robert just happened to have the afternoon off work.

They came to the open house—how could they not?—and they loved the place.

But, as newcomers to the area, they wanted to make sure the neighborhood was a good place for them. Many of their friends in south Minneapolis and the suburbs expressed concern about the area’s reputation for high crime. “We checked it out really well,” they said. As part of their research, they met James, the block club leader whose home is directly behind theirs, and felt welcomed and reassured. They also realized, as they spoke with him, that he was checking them out to see if they’d be good neighbors.

And their research (and what they’ve seen so far living in Jordan) brought them to a pleasantly surprising conclusion. “It’s about the friendliest neighborhood we’ve lived in,” said Robert. After less than a year in their new house, they already know several of their neighbors. They chat with people when they’re out walking their dog. They’re pleased to notice wildlife—mourning doves, squirrels, and even a neighborhood rooster—where they once might have thought there’d be only concrete.

From visiting the home to buying it was a quick path. They complimented PRG’s marketing agent, Erin Green, on being easy to work with, on helping them to apply for all the assistance they were able to qualify for, being honest and low-pressure, and helping the process go smoothly.

Beyond happiness about their neighborhood, they’re also enjoying their new house, discovering their commutes to work and school are easier than they’d thought, and reaping the benefits of moving into a completely rehabbed house. “It was great to move into a house we didn’t have to do any work to.”

See before and after photos of the house here.