With 2024 now underway, a flurry of new Minnesota laws are in effect.

Renters facing obstacles with their landlords have new protections, and there is now a policy that addresses gun possession for those considered a risk to themselves or others.

Among the new housing laws is a requirement that landlords fully disclose non-optional fees in a lease agreement so that applicants have a full scope of what their rental costs look like.

Rachel Sterling is a housing attorney and the communications coordinator with the Minnesota nonprofit HOME Line. She said unexpected fees have become a problem in the rental market in recent years.

"A classic example is there was a landlord here that used to charge what's called a January fee," said Sterling, "an extra $100 just because it was January."

There are also tighter restrictions for landlord entry into a rental property.

Sterling said owners have the flexibility to set costs for expenses, but adds making certain language clear can potentially help tenants avoid eviction.

Meanwhile, Minnesota has added what's known as a "Red Flag" law, where certain individuals or agencies can seek a court petition for law enforcement to temporarily remove guns from a person exhibiting concerning behavior.

Maggiy Emery, executive director of the group Protect Minnesota, said the broader goal for these Extreme Risk Protection Orders is to help reduce gun violence.

But she said the law change gets to the core of a concerning issue around the state.

"The vast majority of our gun deaths here are firearm suicides," said Emery, "and ERPOS - Extreme Risk Protection Orders - have been shown to be very effective in reducing firearm suicides."

Johns Hopkins University gathered findings looking at the effectiveness of Red Flag laws. For example, Connecticut's extreme risk law was associated with a 13% reduction in firearm suicides.

Emery said as Minnesota implements its law, there's considerable outreach in under-resourced communities - including rural areas, to create more awareness and training about this new tool for law enforcement.

Gun-owner advocates have expressed concern about a person not being able to challenge an order.




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The Utah Foundation polled municipal officials across the state to gain their insights into affordable housing. The report found many officials feel they face barriers when attempting to introduce more affordable housing into their communities - and they say those barriers often come from residents.

Shawn Teigen, president of the Utah Foundation, said anxieties people may have around affordable housing may not be accurate.

"When we think about affordable housing, we think about more density. And that comes along with perhaps more traffic. And that may not be reality, but that's what a lot of people are thinking about," Teigen said.

However, those anxieties can create restrictions for those who advocate for more diverse housing options. In the survey, 79% of respondents said municipal officials pursuing affordable housing over residents' concerns face political consequences. Teigen added some officials must choose between fighting for their beliefs in the need to make housing more affordable - and remaining in office to help their constituents with other matters.

The Foundation says its report was not designed to offer specific solutions, but to illuminate the issues Utah residents face today.

Drew Maggelet, director of housing for the Call to Action Foundation, one of the report's sponsors, said affordable housing is something everyone believes in. It's the placement, standards and implementation they may disagree on.

"There is not really a coherent or clear path forward as it concerns the best way to do this. There's a very large discrepancy between what people consider 'affordable.' There is a very large discrepancy about how to fix it," he explained.

The report polled officials in communities of at least 5,000 residents and examined populations across the state. One option being discussed is making changes to zoning policies for so-called "middle housing" - a strategy that includes allowing multifamily housing in established single-family neighborhoods.

A new design competition is looking to find better housing for Fargo's aging population.

Like many other states, North Dakota has a growing number of people increasingly burdened by their own homes. Oftentimes, they want to stay in their communities but their properties might be too large, too expensive to maintain or too unsafe to occupy.

Janelle Moos, associate state director of advocacy for AARP North Dakota, said there are not enough options for people looking to downsize.

"A lot of housing and zoning has really promoted single family homes or very large scale apartments," Moos explained. "We've kind of lost that middle ground to say, 'There are other types of housing that exist and can coexist and what people want, right?'"

AARP is asking interested architects, designers, builders and students to submit designs for those midlevel units, including a duplex, triplex or cluster subdivision. Moos pointed out the goal is to show off the viability of age-friendly homes and hopefully come away with some plans for future development.

More than 65% of North Dakota residents named housing as the state's biggest overall need in a survey last year.

The competition closes in early October and the winner is eligible for a cash prize. Moos noted people can then hire the designer, obtain a building permit and begin construction.

"The hope is that it's not just a conversation and it's not just a hypothetical," Moos emphasized. "We want to come away with several really viable, buildable, missing middle housing plans with universal divine design elements. So, by that I mean truly age-friendly."

Judges and advisers include government officials, design experts and architects from across the state. Nationwide, one group estimates a need for more than 800,000 senior housing units by 2030.

With rising housing costs an ongoing issue, a new report shows how fast rents have increased in Maryland and nationwide.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition's "Out of Reach" report shows that, even when accounting for higher state- and county-level minimum wages, the average minimum-wage worker in the United States would have to work 95 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom rental home.

Diane Yentel, coalition president and CEO, noted renters with the lowest incomes have faced a long-standing trend of rents rising faster than wages.

"Between 2001 and 2021, rents increased about 18%," she explained, "while household income only increased by about 3%."

In Maryland, the report found the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment is more than $1,900 a month, which translates to a Housing Wage of nearly $37 an hour, the ninth-highest in the nation.

The coalition said affordable rental housing isn't likely to be built without public subsidies. The availability of affordable housing is constrained in part by the high development and operating cost of new rental housing, resulting in market forces that drive developers to target higher-end customers.

The report shows the median monthly rent for new multifamily units in the third quarter of last year was more than $1,800 a month, while just 2% of new units had rents less than $850 per month.

As supply constraints drive costs higher, Yentel predicted the nation's housing crisis will worsen.

"Increased rents are resulting in increased homelessness," she insisted. "The U.S. Government Accountability Office has found that a $100 increase in median monthly rent is associated with a 9% increase in homelessness in that community."

For its part, the federal government's ability to build new housing has been limited since 1999, when the Faircloth Amendment capped the number of public housing units that can be legally owned by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).




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