Today, the Minnesota Senate passed a significant Agriculture, Broadband, and Housing bill to help Minnesota farmers and families. The legislation, authored by Senators Torrey Westrom and Rich Draheim, works to expand broadband funding, addresses urgent concerns in our agriculture sector and improves access to affordable housing.
“Many Minnesotans, especially in rural areas, are being left behind in the modern economy because they lack access to reliable internet or affordable housing,” Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Westrom said.“We are seeing our Agriculture sector struggle with numerous challenges including animal disease outbreaks and processing issues. Our bill addresses these challenges by making smart investments that will work to help Minnesota families and farmers.”
Supporting Minnesota Agriculture
Senate Republicans have consistently advocated for resources to help our farmers and everyone who is a part of Minnesota agriculture. Republicans continue their commitment in this year’s Agriculture package.
The legislation works to help our farmers combat the ongoing Avian influenza outbreak by appropriating $500,000 to the agricultural emergency account to be used for avian influenza testing supplies. Additionally, included is $350,000 for the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Minnesota for equipment to test for chronic wasting disease (CWD), African swine fever, avian influenza, and other animal diseases.
The package includes funding to help reimburse and offset lost revenue for Minnesota deer farmers who were impacted by the banning of deer movement by the Department of Natural Resources. The movement ban has had a devastating impact on Minnesota deer farmers.
Finally, the Agriculture section of the bill builds on past programs successfully championed by Senate Republicans to support livestock processing. This includes investments in meat cutting and butchery training programs; money to start, modernize or expand meat, poultry, dairy, and egg processing facilities; and grants for training high school students and employees of small processors.
Investing in Connecting Minnesotans with Broadband
The Senate bill invests heavily in improving Minnesota broadband connectivity. The legislation directs a historic level of up to $210 million of federal money to improve Minnesota broadband which is on top of the $70 million the legislature passed last session. Westrom’s bill works to ensure Minnesota is not left behind in receiving federal broadband dollars.
Investments in the Border-to-Border broadband grant program have become increasingly important to connect all Minnesotans to the modern economy. Roughly 240,000 Minnesota households are without reliable internet access including 25% of rural Minnesota households.
“Investing in broadband is extremely important if we want to compete with the rest of the world,” Westrom said.“Broadband has become a necessity for economic development, education, health care, and more. Let’s lead the way and get these dollars out the door quickly to give Minnesotans the connectivity they need.”
Promoting Pathways to Home Ownership
The bill includes a comprehensive housing plan to ensure Minnesotans have stable housing and promotes and encourages pathways to home ownership.
“This legislation looks for solutions to Minnesota’s housing crisis across the spectrum, with a particular focus on a pathway to homeownership,” said Senator Rich Draheim (R-Madison Lake), Chairman of the Senate Housing Committee. “Through targeted state investments that increase the amount of affordable single-family homes in our state, to no-cost solutions that remove government red tape so builders can construct more affordable homes, this bill attempts to legalize the American dream of homeownership for Minnesotans in every corner of our state.”
The bill includes: $35 million for the Homeownership Investment Grants Program that provides funding to Minnesota-based Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) to increase affordable homeownership in our state; $10 million for the Workforce Homeownership Program, which is designed to increase the supply of workforce and affordable, owner-occupied housing; $10 million to create a revolving loan fund for the purchase of manufactured housing parks to be converted into cooperative ownership; $5 million for the 9,000 Equities Fund at Build Wealth Minnesota to provide affordable first mortgages or equivalent financing opportunities to households struggling to access mortgages in underserved communities of color; and $5 million for grants to install sprinkler systems in non-profit high rise apartment buildings.
Notable policy items in the bill include: preventing the governor from issuing any executive order that prohibits or delays evictions for more than 30 days unless an extension to the order is approved by a majority vote of each house of the legislature; prohibiting local governments from enacting rent control policies on private residential properties, retroactive to November 1, 2021; and requiring the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency to complete a report on the impacts of rent control on affordable housing. Until the report, which is due August 1, 2023, is delivered to the legislature, MHFA must not use any funds from any source on multifamily housing projects in cities that have adopted a rent control ordinance.
The bill now awaits action by the House of Representatives.