After dedicating an impressive $20.6 million in public funds over four years to help create badly needed affordable housing in Duluth, city councilors came to a wise realization: Duluth has other needs, too, not the least of which is jobs-creating, property taxes-lowering economic development.
In fact, addressing affordable housing and economic development works hand in hand to improve a city and our Duluth community. In apparent recognition of that, councilors
to send the city’s remaining $3.9 million of pandemic-relief funds to the Duluth Economic Development Authority. While most of that money will still be used for affordable housing in Duluth, some may also now go toward blight reduction, child care facilities, and economic-development opportunities.
In an
, the News Tribune urged that sort of flexibility with the remaining funds from the federal American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA. City leaders had been contemplating dedicating it all to just one priority.
“We have to look at all of the different parts of our local economy. Housing is one, but so is economic development,” City Councilor Arik Forsman said in an interview in April with the News Tribune Opinion page, prior to the council’s vote. “Not only is it important to have a place where folks can call home at an affordable price, but we should also be looking at, ‘How do you create jobs that pay more in wages for folks?’ We could use some of those funds in a very targeted manner, to help with things like downtown, (to) protect our long-term tax base, and to keep property taxes affordable.”
The council’s nod to flexibility has the added bonus of helping ensure the ARPA funds are utilized in time, before having to be returned to Washington, D.C. The remaining money needs to be obligated by the end of this year and spent by 2026 to prevent Duluth from losing out.
And here’s more good news: The city has gotten word from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that it will receive an additional nearly $2 million in ARPA support, city Administrator David Montgomery announced at the May 28 meeting.
It’s a lot of money for affordable housing — and other needs, too, now — on top of what’s already been done. Just in the past four years, seven affordable-housing projects have gotten money from the city. Another three projects are on the way. The $20.6 million in investment so far since 2021 is in excess even of the $19.2 million the City Council had recommended in 2021 to tackle a lack of affordable homes here.
“We’ve done a great job, and we’re going to keep doing more,” Forsman vowed.
With the council’s vote, Duluth can continue to do more for affordable housing — and now other priorities, too.
The Duluth Economic Development Authority has received only a woefully inadequate $500,000 of the $58 million in total the city received so far in pandemic relief. Giving more to DEDA had received an endorsement from Mayor Roger Reinert at his State of the City address prior to the council’s vote. Similarly, the city’s administration
for the unspent funds to go to DEDA.
Affordable housing persists as a pressing need in Duluth. But it isn’t our only priority and shouldn’t be seen that way. The flexible approach for spending remaining ARPA dollars, embraced by councilors, wisely addresses multiple issues at once, benefiting greater numbers of city residents.
“Our View” editorials in the News Tribune are the opinion of the newspaper as determined by its Editorial Board. Current board members are Publisher Neal Ronquist, Editorial Page Editor Chuck Frederick, and Employee Representative Kris Vereecken.
