Ramsey County details LAHA, down‑payment and eviction diversion plans in HRA briefing

Ramsey County officials on Wednesday gave a joint briefing to the St. Paul City Housing and Redevelopment Authority on the county’s use of its HRA levy, its down‑payment assistance program and planned uses of 2024 Local Affordable Housing Aid (LAHA) funds.

Commissioner Mai Chung Zhang, chair of the Ramsey County HRA, said the county’s HRA levy — which funds county‑level housing work across the county except North St. Paul — has enabled new programs. “Our HRA levy covers our entire county with the exception of North Saint Paul who did not opt in,” Zhang said. County staff described three priorities for the 2024 LAHA allocation: stabilization of existing housing, owner‑occupied and development investments, and rental assistance.

Josh Olsen, county director, and department staff said Ramsey County’s 2024 LAHA allocation is just over $6 million, and the county plans to dedicate about $5 million of that to a competitive solicitation to stabilize existing affordable and supportive housing assets whose vacancy rates and operating revenues have declined since about 2020. The county said it will open the solicitation in mid‑November, require applicants to submit a stabilization or vacancy‑reduction plan, and anticipate awarding funds in 2025.

County staff described the intent as operating‑support grants to non‑profit housing providers, not capital construction funds. “The real goal is … if we are able to support operations, we’ll be able to stabilize their vacancy rates and allow residents to move back in and really fill up those units,” a county presenter said.

Ramsey County also reviewed its First Home down‑payment assistance program. Maxwell Dezing, deputy director for housing infrastructure (Ramsey County HRA), said First Home assists first‑time and first‑generation buyers. For first‑time buyers the county offers up to $20,000 as a deferred loan, due on sale or refinance; the county set a maximum purchase price of $372,000 for that product. For first‑generation buyers, staff said assistance can be up to 25% of the purchase price and is forgiven at 5% per year over 20 years. Between January 2023 and June 2024 the county reported 52 loans totaling $3.5 million; 92% of those borrowers were classified as first‑generation buyers and 87% were ethnically or racially diverse.

Ramsey County staff also described emergency rental assistance and eviction‑court diversion efforts. Keith Lattimore, director of Housing Stability, said the county piloted an eviction‑court emergency rental assistance program that used remaining federal ERA funds and local dollars to intervene in eviction cases. Lattimore said an average intervention payment in the pilot was about $3,700 and that the county provided about $1.4 million over a six‑month period in 2023 to cases handled through housing court; the county aims to use $1 million of LAHA for targeted eviction‑court diversion work in 2024.

Board members asked whether the county will prioritize St. Paul in the LAHA solicitation. County staff said LAHA funds may be spent anywhere in Ramsey County and there is no statutory requirement to split funds geographically, but staff noted most supportive housing units in the county are in St. Paul and said they expected a substantial share of the stabilization dollars to be spent in the city. Staff also said the county tries to split HRA levy investments roughly 50/50 between St. Paul City and suburban Ramsey County projects when possible.

HRA members asked for more detail on eligibility and application timelines; county staff said they will publish the solicitation documents and do targeted outreach to nonprofit providers in the coming weeks and will follow up with St. Paul HRA staff. County officials also agreed to meet with St. Paul officials to align program design and avoid duplicative or incompatible program rules.

The county presentation also included background on the HUD Continuum of Care and data on eviction trends; county staff said evictions that reached court have been rising since 2022 and that prevention dollars are aimed at stalling that trend.

Ramsey County officials left the board with a request for continued coordination; HRA members asked county staff to return at a future meeting for deeper briefings on the county’s Inclusive Housing solicitation, critical corridors work and emerging and diverse developer programs.