Minnesota House panel hears broad testimony on housing supply, zoning and slow rollout of 2023 housing funds

The Minnesota House Financing and Policy Committee heard more than three hours of testimony Tuesday on the state of housing, with builders, multifamily managers, city associations and local elected officials all pointing to a shortage of homes, regulatory drivers of cost and delayed state grant programs.

Housing industry representative Mark Foster, vice president of legislative and political affairs at Housing First Minnesota, told the committee that Minnesota is “nearly a 100,000 units short of a healthy housing market” and that the median new single‑family detached home now exceeds $530,000. “Housing affordability is quickly becoming the issue of our time,” Foster said.

Why this matters: witnesses said the shortage spans single‑family and rental housing and is driven by higher interest rates, rising material and insurance costs, local approval processes and infrastructure limits. Several witnesses urged the Legislature to speed grant rollouts and adjust state programs to meet needs in both the seven‑county Twin Cities metro area and smaller Greater Minnesota communities.

Foster and other builder witnesses pressed the committee to reduce…