There are growing challenges facing our region’s rental market. With construction slowing dramatically and demand remaining strong, but when supply fails to meet the needs, the result is rents rise, competition intensifies, and affordability slips further out of reach. These trends should serve as a wake-up call for action.

The Twin Cities Housing Alliance (TCHA) sees this as an opportunity to shift from challenges to solutions. By addressing underproduction and implementing forward-thinking policies, we can ensure the region’s housing market remains accessible and equitable.

Many qualified economists have provided insightful analysis of the challenges and negative externalities of rent control policies in response to recent proposals for a national rent cap. As the Executive Director of the Twin Cities Housing Alliance, I want to draw attention to how these issues resonate locally in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and why we believe there are many programs and policies that provide targeted assistance to those with income insecurity without impacting the housing market’s ability to deliver housing options and opportunities.

Kare 11, May 16, 2024

"We need more supply to meet that demand," said Cathy Bennett, who leads the Twin Cities Housing Alliance. The organization is only a few years old and is a non-profit tackling the industry's challenges.

"So that those who are most vulnerable to housing instability have a chance to be able to get into a home," said Bennett.

Star Tribune, October 30, 2023

In response to "The Fair Housing Act, 55 years later" (Oct. 25) I'd like to respond: "Yes, and ... ."

Yes, we absolutely need more housing that's affordable and accessible. Yes, like many other critical topics, this discussion is frequently bogged down by nuance, disagreement and antiquated funding structures. Yes, we need to build everywhere, not just in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

And, I'd like to offer, this is where many conclusions are oversimplified. In my experience, there are plenty of financiers, developers and property managers who are eager to bring housing projects to suburbs and exurbs. Where I see more of a sticking point is navigating conversations in those exact communities. A long history of risk aversion, NIMBYism, mistrust and slow, unclear bureaucracy are bigger impediments than developers' interests.

Bloomberg, August 9, 2023

No place in the US has put inflation in the rearview mirror quite as fast as Minneapolis.

In May, the Twin Cities became the first major metropolitan area to see annual inflation fall below the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%. Its 1.8% pace of price increases was the lowest of any region that month.

That’s largely due to a region-wide push to address one of the most intractable issues for both the Fed and American consumers: rising housing costs. Well before pandemic-related supply-chain snarls and labor shortages roiled the economy, the city of Minneapolis eliminated zoning that allowed only single-family homes and since 2018 has invested $320 million for rental assistance and subsidies.

Star Tribune, July 23, 2023

Finance & Commerce, June 1, 2023

Cathy Capone Bennett — executive director of the Twin Cities Housing Alliance, a nonprofit association of housing providers and associated stakeholders — agrees with the report.

“We do not believe that rent control of any sort will help with the significant housing issues that we have right now in our market,” she said.

Investors view the Twin Cities as a region, and she believes a rent-control policy in Minneapolis would impact the whole metro. “Capital markets, they’ll just take their money elsewhere,” she said, laying out a ripple effect of more expensive loans and higher costs to produce new housing, which would exacerbate the housing crisis.

Star Tribune, April 14, 2023

Industry, government and nonprofit partners have a plan to economically accelerate housing production in the Twin Cities area to fill one of the largest availability and affordability gaps in the country.

Star Tribune, April 14, 2023

Staff concluded that rent control could slow housing development and cost the city too much to enforce.