Housing First Minnesota named 21 Minnesota state legislators as recipients of the 2024 Housing Leadership Award. This honor recognizes legislators who went above and beyond to promote housing affordability and homeownership during the 2024 legislative session.
For the first time in decades, housing supply, affordability, land use and zoning reform took center stage at the Capitol. With the announcement of the “Minnesotans for More Homes” agenda in February, a bipartisan coalition of legislators attempted to address the housing crisis afflicting the state by allowing the construction of more homes of all types and price points.
“All-in-all, we saw the most important land-use and zoning discussions we’ve had at the Minnesota legislature in a generation,” said Mark Foster, vice president of legislative & political affairs. “We thank these legislators for their tireless efforts to move towards opening up more homeownership opportunities for all.”
“Minnesota is over 100,000 housing units short of what would be considered a healthy housing market,” Foster said. “The bills that were brought forward attempted to address this deficit and allowed for a variety of more housing options. The broad and diverse coalition supporting these items is laser-focused on solving these issues and we hope the legislature and Governor Walz will address these desperately needed policy changes in 2025.”
Recipients of the 2024 Housing Leadership Award:
Minnesota House of Representatives
- Rep. Esther Agbaje (Minneapolis)
- Rep. Jeff Dotseth (Kettle River)
- Rep. Michael Howard (Richfield)
- Rep. Brian Johnson (Cambridge)
- Rep. Alicia Kozlowski (Duluth)
- Rep. Larry Kraft (St. Louis Park)
- Rep. Jamie Long (Minneapolis)
- Rep. Joe McDonald (Delano)
- Rep. Shane Mekeland (Clear Lake)
- Rep. Jim Nash (Waconia)
- Rep. John Petersburg (Waseca)
Minnesota Senate
- Sen. Gene Dornink (Brownsdale)
- Sen. Rich Draheim (Madison Lake)
- Sen. Omar Fateh (Minneapolis)
- Sen. Mark Johnson (East Grand Forks)
- Sen. Eric Lucero (St. Michael)
- Sen. Andrew Mathews (Princeton)
- Sen. Erin Maye Quade (Apple Valley)
- Sen. Susan Pha (Brooklyn Park)
- Sen. Lindsey Port (Burnsville)
- Sen. Jordan Rasmusson (Fergus Falls)
