Strengthening the Safety Net for Housing Stability: A Vision for Transforming Emergency Financial Assistance

Throughout 2023, Family Housing Fund (FHFund) led a collaborative engagement process to re-imagine Minnesota’s emergency financial assistance system and co-create recommendations for weaving a stronger safety net for housing stability.

Building on what we learned from the community engagement phase of the project, we hosted two co-design workshops in November 2023 with a diverse group of over 40 stakeholders, including renters with lived experience of housing instability, county and state officials, program administrators, community-based nonprofits, housing advocacy organizations, and rental property owners.

In this report, FHFund summarizes the ideas generated in the co-design workshops, presents a list of collective values as core components of a shared vision for the emergency financial assistance system, and explores three foundational elements of a reimagined housing safety net. With the shared values and recommendations in this report, we hope to inform policy decisions and catalyze systemic changes that improve housing stability and support an equitable housing system in Minnesota.