Share
Across our region, our community is grappling with what to do with the low supply of housing, rising housing costs, and a decreasing quality of life for those struggling to make their rent and mortgage payments. The crisis that our community faces directly impacts our members who struggle with affordability—Yes, even union families face barriers to affordable housing.
Across the labor movement, we’ve been working to raise wages by bargaining for pay increases in our contracts, improving industry standards and increasing the minimum wage at the state and local level — but almost all of these gains are offset by the historically high cost of housing.
Many of our cities and counties are looking for sustainable ways to grow their tax bases and to provide more multi-family housing options. That means our elected leaders are making major decisions around funding and zoning that will have lasting economic implications that affect revenues, student enrollment and livability across our seven-county region.
While many advocates have been working tirelessly on housing policy for decades, the issues are becoming more apparent across all sectors in which the labor movement operates. In new construction, industry standards are being undermined in the race to fill the void and issues such as labor trafficking are exploiting the broken system. Systematic changes are being discussed that greatly impact where people live and work. These type of changes drastically impact anyone who works in the public service sector such as education, transportation or social services.
Pro-active housing policies are a part of a strategy to address the gaps in employment and opportunity for our members of color. Our labor retirees, a rapidly growing universe, are also uniquely struggling with housing policies.
As a community we need to meet this challenge head-on with the involvement of all stakeholders. This includes the labor movement. We are uniquely positioned to ensure that the changes and initiatives that are implemented take into consideration a holistic approach to economic security for our communities. Band-Aid fixes won’t empower working families to live a life with dignity.
We invite the entire labor community to be a part of the conversation to determine our priorities for housing. The Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation will convene a “Labor and Housing Summit” May 30. To help write our story, we will meet with leaders, policy experts and union members directly impacted by the region’s affordable housing crisis. Join us to be a part of the discussion and to create a new vision for the region’s approach to housing.