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22 <br /> <br />local government itself. This can be important because the Trust Fund payments may not be <br />adequate to ensure adequate relocation for some residents. <br /> <br />The two other ways that cities and counties have provided assistance to these <br />communities is through park infrastructure investments and through financial assistance to <br />homeowner residents either to fix up their homes or down payment assistance to purchase newer <br />manufactured homes. Hennepin County, for example, provides homeowner rehab loans <br />(forgiveable if you remain in the home) which manufactured home park residents are eligible for. <br /> <br /> <br />PROTECTING LOWER INCOME HOMEOWNERS THREATENED BY RISING <br />PROPERTY TAXES <br /> <br />From our interviews with local officials for this report, it does not appear that low income <br />homeowners are threatened by displacement due to unaffordable property taxes to the same <br />degree tenants are threatened by escalating rents. Still, there are many individual instances <br />where fixed income and lower income homeowners feel stretched by rising property taxes, <br />particularly if they live in neighborhoods with rising values. <br /> <br />Cities or counties could in theory create tax relief measures for people in this situation, <br />but we recommend that the first course of action is to make sure homeowners are taking full <br />advantage of the multiple state programs designed to address unaffordable property taxes. Set <br />out below are a number of programs which could help people. To date, we have not discovered <br />any public education materials that collect all these programs and provide citizens with a simple, <br />easy to understand handout which cities and counties could provide their residents. If in fact no <br />such materials exist, we recommend that they be created. <br /> <br />Minnesota offers a combination of credits, refunds, exclusions, and deferrals to limit the <br />impact of property taxes on low-income residents. Cities and counties could explore other tools, <br />like the targeted partial deferral of property tax increases proposed by the “Save Our Homes” <br />campaign in 2010. However, funding relief programs at the state-level, rather than at the <br />municipal or county level, avoids shifting the tax burden to other local taxpayers, enables <br />residents of under-resourced areas to benefit from aid beyond what the locality could offer, and <br />avoids inequities among communities.65 Taxpayers receive the benefit of some programs, such <br />as tax credits, more or less automatically. For others, taxpayers must file paperwork with either <br />the local county assessor or the Commissioner of Revenue. Fair Housing Implementation <br />Council members should conduct public outreach to increase participation in such programs. <br /> <br />Minnesota residents that own and occupy their homes should confirm that their property <br />is classified as a residential homestead property.66 If not, eligible homeowners should file an <br /> <br />65 Daphne A. Kenyon, Adam H. Langely & Bethany P. Paquin, Property Tax Relief: The Case <br />for Circuit Breakers, Land Lines, Apr. 2010, at 8, 9. <br />https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/articles/property-tax-relief <br />66 MINN. DEP’T OF REVENUE, PROPERTY TAX FACT SHEET 10 (2018). <br />http://www.revenue.state.mn.us/propertytax/factsheets/factsheet_10.pdf