HOME Line is a statewide non-profit advocacy and legal service provider for all Minnesota renters. We are unique in that we serve the entire state and provide legal advice through a tenant hotline to any and all renters who contact us regardless of income, issue, or location. Because of this, we have both a unique perspective on the trends that renters face, and access to many of the people who are most impacted by unfair and inequitable rental housing practices in every Minnesota county. Since opening in 1992, we’ve advised over 250,000 renter households. On average we advise over 1,000 clients per month.
Despite not having any restrictions on who we advise (besides being a renter), the vast majority of the households we serve are low-income (88% within HUD low, very-low, and extremely-low guidelines in 2018), and female (70% in 2018). Statewide in 2018, 38% of our clients were people of color; this increases to 44% people of color within the 7-county Twin Cities Metro area. Per 2015 5-year ACS data, 76% of renter households statewide in Minnesota are white. Racial equity is a key focus of our work because of the disproportionate number of households of color who rent and face harmful housing and legal issues–particularly among immigrant communities. This is one of the reasons why we have attorneys and tenant advocate staff who speak Spanish, Somali, and Hmong.
We also have considerable legal expertise and experience working on policy issues. HOME Line works on federal, state, and local level, almost always in coalition work and/or coalition-building.
• Federally, we are active members of the National Low Income Housing Coalition and work extensively on its policy campaigns. This includes, responding to the pandemic, advocating for provisions to enact a uniform, 12-month eviction and foreclosure moratorium policy and providing $100 billion in emergency rental assistance as part of Congress’s HEROES Act. We also play an active role in the formation and coalition-building of the Minnesota chapter of Opportunity Starts at Home (OSAH). OSAH is a long-term, multi-sector campaign to meet the rental housing needs of the nation’s low-income people.
• On a state level, we are part of the Homes for All coalition and play the lead role in its advocating for tenant protections and tenant rights. For example, among other issues, Homes for All has joined us in advocating getting eviction expungement reform and pre-eviction notice legislation. Prior to the state legislature having to put a laser-focus on COVID-19, our eviction expungement legislation was in the queue of legislation the Minnesota House was set to take up for a floor vote.
• Also on a state front, HOME Line participates in key impact litigation on issues of critical importance to tenant rights. Most recently we submitted an amicus brief in support of the City of Minneapolis in a case at the Minnesota Supreme Court that affirmed that a new city ordinance prohibiting discrimination against prospective tenants on the basis of requirements associated with a public assistance program is constitutional. Last year we argued a case on behalf of a tenant at the Minnesota Supreme Court that resulted in a new common law defense for tenants, effectively saying that a landlord cannot file an eviction against their tenant if their motivation for doing so is retaliatory.
• Some of our greatest recent successes have been in local campaigns. For example, HOME Line organized on a local level to support efforts in both Minneapolis and St. Paul to enact slates of tenant protection ordinances. Many renters face barriers to accessing quality, affordable housing, especially low-income households, people of color, and individuals with criminal backgrounds and eviction histories. That is why we worked with local allied organizations in both cities to gather support for ordinances regulating tenant screening, limiting security deposits, and in the case of St. Paul, implementing a new Just Cause notice requirement to protect tenants from informal evictions. These are critical steps that will directly impact tenants living in NOAH housing units where we have seen management practices that are designed to screen out and/or displace our disproportionately low-income clients and clients who identify as people of color.
Finally, we have also prepared multiple FAQ’s and other COVID-19 legal resources on our website, and have held weekly webinars to share general COVID-19 legal information, especially about the eviction suspensions, along with Q&A for a variety of audiences since mid-April (recordings here). Over 1,800 tenants, social workers, and landlords have watched these live presentations and over 1,200 have watched recorded versions.
For more information, contact: Michael Dahl, Public Policy Director at michaeld@homelinemn.org or http://homelinemn.org.
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