Rep. Larry Kraft earns 2024 Housing Leadership Award
ST. PAUL – Rep. Larry Kraft (DFL-St. Louis Park) has received the Housing Leadership Award for 2024 from Housing First Minnesota. This award 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.”
Rep. Kraft issued the following statement:
“I’m honored to receive this reward. I hear so often from long-term residents of my community that they couldn’t afford their houses today, or that their kids can’t afford to live nearby. The lack of affordable housing choices for Minnesotans can be so immensely frustrating, can make the dream of owning a home seem unachievable to younger generations, and exacerbates the racial homeownership gap. That’s why we’re working so hard to bring forth initiatives and propose solutions that are responsive to what we’re hearing from Minnesotans.”
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