How Your Tax Dollars Can Help Build Local Homes

UNDATED (WJON News) -- Central Minnesota Habitat for Humanity is giving you a heads-up now for an annual state program that will open up next month.

Executive Director Chad Bouley is encouraging you to participate in the State Housing Tax Credit.

It's a program that allows you to redirect your income tax dollars to local affordable housing projects. Eighty-five percent of your contribution becomes a tax credit.

Bouley says there are three specific projects they will work on in 2026 that are eligible for the program.

We have three projects coming up.  They are SabreCon 5 out of Sartell, Tiger 10 out of St. Cloud, and Elk 1, our first project in Elk River.  Funds can be allocated to any of these projects once the 2026 allocation opens up.

Each calendar year, $9.9 million in state housing tax credits are available. In the first year of the program in 2023, all of the tax credits were not used; in 2024, all the credits were used up by October, and in 2025, the tax credits were used by March. Bouley says it's anticipated that this year's tax credits could be gone within the first week.

Bouley says the process is relatively simple.

I did it last year, and the whole process took about two weeks to run through the state, and then to issue me my tax credit notification.  That notification, when you send in your taxes at the end of the year, you send that in with it, and that will give you basically 85 percent off of whatever you put in.

You need to contribute a minimum of $1,000.

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The 2026 Minnesota Housing Tax Credit Program is anticipated to open in late January or early February.