2025 Summit Addresses Need For More Housing in St. Cloud Area

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- A coalition of organizations continues to work towards creating more housing options in the St. Cloud Metro area. The 2025 Housing Summit was held last month at St. Cloud State University.

CentraCare Housing Consultant Kathy Parsons says a recent study said St. Cloud needs 17,000 new housing units in the next 15 years. She says that number will be tough to achieve, but progress is being made.

Stearns County has already created a housing trust fund. It's only $100,000, but that's money we didn't have before to help with some of those basic early studies. Benton and Sherburne are doing the same thing.

Parsons says there's also a significant change in zoning in St. Cloud and Stearns County.

The city of St. Cloud, as an example, is allowing ADUS (Accessory Dwelling Units). Stearns County just passed that as well, so people with farms can do that.

Parsons says the group continues to look at successful models in other communities.

Parsons says while progress is being made, there are still more tools available locally that aren't being utilized.

Land trusts are one of those. There is a land trust in the area, we can do that, and amplify the use of that. There's the state housing tax credit that this area has not particularly used. Communities that have used that credit have found a lot of success.

Parsons says it's the goal of the coalition to streamline the process to help developers get their projects off the ground.

We want a pipeline of projects that will get us to where we want to go. Right now, there's not necessarily a pipeline where we can say what does this developer need from the community to support this project.

About 105 people attended the summit.

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She says CentraCare is at the table because it is the area's largest employer, and if people can't find an affordable place to live, then we don't have a workforce. And, because housing is health, if you don't have stable, secure housing, you can't stay healthy.