What is Affordable Housing?

Affordable housing communities are townhomes and apartments that offer below market-rate rents to people earning 60% or less of the area median income.For example, if the middle income of an area is $40,000 per year, a household in that area would earn $24,000 or less per year to be considered low income. 

efanniemae.com provides an Area Median Income lookup tool. Click here for the tool, or here for a list of area median incomes in Minnesota. Do remember that there are a number of factors in determining eligibility, and we offer a wide variety of housing programs and services. We can help you determine which housing program you are eligible for. We also have market rate apartments available.

Types of Housing

Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (Section 42 and other programs): Tax Credit apartments are governed by section 42 of the IRS code, which is why they are sometimes called Section 42 housing. This program was set in place in the 1980’s as a program designed to assist median income households. The rent amounts for tax credit apartments are set based on 30%, 40%, 50%, or 60% of the median gross income for the area. The occupants of these apartments must, therefore, be at or below 30%, 40%, 50%, or 60% of the median gross income for the area, adjusted for household size.

The other main requirement of the tax-credit program is that at least one person has not or will not be a full time student during the current calendar year unless you are: married and filing joint taxes, a single parent claiming your child on your taxes, participating in a state or federal job training program, a recipient of public assistance, or one member of your household was in foster care within the last five years.  
Click here for a list of our Section 42 apartments and townhomes.   

Section 8: A government program that allows low income residents to pay only 30% of their income to live in safe housing and avoid becoming cost-burdened.There are two types of Section 8 programs: Section 8 vouchers and project based Section 8. Click here for a list of our Section 8 apartments and townhomes.

Project-based Section 8 - an affordable housing subsidy is connected to the rental unit rather than the resident. The subsidy provides the difference between the market rate value of the home and 30% of the resident’s income. If the resident moves, the subsidy will go to the next qualified resident who moves into the Section 8 unit.

Section 8 Vouchers are given to individuals rather than properties. CommonBond welcomes people with Section 8 vouchers. Once a person acquires a Section 8 Voucher from the government, their household can choose to live at many properties (market rate or affordable) and the government pays the difference between 30% of the renter’s income and the fair market rate of an apartment in that area. 

Section 202: The Section 202 program is designed to help expand the supply of affordable housing with supportive services for the elderly. It provides very low-income elderly with options that allow them to live independently but in an environment that provides support activities such as cleaning, cooking, transportation, etc.HUD provides interest-free capital advances to private, nonprofit sponsors like CommonBond to finance the development of supportive housing for the elderly. The nonprofit sponsors are then able to charge lower rates for rents. Click here for a list of our Section 202 apartments and townhomes.

Market Rate: Rents based on the housing market. Click here for a list of our Market Rate properties.

Rental terms

Wait List Open: Housing communities with immediate openings or a short wait list. 

No Vacancies/Waiting list closed: If a wait list gets too long, it is closed until enough people on the list are placed in a home.

Service terms

Advantage Services: CommonBond services provided on-site at CommonBond housing communities to CommonBond residents.  Advantage Services work to ensure that our housing serves as a steppingstone to success for the people who live there. The services at each housing community vary by that community’s needs, but often include computer labs, youth programming, career help and health services.

Advantage Centers: Advantage Services are provided through Advantage Centers. Advantage Centers are the physical, on-site resource centers. These offices, community rooms and computer labs are a point of access- access to technology, services, information and support.

Youth achievement: One of the goals of CommonBond Advantage Services for family communities. Through  academic and social mentoring programs like Study Buddies and out of school programming like Summer Fun, services aim to help resident kids achieve academically and socially. We measure success by the number of participants who are able to move up a grade level.

Study Buddies: CommonBond’s one-on-one mentoring program that pairs resident youth with trained volunteers. Study Buddy pairs meet weekly during the academic year to work on homework, computer skills and enrichment activities.

Learning Circles: CommonBond’s mentoring program for youth in St. Paul. Learning Circles partners an AmeriCorps member, a volunteer and groups of resident youth. The groups meet twice weekly to work on academic and social learning.

Independent living: One of the goals of CommonBond Advantage Services for seniors and special needs. Services at senior and special need housing communities aim to keep seniors living independently in their own homes as long as possible. Success is measured by the number of residents these services were able to prevent from entering an institution.

Career Advantage:   CommonBond’s comprehensive employment and professional development program offered at high need communities. Career Advantage works to help work-age adult residents find and keep jobs, develop career paths and achieve professional goals.