Housing Opportunity Enhancement (HOPE) Fund for Housing Developers

The Housing Opportunity Enhancement (HOPE) Fund is a locally funded program that provides loans for affordable housing development in Dakota County.

The HOPE Fund is designed to provide resources to create or preserve affordable housing throughout Dakota County for households whose income are not more than 80 percent of area median income for homeownership and 50 percent of area median income for rental developments.

Administered by the Dakota County Community Development Agency, funds are used as a source of gap financing in order to leverage public and private sector money for the creation or preservation of affordable housing units. Established to stretch existing resources, the HOPE Fund Program maintains a 2:1 match requirement of external project funding to HOPE dollars in order for projects to be successfully awarded funding. 

Since 2002, the HOPE Fund has enabled the creation or rehabilitation of 902 affordable housing units in Dakota County and has leveraged $16 for every $1 spent by the fund. 

For further information on the history and operation of the HOPE Fund, please read the evaluations of the fund (a link to these documents is located in the 'Quick Links' section on the right) or visit the Dakota County Community Development Agency's website (link also included on the right).

To contact the Dakota County Community Development Agency about the HOPE Fund, please call 651-675-4488.