Giving: In Pursuit of Racial Equity in Employment & Housing

For more than 50 years, Project for Pride in Living (PPL) has worked alongside individuals and families in the Twin Cities region to expand access to stable housing, meaningful employment and long-term financial wellbeing.

The Opus Foundation has partnered with PPL in that work for more than a decade, and, since December 2024, has committed more than $1 million in combined grant funding and impact investments to support PPL’s RE-Seed initiative.

Aligning Capital with Community Revitalization

PPL owns and manages more than 1,800 affordable housing units across the Twin Cities. Many of the organization’s smaller, scattered-site properties were acquired between 2008 and 2010 during the Great Financial Recession to stabilize distressed housing, retain local ownership and keep the housing affordable.

While those efforts strengthened neighborhoods, the portfolio’s size and geographic dispersion created long-term operational inefficiencies and rising maintenance costs. At the same time, PPL was more intentionally embedding equity across its programs, leadership and community engagement.

By applying an equitable lens to this operational challenge, PPL identified an opportunity to preserve affordable housing for their clients while helping emerging local developers build meaningful wealth, overcome systemic barriers to capital and stabilize neighborhoods.

That opportunity became RE-Seed.

RE-Seed is a community-centered real estate strategy that transfers small-unit affordable housing properties to emerging local developers, preserving affordability while creating meaningful asset-building opportunities.

“RE-Seed is about seeding ownership back into the community,” said Karla Henderson, President and CEO of PPL. “We stepped in years ago to stabilize these properties. Now we have an opportunity to transition them in a way that protects long-term affordability while creating real pathways to ownership and long-term wealth for developers who have been historically left out of real estate ownership and who reflect the neighborhoods they serve.”

The Foundation was a natural partner given their long-term partnership with PPL and their focus on community revitalization and workforce development.

Seeding Ownership Back into the Community

PPL set an initial goal to sell 41 smaller properties (208 units) over three to five years to developers rooted in the community. Phase 1 includes nine properties (30 units) in South Minneapolis that were made available for sale in 2024, and Phase 2 includes 17 properties (60 units) in North Minneapolis and Saint Paul currently being prepared for sale.

Before sale, PPL completes critical capital improvements, including roofs, windows and HVAC systems, ensuring buyers receive stable, viable assets without inheriting significant deferred maintenance. Residents are not displaced, and affordability protections remain in place.

The Foundation provided a $750,000 program-related investment in late 2024 to fund these improvements through a revolving structure. As properties are sold, proceeds repay and recycle the investment over a five-year period, multiplying long-term impact while maintaining financial discipline.

Complementing that investment, the Foundation simultaneously provided a $350,000 three-year grant that strengthens the people and systems behind the strategy. Grant funding supports technical assistance and coaching for emerging developers, continued homeownership and financial literacy services and cross-organizational impact measurement. The grant also builds internal capacity to integrate equitable development practices across PPL’s work.

In the first year of this grant, PPL supported 268 households in closing on homes through their homeownership coaching and education, providing access to $31.2 million in home value. 79% of these new homeowners identified as Black, Indigenous or people of color. The organization also supported 21 emerging developers with technical assistance through RE-Seed.

Learning and Adapting in Real Time

As an innovative model, RE-Seed has required patience and flexibility. While early pilot insights suggested properties could be sold on a defined schedule, more recent experience revealed the deeper work required to support first-time and early-stage developers – many navigating commercial underwriting, compliance requirements and capital access barriers for the first time.

That has meant extending timelines, strengthening technical assistance and working closely with community finance partners to ensure buyers are not only approved, but prepared. During its first full year of programming, PPL completed improvements on nine properties in its initial phase, laying the groundwork for future sales.

“Our ultimate goal is generational wealth where it hasn’t existed before, so we can’t treat this like a quick transaction,” said Henderson. “We’re helping developers build businesses that last. That requires preparation, patience and the right support structure – and we’re committed to that.”

This learning process underscores the value of patient, mission-aligned capital. Rooted in commercial real estate, the Foundation understands the complexity behind every transaction – from financing structures to capital improvements to long-term asset management – and has brought that expertise directly to RE-Seed, with board members touring properties and engaging alongside PPL leadership in conversations about risk, discipline and impact.

A Model for What’s Possible

RE-Seed represents more than a portfolio strategy. It reflects a broader shift in how affordable housing organizations can approach ownership, equity and long-term community stability.

By pairing flexible grant support with disciplined impact investment, the Foundation is helping PPL test and refine a model that centers community voice while maintaining financial rigor. The work is complex and iterative, but early momentum demonstrates strong interest from local developers seeking access, support and opportunity.

As RE-Seed continues to evolve, the partnership will remain focused on preserving affordable housing, strengthening neighborhoods and expanding pathways to ownership for those historically excluded from it.

“Real estate is complex work, and when done thoughtfully, it can be transformational,” said Kristin Ridley, Executive Director of the Opus Foundation. “PPL is doing the hard work well, and we’re committed to standing alongside them on this journey.”