An official website of the Housing Appendix A - Glossary of Housing Terms
Accessible housing: A dwelling unit that has physical features, such as grab bars or an entrance ramp, that help tenants with mobility impairments gain full use and enjoyment of their apartment.
Accessory dwelling unit: An accessory dwelling unit (ADU) is a smaller, independent residential dwelling unit located on the same lot as a detached single-family home.
Affordable housing: For the purposes of this plan, the Met Council adopts the affordability definitions as set forth by HUD, under which housing is “affordable” for low- and moderate-income households when they pay no more than 30% of gross household income on housing.
Affordable Housing Trust Fund (also known as Local Housing Trust Funds): Local Housing Trust Funds (LHTF) are established by a local government by dedicating local public revenue for housing. They are a consistent, flexible resource for housing within a local jurisdiction.106
Area median income (AMI): 100% of the gross median household income for a specific Metropolitan Statistical Area, county or nonmetropolitan area established annually by HUD. The area median income is a critical component of housing-related activity, including eligibility for affordable housing programs. Housing units are often classified into varying levels of affordability based on how affordable it is to households earning incomes at various percentages of the regional AMI — for instance, many define “deeply affordable housing” as affordable to households with making 30% of the AMI.107
Blue Line Anti-Displacement Work Group: In response to concerns of displacement around the planned Blue Line Extension, Hennepin County and the Met Council launched a first-of-its-kind community-oriented anti-displacement initiative. To lead the initial phases of this work, Hennepin County contracted with the University of Minnesota's Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) to convene an Anti-Displacement Work Group that centered community voices and brought together diverse stakeholders to study and recommend anti-displacement strategies to help ensure the value of light rail will benefit current corridor residents, and minimize physical, cultural, and economic displacement.
Cost burden: Housing cost-burden describes households that pay 30% or more of their gross monthly income on housing costs.
Community designations: Community designations group communities with similar characteristics into typologies that help target policies for growth and development. In Imagine 2050, each city and township in the seven-county metropolitan area was assigned a community designation on the basis of existing development patterns, common challenges, and shared opportunities. For descriptions of specific community designations, refer to the Land Use Policy Plan section of Imagine 2050.
Comprehensive plan: Plans prepared and updated by cities, townships and, in some cases, counties, for local land use and infrastructure. Comprehensive plans provide guidelines for the timing and sequence of the adoption of official controls to ensure planned, orderly, and staged development and redevelopment.
Down payment assistance: A grant or loan given to homebuyers to help pay the down payment and/or closing costs for a new home. Programs are often tailored to specific populations like first-time homebuyers.
Equity: Please reference the definition of equity in the Equity Goal section of the Imagine 2050 regional development guide.
Fair Housing Implementation Council: The Fair Housing Implementation Council (FHIC) is composed of cities, counties, community development agencies and housing and redevelopment authorities who coordinate metro-wide efforts to affirmatively further fair housing and promote fair housing choice regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, family status, creed, sexual or affectional orientation, marital status or receipt of public assistance.108 HUD recognizes convening groups like the FHIC is a best practice for identifying and implementing fair housing practices.109
High-priority homelessness units: Households (individuals, families with children or youth) prioritized for Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) through the Coordinated Entry (CE) system.110
Historically excluded/marginalized/overburdened: Communities that are historically overburdened with health, social, and environmental inequities. Primarily descendants of slavery, communities of color, Indigenous peoples, low-income and disadvantaged communities that potentially experience disproportionate harms, risks, and cumulative social, economic and health impacts.
Housing element (part of the comprehensive plan): Under state statute 473.859, Subd. 2(c), a local comprehensive and land use plan must include a housing element containing standards, plans, and programs for providing adequate housing opportunities to meet existing and projected local and regional housing needs, including but not limited to the use of official controls and land use planning to promote the availability of land for the development of low- and moderate-income housing.
Housing First Framework: Housing First is a homeless assistance approach that prioritizes providing permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness, thus ending their homelessness and serving as a platform from which they can pursue personal goals and improve their quality of life. Housing First is based on the understanding that client choice is valuable in housing selection and supportive service participation, and that exercising that choice is likely to make a client more successful in remaining housed and improving their life.111
Inclusionary housing/zoning: Inclusionary zoning ordinances generally require that a minimum percentage of new housing units be set aside for low-income households. Inclusionary zoning can be mandatory or voluntary.
Income limits: Household income by county or Metropolitan Statistical Area, adjusted for household size and expressed as a percentage of the area median income (AMI) for the purpose of establishing an upper limit for eligibility for a specific housing program.
Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) Mortgage Product: ITINs are an alternative form of taxpayer ID issued to individuals who are not eligible for a Social Security Number, but who are required to file taxes in the U.S. Some lenders offer mortgage products that accept ITINs in place of SSNs. These products often use alternative credit history calculations and often have higher interest rates.112
Manufactured housing and manufactured home communities: Manufactured homes (sometimes known as mobile homes) are built to the Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards (HUD Code). Manufactured housing units are constructed off-site and on a chassis. Manufactured homes may be placed on privately-owned or community-owned property or on rented lots in communities (sometimes known as parks).
Metropolitan Land Planning Act: The Metropolitan Land Planning Act, passed in 1976 by the Minnesota State Legislature, provides the basis for local comprehensive plans in the seven-county Twin Cities region.
Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness: The Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness (MICH) is a cabinet-level body led by the Lieutenant Governor and is comprised of the commissioners of 14 state agencies and the chair of the Met Council. It is accountable for leading the state’s efforts to move towards housing, health, and racial justice for people experiencing homelessness.113
Missing middle: Refers to small and medium multifamily and attached single family homes.
Mixed-income housing: A mixed-income housing development is comprised of housing units with differing levels of affordability, typically with some market-rate housing and some housing that is affordable to low- or moderate-income households below market rate.
Multifamily housing: Multifamily housing refers to residential structures of five or more attached units.
Multigenerational living: A family household that contains at least two adult generations or a grandparent and at least one other generation.
Naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH): See Unsubsidized Affordable Housing.
Payment standards: A payment standard is the rent limit used to determine unit affordability and rent portions. Payment standards vary by bedroom size and location.114
Preservation: The act of extending affordability commitments and/or improving the physical and/or financial condition of existing affordable housing of any type.
Rent stabilization: Rent stabilization policies regulate how often, and by how much, landlords may increase the rent of given units.115
Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program: This HUD program provides rental assistance to low-income families in the form of vouchers that eligible households may use for the housing of their choice. The voucher payment subsidizes the difference between the gross rent and the tenant’s contribution of 30% of their adjusted income (or 10% of their gross income, whichever is greater).
Sewer Availability Charge (SAC): The Sewer Availability Charge (SAC) is a one-time fee imposed by Metropolitan Council Environmental Services to local cities and townships for each new connection made to the central sewer system or in response to an increase in capacity demand of the Metropolitan Disposal System. Any of the metro cities or townships subject to SAC may pass the SAC fee along to building or property owners but remain liable regardless for the payment.
Shared equity: Shared equity housing models are a specific type of housing strategy that creates shared ownership opportunities. Some models of shared equity housing can include community land trusts, deed-restricted homes, limited-equity housing cooperatives and resident-owned manufactured housing communities.116
Single-family housing/detached: A dwelling unit, either attached or detached, designed for use by one household and with direct access to a street. It does not share heating facilities or other essential building facilities with any other dwelling.
Social determinants of health: Social determinants of health refer to nonmedical factors influencing physical and mental health. They are the conditions in the environments where people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks.117,118
Specialist services: Special assistance for people who need help in areas like behavior management, independent living skills, communication skills, personal health, motor skills, and social skills.119
Subsidized affordable housing: Subsidized affordable housing is housing that is made available at below-market rates through the use of government subsidies.
Supportive housing: Affordable housing paired with home- and community-based services for those who have chronic mental or physical health conditions. Services can include access to health care, mental health supports, substance use supports, or other services that help people get into and stay in their housing.
Support services: A variety of essential resources that may support well-being, housing stability, health, community inclusion, education, and self-sufficiency.
Tenure: Tenure indicates whether a unit is owner or renter occupied. Examples include rental, cooperative, shared equity, limited and/or full homeownership.
Transit-oriented development (TOD): TOD is walkable, moderate- to high-density development served by frequent transit that can include a mix of housing, retail, and employment choices designed to allow people to live and work with less or no dependence on a personal car.
Universal design: Universal design is design practices intended to produce buildings, products, and environments that are accessible and usable to the greatest extent feasible regardless of age, ability, or status in life. Often used to refer to building accommodations made for older and disabled people, universal design features might include curb cuts or sidewalk ramps, cabinets with pull-out shelves, or placement of countertops at several heights to accommodate different tasks or postures.
Unsubsidized affordable housing: Unsubsidized affordable housing, also known as naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH), is housing that is not currently publicly subsidized. The rent prices that the housing can demand in the unsubsidized private market given the properties’ quality, size, or amenities is low enough such that the tenants of these properties, whose income might otherwise qualify them to be a participant in publicly funded housing programs, can reasonably afford them.
106. Minnesota Housing Partnership. Local housing trust funds. https://mhponline.org/local-housing-trust-fund-manual-for-minnesota/
107. Metropolitan Council. 2024 Ownership and rent affordability limits. https://metrocouncil.org/Housing/Planning/Affordable-Housing-Measures/Ownership-and-Rent-Affordability-Limits.aspx
108. Ramsey County Fair Housing Implementation Council. https://www.ramseycounty.us/your-government/departments/economic-growth-and-community-investment/community-economic-development/fair-housing-implementation-council
109. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Lessons from the Ground: Best Practices in Fair Housing Planning.
110. Minnesota Housing. (June 2024). Supportive housing information and resources. https://mnhousing.gov/content/published/api/v1.1/assets/CONT1E58D9037A284497BC680CCEB70D524A/native?cb=_cache_d3e8&channelToken=294436b7dd6c4570988cae88f0ee7c90&download=false
111. National Alliance to End Homelessness. (March 20, 2022). What is Housing First? https://endhomelessness.org/resources/toolkits-and-training-materials/housing-first/
112. Minnesota Homeownership Center. (May 3, 2022). Guide to individual taxpayer ID number (ITIN) mortgages in Minnesota. https://www.hocmn.org/blog-post/center-releases-guide-to-individual-taxpayer-identification-number-itin-mortgages-in-minnesota/
113. Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness. About the Council. https://mich.mn.gov/council#paragraphs-item-280
114. Metropolitan Council. (2025). Payment standards. https://metrocouncil.org/Housing/Services/Metro-HRA-Rental-Assistance/PaymentStandards.aspx?source=child
115. Office of Policy Development and Research. Options and Tradeoffs: Rent Stabilization Policies
116. NeighborWorks America. (2024). Share equity housing. https://www.neighborworks.org/Community/Shared-Equity-Housing
117. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Healthy People 2030. Housing instability. https://odphp.health.gov/healthypeople/priority-areas/social-determinants-health/literature-summaries/housing-instability
118. World Health Organization. (2025). Social determinants of health. https://www.who.int/health-topics/social-determinants-of-health#tab=tab_1
119. Disability Hub Minnesota. Definition: Specialist services. https://mn.db101.org/glossary.htm#_aS
120. Metropolitan Council. (July 2024). 2050 housing policy plan community exchange sessions report & affordability limits survey results. https://metrocouncil.org/Housing/Planning/2050-Housing-Policy-Plan/HPP-2050-Engagement.aspx
