Beltrami County Housing Roundtable Discusses Need for All Types of Units

Sanford Health of Northern Minnesota and Greater Minnesota Housing Fund co-hosted a roundtable last week on Dec. 2 to discuss the housing crisis in Beltrami County and find possible ways to help with the lack of affordable housing.

The event was meant to showcase the results of the Beltrami County housing study conducted by Maxfield Research in 2024. At the roundtable, local governments, housing developers, and financial institutions all discussed ways to preserve and build more affordable housing units across the county.

The study states that there is a demand for 1,024 single-family housing units in the county by 2035. But during the event, state Rep. Spencer Igo (R, District 7A) said that all types of housing need to be built.

“”It’s not that we just need more single-family homes, we don’t just need more multifamily homes—we need all of them,” he elaborated. “We need to do and create policy that’s going to inspire growth in all diverse types of housing. Because when we create diverse forms of housing, we create affordability in the marketplace. So if there’s multiple options out there for every different type of housing consumer, you’re going to bring that price of housing down. And when you combine diversity and affordability, we create the thing that all of us want in this room: stability in housing.”

According to the study, based on age distribution projects for Beltrami County and Bemidji, housing demand growth is expected across a broad range of housing products, including units catering to the senior population, move-up ownership housing, entry-level ownership, and rental housing. Beltrami County has permitted an average of 76 single-family homes annually since 2018, but the study says that number needs to increase to at least 113 homes constructed annually.

“I think Bemidji has, 56% of its population is renting houses, so it’s a rental market right now,” state Rep. Bidal Duran (R, District 2A) told Lakeland News. “We need to balance that out a little bit more. We’ve got to get some homeowners in there, we’ve got to get some families inside the Bemidji area. What resources can we bring up to the area from the State of Minnesota with the limited stuff that we have right now? What can we do?”

You can access the full results of the study on the Beltrami County website.