About Us
Minnesota Green Communities seeks to ensure that all new affordable housing built in Minnesota is green. Additionally, the initiative aims to green rehab or retrofit 10,000 units of existing affordable housing by 2015. Minnesota Green Communities is a collaboration of the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund, the Family Housing Fund, and Enterprise designed to foster the creation of affordable, healthier, and more energy efficient housing throughout Minnesota. The initiative supports the production of affordable housing with markedly reduced energy costs, use of materials beneficial to the environment, conservation-minded land use planning, and attention to the creation of healthy environments and lifestyles for individuals, children, families, and communities.

Partners
Minnesota Green Communities is a statewide collaboration of the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund, the Family Housing Fund, and Enterprise. The National Green Communities initiative is a five-year commitment by Enterprise to build more than 8,500 healthy, efficient homes for low-income people and make sustainable development the mainstream in the affordable housing industry.

Click here to visit National Green Communities site

Membership of Minnesota Green Communities Advisory Committee
The Minnesota Green Communities Advisory Committee is a multidisciplinary team representing expertise in green building, affordable housing, community planning, environmental sustainability, real estate development, and health care.  The Minnesota Green Communities Advisory Committee works with the Minnesota Green Communities staff to implement the Minnesota Green Communities program.  The Committee provides input and guidance to the Minnesota Green Communities funding partners on ongoing program refinement and opportunities.  The Committee also identifies opportunities for information sharing, collaborates on best practices, incubates policy initiatives, and coordinates access to additional resources for the initiative. 

Chairs
Warren Hanson, Greater Minnesota Housing Fund
Tom Fulton, Family Housing Fund
Dana Bourland, Enterprise

- Erin Barnes-Driscoll, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
- Cathy Capone Bennett, Urban Land Institute
- John Carmody, Center for Sustainable Building Research
- Chip Halbach, Minnesota Housing Partnership
- Sarah Hernandez, McKnight Foundation
- Don Hickman, Initiative Foundation
- Dave King, Center for Energy and Environment
- Michael Krause, Kandiyohi Development Partners
- Mike LeBeau, Conservation Technologies
- Katy Lindblad, Minnesota Housing
- Alison Lindburg, Dovetail Partners, Inc.
- Michael Noble, Fresh Energy
- Dave Nozal, Tree Trust
- Carolyn Olson, Greater Metropolitan Housing Corporation
- Ron Price, Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Corporation
- Chris Reed, Reed Energy, Inc.
- Tom Sagstetter, Great River Energy
- Tom Schirber, Tom Schriber Consulting, LLC
- Jim Solem, Center for Urban and Regional Affairs and GMHF Board Member
- Dean Talbott, Minnesota Power
- Harold Teasdale, Minnesota Attainable Housing Corporation, Minnesota Brokerage Group
- Agatha Vaaler, The Green Institute
- Edward VonThoma, Buiding Knowledge, Inc.

Initiative Sponsors
Minnesota Green Communities would like to acknowledge the support of our core initiative funders who help make this initiative possible.

Blandin Foundation

Bush Foundation

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation

Travelers Foundation

The McKnight Foundation