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_~ ~~ ,r Star Tribune 1998 .] .~)L1~11i~ en a neighborhood is slipping, the telltale signs mount: unkempt yards, houses in poor repair, reluctance among residents to invest in improvements. But neighborhood decline doesn't have to happen. A northeast Minneapolis program, three years old this week, is showing how to preserve housing and neighborhoods. The HousingResource Center program has worked so well that this year it was expanded to far northwest Minneapolis and four suburbs; its sponsors celebrated the expansion Thursday with an open house at the new northwest office at 44th and Penn Ave. N. The three-year results of the HousingResource Center in northeast Minneapolis suggest how much residents served by the new northwest center will benefit: a lot. The northeast center has helped about 2,000 people get free expert advice on home repairs; assistance finding financing or getting grants; training for home ownership; help with foreclosure prevention, and more. The program is part of the Greater Minneapolis Metropolitan Housing Corporation (GMMHC), a business- supported nonprofit agency that aids housing for low- and moderate-income people. The agency began in 1970 as a response to urban problems. For most of its life GMMHC has provided predevelopment assistance to nonprofit housing developers; such assistance includes timely loans to enable projects to go forward (more than 14,000 housing units costing nearly $700 million). GMMHC also has built and rehabilitated homeowner housing (more than 1,000 units costing over $75 million). The resource center idea, once only an experiment, has become an effective tool; a third center is likely in south Minneapolis. The northwest center serves Minneapolis west of the Mississippi River and north of Lowry Avenue, as well as Robbinsdale, Brooklyn Center, Crystal and New Hope. The McKnight Foundation provided half the start-up funds of $100,000; the rest came from the four suburbs, Minneapolis, Hennepin County and a federal agency. The new center is finding differences from the northeast experience. Although northeast home ownership was above average, there were problems with aging and substandard housing and an aging population. A lot of fix-up was needed. In the suburbs, houses often are small and residents want additions; such investment can help reverse the decline of first-ring suburbs. So the University of Minnesota's Design Center for American Urban Landscape is designing home-addition options to guide residents who seek help at the northwest center, As in northeast Minneapolis, the northwest center will provide advice on renovation and construction. That center also should play a useful community role when the big Humboldt Corridor project, funded in part by the 1998 Legislature, begins to affect and reshape area housing. The lesson in all this: Housing and neighborhoods can be preserved. GMMHC is showing the way.