St. Paul has opened applications for a new city-funded rent subsidy for low-income families with children in one of seven public elementary schools.

Mayor Melvin Carter said the $300 monthly checks should provide stability for young families, keeping them in the same apartment and school. The Families First program seeks to assist families who have a place to live but may be on the verge of losing it.

“We’re going to give families a helping hand before they ever get that deep in the crisis in the first place,” he said.

Carter said the program evaluation will track home and school mobility and academic outcomes. Studies have found students who change addresses during the school year perform worse than housing-stable students with comparable family incomes.

The five-year pilot program is the city’s third housing initiative since Carter took office.

The housing trust fund also pays for rental home rehabilitation and new affordable housing, and plans are underway for a down-payment assistance program for home buyers with low-to-moderate incomes.

The city council approved the $3 million rent subsidy in November, providing funds for up to 250 families over five years.

Carter said the idea for a school-based program was “already ruminating” when Maxfield Elementary Principal Ryan Vernosh in January 2019 tweeted his frustration about failing to find housing for a young family that night.

I'm mad as hell right now and need to get it off my chest… I'm sick & tired of seeing the impact of homelessness on the faces of our children every single day. I spent the bulk of today working w/ a family who doesn't have anywhere to stay at night.

1/x — Ryan Vernosh (@RyanVernosh) January 8, 2019

Vernosh’s tweets, Carter said, were “one of the things that really helped kind of get the ball rolling, and it also helped create the direct connection with St. Paul Promise Neighborhood.”

Four of the seven pilot schools — Maxfield, Jackson, Benjamin Mays and the chartered Saint Paul City School — are members of the Frogtown-area Promise Neighborhood, a federally funded program housed at the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation that provides a wide range of services through local schools.

The other three schools are Dayton’s Bluff, John A. Johnson and Saint Paul Music Academy, all of which are “Achievement Plus” schools that offer wraparound services with Wilder’s help.

Superintendent Joe Gothard said teachers and other staff at the schools will be referring families to the new housing program.

“Keeping students in their homes and their schools is vital for their future success,” he said.

To get the help, families must:

Have a child in preschool through third grade at one of the seven schools;

Have income at or below 30 percent of the area median, which is $30,000 for a family of four;

Not be receiving another housing subsidy, such as Section 8;

And pay rent that is at least 40 percent of their income.

Families can receive the $300 a month for up to three years. They’ll also work with staff who can refer them for additional services and mediate disputes with landlords.

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St. Paul City Council debates halting charter school bond requests for six months Minneapolis started a similar program last year called Stable Homes, Stable Schools, which aims to provide rental assistance to 320 families.

The state of Minnesota has its own rent assistance program, Homework Starts with Home, which began in 2014. A study found the state’s rent subsidies improved student attendance but the tools were not in place to ascertain other academic benefits.