| Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes, Chapter 13, what is the classification of the following data: street addresses of rental properties, occupied by recipients of rental assistance benefits, which are owned by the Washington County Housing and Redevelopment Authority? |
Discussion:
Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes, section 13.462, benefit data are data on individuals collected or created because an individual seeks information about becoming, is, or was an applicant for or a recipient of benefits or services provided under various housing, home ownership, rehabilitation and community action agency . . . programs administered by [government entities].
Pursuant to subdivision 3, benefit data are private, except for the following, which are public pursuant to subdivision 2:
Names and addresses of applicants for and recipients of benefits, aid, or assistance through programs administered by any [government entity] that are intended to assist with the purchase, rehabilitation, or other purposes related to housing or other real property are classified as public data on individuals. If an applicant or recipient is a corporation, the names and addresses of the officers of the corporation are public data on individuals. If an applicant or recipient is a partnership, the names and addresses of the partners are public data on individuals. The amount or value of benefits, aid, or assistance received is public data. (Emphasis added. The 2003 amendment is indicated by the underlined text.)
Prior to that amendment, the only benefit data that were public were data about individuals receiving benefits related to purchasing housing or other real property.
Ms. Brennan wrote:
The Authority is mindful of prior advisory opinions issued by the Department concerning benefit data. The Department concluded that the Minneapolis Public Housing Agency could not reveal the addresses of scattered site housing owned by the Agency because it constituted data that can identify recipients of housing benefits therefore making it private data under the Act. [See Advisory Opinion 94-009.] . . . The Department distinguished between home-ownership programs and rental-assistance programs. Except for certain data about individuals who seek and receive assistance to purchase housing or other real property, all benefit data are private data on individuals. Id. at 3 (emphasis added); see also Advis. Opin 97-021 at 4 (limiting public data to names or addresses to those purchasing housing or other real property and holding that rehabilitation grant recipients constitute private data). Similarly, in a later advisory opinion, the Department concluded that addresses contained in housing inspection reports involving Section 8 participants are private data if the individuals may be identified through the address. [See Advisory Opinion 02-048.]
Ms. Brennan cited Minnesota Rules, Part 1205.0200, subpart 4, which provides, in relevant part:
All data, in whatever form it is maintained, is 'data on individuals' if it can in any way identify any particular individual . . . . [including] if it identifies an individual in itself, or if it can be used in connection with other data elements to uniquely identify an individual. Such data shall include, but is not limited to, street addresses, job titles, and so forth where the particular data could only describe or identify one individual. (Emphasis added.)
She wrote:
In the present case, the Authority has received a request for street addresses involving rental assistance properties. Because the rental assistance properties are scattered-site housing units, the street addresses uniquely identify the families living in those rental units. The Authority's typical practice would be to withhold street address information as information that may identify specific tenant families, and therefore [sic] private data on individuals under section 13.462, subd. 3 and Minnesota Rules 1205.0200, subps. 4 and 9.
One might argue that one should refer to the provision in section 13.462, subdivision 2. But that provision, as the Department has reasoned in past cases, concerns home ownership, rather than rental assistance. It specifically refers to benefits that are intended to assist with the purchase, rehabilitation, or other purposes related to housing or other real property. Id. The rental assistance properties involved in the present case do not concern the purchase of homes, the rehabilitation of homes, nor [sic] other real property.
Under the Authority's past practices, the phrase other purposes related to housing should be read in the context of the narrow, surrounding language, which expressly concerns home ownership - house purchase and house rehabilitation. See State v. Suess, 52 N.W.2d 409, 415 (Minn. 1952) (statutory language must be construed in context of associated language; when two or more words are grouped together and ordinarily have a similar meaning, but are not equally comprehensive, the general word will be limited and qualified by the special word. ); Kolledge v. Famp;L Appliances, 80 N.W.2d 62, 64 (Minn. 1956) ( It is a cardinal rule of statutory construction that a particular provision of a statute cannot be read out of context but must be taken together with other related provisions to determine its meaning. ); Minn. Stat. section 645.17 ( The legislature intends the entire statute to be effective and certain ). And subdivision 2 must also be construed as a narrow exception to the general rule that benefit data are to remain private, as clearly and expressly stated in subdivision 3. Minn. Stat. section 13.462, subd. 3 ( all other benefit data are private data on individuals ).
. . . . To construe section13.462, subdivision 2, so broadly as to require even rental assistance families' names and addresses to be public data would be to give no effect to the general rule in subdivision 3 that benefit data on recipient families are private data on those families. But all parts of a statute must be given effect. Minn. Stat. sections 645.16-.17.
Construing section 13.462, subdivision 2 as applicable to home-ownership benefits, rather than rental-assistance benefits, is consistent with the overall statutory scheme and the Legislature's long-standing intent to protect home addresses from disclosure by public agencies that collect or have that information. Other provisions of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act require information concerning assisted families to remain confidential or private data on individuals and unavailable to the general public. See, e.g., Minn. Stat. section 13.585 (housing agency data, including income information on individuals). It would be absurd, and contrary to these privacy provisions, to protect income of tenant families as private data but release home addresses to the public, essentially identifying the families by income status as low income persons. See Swenson v. Waseca Mut. Ins., 653 N.W.2d 794, 797 (Minn. App. 2002) (courts must not construe statutes to produce an absurd result, or clearly at odds with the policy of the legislation as a whole. ), rev. denied (Minn. Feb. 29, 2004). The Legislature has not supported identifying Minnesota families to the general public by income status. See Minn. Stat. section 645.16(6) (legislative intent may be ascertained by considering the consequences of a particular interpretation ).
Prior to the 2003 amendment, section 13.462 classified, as public, data on individuals who applied for or received benefits to purchase housing or other real property through various housing programs. Historically, there were no income limits on qualification for those programs. Home rehabilitation and other programs (which provide assistance for, e.g., emergency aid for roofs and furnaces) typically did have income eligibility requirements.
Due to the 2003 amendment, data about individuals who receive housing benefits for rehabilitation or purposes other than purchase, even when those programs have income eligibility requirements, are now classified as public. However, it is the Commissioner's understanding that the Legislature intended the 2003 amendment to treat data about property owners who applied for or received housing benefits for rehabilitation purposes consistently with data about individuals who received assistance to purchase housing or other real property, but did not intend for data about all individual housing benefit applicant/recipients, such as those receiving rental assistance, to be public.
The Legislature did not define other purposes related to in its 2003 amendment to section 13.462, subdivision 2, and the dictionary definition of purposes is not helpful in this context. However, the relevant legislative history supports Ms. Brennan's analysis that the data in question are private under section 13.462. (IPAD staff relied, in part, on the recording of the Minnesota House Civil Law Committee hearing in which the 2003 amendment was heard, discussed, and approved.)
The Commissioner is aware that there is disagreement with respect to the classification of the data in question, and acknowledges that the meaning of other purposes related to housing or other real property might be construed to include rental assistance. However, as Ms. Brennan discussed, all provisions of a statute must be given effect. (See sections 645.16 and 645.17.) The Commissioner agrees with Ms. Brennan's assertion that to construe section13.462, subdivision 2, so broadly as to require even rental assistance families' names and addresses to be public data would be to give no effect to the general rule in subdivision 3 that benefit data on recipient families are private . . .
The Legislature has consistently acted to protect the identities of individual applicants for or recipients of various income-assistance programs. Had it intended to make such a significant departure from this long-standing policy, the Legislature could have been more explicit. Furthermore, in its 2003 amendment, the Legislature included clarifying language that specifically classifies as public the names and addresses of individual members of a housing benefit applicant or recipient that is a corporation or partnership, but it did not specifically classify as public the identities of individual applicants for or recipients of rental assistance.
As Ms. Brennan discussed above, and as the Commissioner previously has opined, under Minnesota Rules, part 1205.0200, subpart 4, home addresses are data on individuals. Addresses of the scattered-site housing (including individual unit numbers of multi-unit housing) the Authority owns are private housing benefit data, pursuant to section 13.462, subdivision 3, because the data identify individuals who receive housing benefits for purposes of rental assistance. (See also Advisory Opinion 94-009.)
In light of the confusion regarding the scope of the 2003 amendment, the Commissioner encourages the Legislature to clarify its intent.
A final note: Ms. Brennan indicated that MHOP receives federal funding; she did not discuss and the Commissioner is not aware of any provision in federal law that applies to and thereby classifies housing benefit data that the Authority maintains.
Opinion:
Based on the facts and information provided, my opinion on the issue that Ms. Brennan raised is as follows:
| Pursuant to Minnesota Statutes, section 13.462, street addresses of rental properties, occupied by applicants or recipients of rental assistance benefits, which are owned by the Washington County Housing and Redevelopment Authority, are private data. |
Signed:
Dana B. Badgerow
Commissioner
Dated: June 24, 2005
