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Rebecca Evans is trying to raise three children with her husband. She was working two jobs but had to quit to take care of one of her children. 

While her husband makes good money, the Oshkosh resident said their household costs just keep rising.

“With grocery prices and gas prices, we’ve had to go on government assistance, and that’s not something that I want to be doing,” Evans told WPR, speaking outside of a Pick ‘n Save grocery store in Oshkosh. “But I have no choice. It’s definitely a hard time financially right now.”

She isn’t the only one feeling pinched.

The latest Marquette Law School poll released Sept. 30 found that 45% of Wisconsin voters cited inflation and the cost of living as their most important issue this election cycle. No other issue even came close.

That’s as average gas prices in Wisconsin sit above $4 per gallon and the inflation rate nationally has remained above 3% since March.

Both candidates running for Wisconsin governor agree that affordability is the state’s biggest challenge, but they’re offering starkly different ideas on how to address it.

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany’s plan addresses affordability primarily through tax cuts and deregulation while Democratic Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley’s plan focuses on creating or expanding state programs to address rising household costs.

Tiffany, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, is running in a midterm election that could become a referendum on the administration’s handling of the economy.

In 2024, Trump campaigned in Wisconsin on lowering prices. Two years later, the September Marquette poll showed 65% of registered voters said they think Trump’s policies will increase inflation.

Evans said she voted for Trump two years ago hoping he would fight for the working class.

“I’m not seeing any change whatsoever,” she said. “He seems to be doing a lot there, but it’s not affecting me at all, and I’m very disheartened. I’m not happy at all with the way he’s doing things.”

Fuel prices, tariff costs leave voters feeling pinched

In the Midwest, inflation over the last year has been around 3.6%, driven in large part by rising prices of oil and gas related to the war in Iran, said David Fuller, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Fuller said gas prices can be especially difficult for consumers because daily commutes remain the same even when fuel costs rise.

Evans, the mother from Oshkosh, said gas prices have been a major source of financial hardship in her household over the last year.

“My husband works like 50 minutes away, so gas to and from is a huge chunk out of his paycheck,” she said. “He’s considering changing jobs just because the gas is taking away a good part of his income.”

Another Oshkosh resident, Alexzandria Wiegand, planned a cross-country road trip months ago in response to a spike in airline prices during the beginning of the Iran war.

“We weren’t planning for gas prices to be this high,” she said. “We’re still in a position where we’re going to go with it, but it’s not ideal.”

High oil prices also filter through the rest of the economy by raising the cost of shipping goods throughout the country and the globe. That means high gas prices are reflected in higher prices on other goods.

On top of rising gas prices related to the war in Iran, consumers have also had to navigate an international trade war and a flurry of tariffs imposed by Trump since returning to office.

The nonprofit Tax Foundation estimates tariffs imposed in 2025 amounted to a $1,000 tax increase per U.S. household on average. This year, it’s estimated the average tax increase to households from tariffs will be $820.

And while Wisconsinites have been facing high inflation since the COVID-19 pandemic, wages have struggled to keep up with rising prices over the last year, Fuller said.

“Real wages, which are wages adjusted for inflation, are down slightly over the past year — and a little bit more in Wisconsin than nationally,” he said. “That’s why consumers are rightfully noticing that the cost of living has increased faster than their wages have gone up.”

Median wages in Wisconsin have generally kept pace with overall inflation over the last 25 years, but the costs of many household essentials, like housing and health care, have outpaced both inflation and wages over that period. That’s according to a report from Forward Analytics, the research arm of the Wisconsin Counties Association.

Jeremy Albrecht, a nurse from Oshkosh, said he and his wife both work middle-class jobs and it doesn’t feel like their incomes are keeping up with the cost of living.

“It is harder for families to get by these days,” he said. “I can’t even imagine someone making less than what my wife and I do, like how they can get through this.”

Candidates for governor offer competing visions to address affordability

The two major-party candidates for governor have offered competing visions for trying to provide relief to residents.

Crowley and Tiffany have said they want to increase housing supply, address rising utility bills and repeal Wisconsin’s minimum markup law to lower gas prices. But they differ on the role state government should play.

Crowley’s plan focuses on lowering costs of essentials, including child care, health care and housing, through increased state spending. Meanwhile, Tiffany’s proposal focuses on delivering savings to residents by cutting income and property taxes, eliminating taxes on tips and cutting regulations.

Crowley’s proposal calls for increasing funding to existing child care providers to give families access to subsidized child care slots, as well as expanding BadgerCare and increasing funding for housing programs addressing supply and demand.

Crowley didn’t specify how the plan would be funded, but suggested the state could use its roughly $3 billion budget surplus, as well as taxes on “billionaires” and “billionaire companies.” 

“This is about how we’re going to uplift communities,” he told WPR. “We have to tackle the affordability crisis, whether we’re talking at the gas pump, groceries, housing, child care, health care, you name it.”

Meanwhile, Tiffany’s plan calls for cutting regulations that he says make it more expensive for companies to do business and result in higher prices for consumers, from housing to child care.

On taxes, his plan includes a 10% tax cut for families earning less than $150,000 per year. It also calls for freezing property taxes after repealing a partial veto from Gov. Tony Evers that increased school district revenue limits for 400 years, and returning the state surplus to residents.

“We are going to return more money to the people of the state of Wisconsin,” Tiffany told WPR. “State government has plenty of money. It does not have a revenue problem, it has a spending problem.”

Crowley and Tiffany have traded barbs over their respective plans and records.

Tiffany has attacked Crowley for tax increases in Milwaukee County, arguing the county executive would raise taxes statewide. Meanwhile, Crowley has attacked Tiffany for his votes in Congress, framing him as a rubber stamp for Trump. 

Midterm politics and affordability challenge collide

While both candidates say they want to address affordability, Fuller, the UW-Oshkosh economist, said the governor’s powers to affect national policies fueling inflation — from foreign wars to tariffs — are quite limited.

“There isn’t a whole lot that local or state politicians can do to meaningfully affect the inflation rate because that tends to be driven by national forces,” Fuller said. “In this case, it’s the price of energy, it’s actions by the Federal Reserve Bank (and) the federal government — those things are driving inflation.”

Even so, Crowley said he believes the governor has a role to play when it comes to the national economy.

“A governor may not be able to do much, but we can stand up to this Trump administration,” he said.

Tiffany said he believes his opponent is too focused on Trump, and the governor would need to work with the president on disaster relief. 

While Tiffany has broken with Trump on some issues, including renaming Lake Ontario and recently calling for an end to the Iran war, he defended many of Trump’s policies and argued the president should be judged by his full term.

“He’ll be judged by history — he’ll be judged over the course of his four years,” Tiffany said.

In the September Marquette Poll, Trump had a negative approval rating in Wisconsin at 38%, and 60% of voters disapproved of Trump’s job performance.

Aaron Weinschenk, a political science professor at UW-Green Bay, said midterm elections are generally tough for the president’s party if voters feel they aren’t getting ahead economically.

“Maybe it matters more in a race like ours, where we’re a battleground state and things are looking to be pretty tight between the candidates,” he said. “It might be that (the candidates) don’t even need to talk necessarily about the economy. They could just talk about the president in general.”

While he said candidates’ economic plans and platforms are important for accountability, Weinschenk admitted most voters don’t actually read them in detail.

“A lot of people are operating on much more simple cues than reading a document from the candidate,” Weinschenk said. “They know how things are going in their life. They know which party they like. They know how they feel about the president. Those are pretty good guides for the decisions they’re going to make.”

For Evans, the former Trump voter from Oshkosh, affordability is her top concern this election, though she hadn’t yet made up her mind in the governor’s race.

“It is top of mind because it affects us so greatly,” she said. “It’s something that I think about every day, ‘Oh man, where’s the money gonna come from here?’ And it’s definitely on the forefront of my mind and how I would vote.”

This story was produced as part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, a consortium of five news outlets.

Affordability is a top issue for Wisconsin voters. Here’s where governor candidates stand is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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President Donald Trump says he will approve nearly $18 million in disaster relief for Wisconsin related to the tornado and severe storms that hit the state this summer.

The president made the announcement in a Truth Social post Wednesday. Gov. Tony Evers made a request for a federal disaster declaration in August related to the tornado that ripped through the Fox Valley in late July. 

An EF-3 tornado hit Menasha on July 27, plowing through the city, destroying homes, overturning cars and uprooting trees. The storms also caused damage in Forest, Outagamie, Vilas and Winnebago counties.

Trump’s social media post announcing the money did not reference Evers’ request but did call attention to U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for governor. In his post, Trump said he “just spoke with Tom Tiffany, who has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be the next Governor of the Great State of Wisconsin.”

Trump said he would be approving $17.9 million for severe storms and tornadoes Wisconsin experienced.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, has not yet posted that the disaster declaration had been approved on its website as of Wednesday afternoon.

The federal agency put out a statement later Wednesday evening announcing that federal disaster assistance was available “to supplement recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe storms and tornadoes on July 27, 2026.”

The FEMA statement did not include a dollar amount of aid available. It stated that aid would include grants for temporary housing and home repairs, low-cost loans and other programs to help families and individuals. It also stated that assistance would be available to state, local and tribal governments, along with some nonprofit organizations, in Vilas and Winnebago counties.

In Evers’ request to the president, the damage to residential buildings from the July 27 storms was estimated to be more than $8.2 million while government property suffered another $13.8 million in damage.

A spokesperson for the governor’s office said it did not have any additional information beyond the content of the president’s post. 

In a post responding to the president’s apparent approval of relief, Evers said, “Wisconsinites will believe it when we see it.”

“Clearly, President Trump and Congressman Tiffany are continuing to play politics with emergency aid that’s meant to help communities recover in the wake of disasters like tornadoes and floods,” Evers added. “That’s Complete and Total (Bull****).”

In a statement, Tiffany said securing federal disaster relief is a priority and he had been in “regular contact with the administration.”

“Today, President Trump called to let me know that roughly $18 million in aid for Wisconsin has been approved,” Tiffany stated. “I appreciate the administration responding to Wisconsin’s needs.”

U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Glenbeulah, also issued a statement, thanking Trump for announcing the funding after Wisconsin’s bipartisan congressional delegation advocated for federal support in response to the July storms.

“Local officials, first responders, and community members have worked hard to help their communities recover, and federal assistance can help build on those efforts,” Grothman stated. “I especially want to thank the volunteers who have given their time to help neighbors clean up and begin rebuilding.”

The city of Menasha was the hardest hit community by the tornado. According to the state’s request for federal aid, 663 homes were damaged, including 140 that were unsafe and likely needed to be demolished.

Menasha Mayor Austin Hammond said the city was aware of the president’s announcement, but had received no confirmation from state or federal emergency management officials that the disaster relief had been approved. 

“We’re waiting for additional details,” he said. “Once we’ve received a bit more confirmation from (Wisconsin Emergency Management) and FEMA, then everybody — city staff, other governing agencies — will disseminate that information out as quickly and accurately as possible.””

Hammond said the community’s recovery effort hinges on federal relief coming to the community.

“The support of the federal government is imperative to the road to recovery, which will be long,” he said. “It’s going to be months and years, so that support is imperative.”

Winnebago County Executive Gordon Hintz said the county was “encouraged” by Trump’s announcement, but did not yet have any details on the disaster relief.

“The president’s out there and he’s committing federal resources, and I’m encouraged by that,” he said. “On the other hand, we don’t have the details on exactly what it means, where the dollar figures align with what the reported damages are.”

Trump’s announced nearly $18 million comes in more than $4 million short of the $22 million in damage to private and government property identified in the state’s request for federal aid.

While he’d like more information, Hintz added that he’d rather “have a positive commitment made by the president than nothing.”

“Maybe the administration made the approval and he was excited to get out there, and the information will be forthcoming,” he said. “But this is how President Trump has done most things, and apparently, disaster relief is no different.”

This story was originally published by WPR.

Trump announces nearly $18M in disaster relief for tornado, storm damage in Wisconsin is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Adam Paul, who owns Vintage Rose Bakery & Sandwich Shop in west De Pere with his wife, says health care is the biggest financial stress he faces.

He struggles with mental health, and his wife has a thyroid condition. For the last three months, Paul said they’ve been negotiating with their insurance provider to try to get an MRI covered for his wife’s condition.

“Fighting with the insurance company, and owning a business at the same time, to get things covered is a nightmare,” Paul said. “It’s a constant fight of, ‘OK what is my health worth?’”

As a business owner, he said he “would love” to offer his employees insurance, but his company is just “way too small” for him to make it work financially.

Paul and other Brown County community members spoke at an affordability roundtable in De Pere last month, moderated by former Democratic Party of Wisconsin chair Ben Wikler.

Paul wasn’t the only one at the roundtable who spoke about health care costs being a major source of financial stress.

Inflation and cost of living rank as the top issue among Wisconsin voters, according to a September Marquette Law School Poll. Health insurance was the third highest ranking issue among voters and outranked data centers, abortion, schools or crime.

Candidates running for Wisconsin governor, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Democratic Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, both say they want to lower health care costs and make care more accessible. But they’re offering different views on how to do that.

Wisconsin hospital prices among highest in nation as ACA coverage declines

From 2000 to 2025, the cost of many essential goods and services rose faster than median incomes in Wisconsin, according to a recent report from Forward Analytics, the research arm of the Wisconsin Counties Association. 

The biggest increase among essential costs came from hospital services, which increased by 274%, the report found. Median household incomes in Wisconsin increased by an estimated 90% over the same period.

Dan Sacks, a professor of risk and insurance at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, said health care, in general, is expensive — accounting for around 18% of the nation’s gross domestic product.

He said Wisconsin’s hospital prices are among the highest in the nation, as the health care sector has become “dominated by a relatively small number of very important health systems.”

He said those who buy insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace are seeing higher costs after pandemic-era subsidies ended at the start of the year. He said the subsidies helped keep ACA premiums down.

Sacks said tens of thousands fewer Wisconsinites enrolled in ACA coverage this year than last year, and people are generally “paying more out of pocket for their health care.”

Beyond the ACA marketplace, Medicaid work requirements included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act are set to begin at the start of 2027, which would affect those enrolled in BadgerCare, Sacks said. 

“In Wisconsin, the work requirements will apply only to childless adult BadgerCare members,” Sacks said.

Crowley, Tiffany differ on the role government should play

While both candidates say they want to lower health care costs and expand access to care, Tiffany and Crowley differ on the role government should play in achieving those goals.

Crowley’s health care proposal calls for opening up BadgerCare enrollment to any household that wants it, making premiums based on income and giving targeted subsidies to small businesses, single parents, college students, farmers and gig workers.

The plan also proposes making BadgerCare comprehensive to include medical, dental, vision and mental health care.

“It’s about creating BadgerCare as an alternative to for-profit insurance, giving our veterans, our entrepreneurs, our students, our child care workers, anybody, the ability to pay into a system that’s going to be cheaper and is going to work well for them, so they don’t fall through the cracks,” Crowley told WPR.

Meanwhile, Tiffany’s health care proposal calls for requiring hospitals and insurance companies to provide upfront prices to patients, allowing primary care patients to pay their doctor directly through a subscription model and allowing the Wisconsin Farm Bureau to offer health plans to members.

The plan also calls for increased oversight of pharmacy benefit managers, which he says contribute to higher prescription drug costs.

“We’re going to create a system that makes health care more affordable in Wisconsin and brings greater resources to the table to make sure that we have top-notch health care,” Tiffany said. “We are going to make sure that all health care providers provide maximum transparency.”

Crowley has been critical of Tiffany for his vote in favor of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and its Medicaid spending cuts. Tiffany has defended the bill for providing funding for rural health care and said he supported a federal rule that could bring additional Medicaid funding to the state.

This story was produced as part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, a consortium of five news outlets.

Wisconsin governor candidates offer opposing plans to address rising health care costs is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Data centers may provide a major economic development opportunity for local communities in Wisconsin, but concerns around water and energy use and potential costs to residents have made them increasingly controversial.

A new report from the Wisconsin Policy Forum aims to put those issues — and Wisconsin’s data center debate — into context. Researchers examined tax incentives supporting those projects as well as their energy and water use.

Three major data center projects are in varying stages of development in Mount Pleasant, Port Washington and Beaver Dam. Others have been proposed but canceled in DeForest, Greenleaf and Janesville as polling has shown the issue to be unpopular with the public.

Communities have ‘significant protections’ under data center incentive deals

State law allows qualified developers to avoid paying sales and use tax on most purchases supporting the construction and operation of a data center.

The Legislative Fiscal Bureau estimates Wisconsin will lose out on $1.5 billion in sales tax revenues related to data center construction between 2024 and 2028, as well as forgo $369 million annually in sales tax revenue related to data center operations.

Wisconsin is one of 38 states that offer tax incentives to data centers. Jason Stein, one of the report’s authors, said without its sales tax exemption, Wisconsin might not have attracted the prominent developments.

“I think it’s reasonable to think that a lot of this investment — maybe most of this investment — would not have occurred without the incentive,” he said.

The report says the state could “recoup a significant portion of the forgone sales tax revenues” if the sales tax exemption helped attract a significant share of data center investment to Wisconsin.

That’s through income and sales taxes paid by construction workers and corporate income taxes paid by construction companies, as well as additional taxes paid by utilities serving data centers. 

Data centers are also expected to generate increased property tax revenues in the communities hosting them. 

Researchers reviewed local development agreements in Mount Pleasant, Port Washington and Beaver Dam, as well as proposed deals in communities where developments fell through. They found that, in general, local communities were striking “reasonable deals” that included financial safeguards.

Those safeguards often included limits on municipal borrowing, guaranteed property values and incentives tied to project performance, the report said.

“If the developer and the community follow through on their agreement and it moves forward as laid out, then those agreements offer substantial protections for the communities,” Stein said. “There are significant protections in each of these deals.”

Data centers use water, but Wisconsin water use has declined

While much of the public debate around data centers in Wisconsin has centered around water use, policy forum researchers found the bigger challenge is meeting the large electricity demands of those projects while protecting existing ratepayers.

That’s because water use in Wisconsin has declined over the past generation as some heavy industry left the state, industrial and residential users became more efficient and electric utilities shifted some energy generation from “water-intensive” coal plants to natural gas and renewable energy, the report said.

From 2011 to 2024, water withdrawals in the state fell by more than 500 billion gallons, or almost 24%, according to the report. 

The three main data center projects in Wisconsin are projected to use less water than the decline in water withdrawals over that period, the report states.

“We were on this track to use less and less water because of changes in our society, and maybe this will slow that down somewhat,” Stein said. “But that is a different thing than saying, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re using more water than ever before.’”

For example, Racine Water Works, the utility providing water for Microsoft’s data center campus in Mount Pleasant, saw its annual water sales decline by 2.3 billion gallons from 2000 to 2025, according to the report.

That’s “more than 250 times” as much water as the 8.4 million gallons annually Microsoft’s data center will use when fully operational, the report states. 

Electricity demand expected to rise significantly

While long-term declines in water use are expected to help offset demand from data centers, Wisconsin’s electricity demand is expected to grow, in large part driven by demand from data centers.

Peak demand from all customers on the grid is expected to rise from 14.6 gigawatts in 2024 to 19.9 gigawatts by 2030, the report states. 

A recent report from state utility regulators found data centers were driving that projected peak demand growth.

The report found that the state Public Service Commission modified proposals from We Energies and Alliant Energy establishing rates for data center-scale customers to shield existing residential customers from costs associated with data centers.

But it remains to be seen how data centers will affect transmission rates, which are set at the federal level, said Tyler Byrnes, one of the report’s authors. 

“It’s a little bit easier to do the math on one power plant for one data center, whereas you’re starting to divide up electrons moving across power lines (and) across state lines, so it’s more complicated,” he said.

He also said there is not currently an approved data center rate framework for developments of that scale outside the service territories of Alliant Energy and We Energies. He said policymakers may want to consider adopting a statewide framework for electric rates tied to data centers.

The report also notes that there are unresolved questions about whether utilities will be able to bring new energy generation and transmission lines online quickly enough to meet the growing demand.

This story was originally published by WPR.

Report: Wisconsin could make up taxes lost to data center incentives is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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The median home price in northeast Wisconsin has more than doubled over the last decade while fair market rents in the region’s two largest cities have also climbed sharply.

Local officials, housing advocates and economists say those cost increases — fueled by tight supply and high demand — have made it harder for young families to purchase their first home and for renters to make ends meet.

Northeast Wisconsin is home to Green Bay and the Fox Valley. It’s a mix of medium-sized cities and rural communities. Wisconsin Realtors Association data shows median home prices in the region climbed from $145,000 in July 2016 to $331,000 in July 2026.

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David Clark, an economist for the Wisconsin Realtors Association, said home prices across the state didn’t rise very fast for much of the 2010s, and neither did housing supply. 

He said a surge of millennials entered the housing market when mortgage rates fell below 3% in 2020 while many baby boomers remained in their existing homes, contributing to a supply and demand imbalance and rising prices. While homebuilding has picked up in recent years, he said supply remains limited.

“We’ve got tight inventory statewide, and that same statewide picture is pretty similar to the circumstances in the northeast region,” Clark said.

Local officials and advocates say tight inventory in the owner-occupied housing market has led some residents interested in purchasing a home to continue renting, putting upward pressure on those prices as well.

“There are bottlenecks everywhere,” said Mindy Howell, housing services lead case manager for The Salvation Army-Fox Cities. “Housing is more expensive, so more people are renting.”

She said that’s meant people with moderate incomes are competing with lower-income residents for available rental units, saying it’s “very hard to find affordable housing.”

Beyond supply and demand, property managers say rising costs from insurance, property taxes and repairs all factor into rent prices.

“We’ve tracked five years of financial data across more than 5,000 rental units: Operating costs rose 34.2% from 2019 to 2023,” said Rick Van Der Leest, president of the Apartment Association of Northeast Wisconsin and Fox Valley Apartment Association.

Fair market rents in Green Bay and Appleton, the region’s two largest cities, also rose over the same period, according to data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. 

The fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Appleton increased from $718 in 2016 to $810 in 2020 and $1,236 in 2026, federal data shows. Those rents in Green Bay increased from $756 in 2016 to $822 in 2020 and $1,164 in 2026.

Amber Edwards is a community organizer for JOSHUA, a faith-based nonprofit in Green Bay that works on housing and other social issues. She said rising costs and tight supply have been hard on residents of all backgrounds.

“There are people that I know that have really good jobs, stable careers that are struggling to find housing in their 40s because it is so tight and difficult to obtain, and difficult to maintain,” she said.

Green Bay and Appleton each need to build thousands of housing units, a mix of single-family and rentals, in the coming years to keep pace with projected housing demand, according to recent housing reports.

A 2025 housing market study from the city found Green Bay needed to build 2,100 rental units and 2,159 owner-occupied units by 2040 under a conservative growth scenario and 4,575 rental units and 5,072 owner-occupied units under a high-growth scenario.

“We need everything, from low income to high income, small apartments to large,” said Green Bay Mayor Eric Genrich. “That’s been our focus is just to do whatever we possibly can to partner with high-quality developers to make this happen for the residents here.”

Genrich said the number of units per year built within the city has increased from an average of 144 units per year from 2015 to 2019 to an average of 368 units from 2023 to 2025.

He said private developments, in which the city played no role, did contribute to that increase. But he also said the city has tried to use a variety of tools from crafting more flexible zoning codes to using tax increment financing to encourage development.

Meanwhile, the city of Appleton needed to build 3,981 single-family, 442 two-family and 158 multi-family units between 2019 and 2040 to accommodate population growth projections, according to a 2024 housing affordability report from the city.

Appleton Mayor Jake Woodford said the city was currently working its way through zoning code revisions aimed at promoting duplex development and other zoning designations. He said the city has also worked to “streamline” the development process itself, but he said there isn’t a silver bullet that will solve the issue.

“I think the underlying issue of the cost of building housing is a huge factor,” he said. “Land availability to some extent, but cost of construction is a big challenge.”

Due to high construction costs, he said, a newly built home that may be considered a “starter home” based on its size and number of bedrooms is likely to cost $400,000 or more, which is “unattainable” for many first-time buyers.

“Housing is becoming less affordable, and that presents a real challenge for our communities,” he said. “Because here in the city of Appleton, if people cannot afford to live in this community, how do we expect to have a thriving local economy?”

To address the issue, local leaders and housing advocates said they would like to see state leaders invest in expanding low-interest loan programs for affordable housing developers and first-time homebuyers and create more tools to help housing developments make financial sense for builders.

This story was produced as part of the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, a consortium of five news outlets.

Housing costs have risen sharply in northeast Wisconsin over the last decade is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.