A projected decline in Wisconsin’s working-age population means the state needs to build fewer housing units than previously expected, according to a new report.
The post Report: Wisconsin’s shrinking working-age population reduces projected housing need appeared first on WPR.
For families, Medo said, the larger hope is that adults with intellectual disabilities are able to make more of their own choices — where they live, who they live near, how they spend their time and how they participate in the community around them.
The post Door2Dreams aims to build independence, connection in central Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.
Ty and Allisha Setty pose with the two-bedroom house in suburban Cincinnati they bought in May for $170,000. Unlike many new homebuyers, the couple didn't need family help with the purchase. (Photo courtesy of Ty and Allisha Setty)
The idea started with a sermon Micah Longmire heard at his Presbyterian church in Ogden, Utah, about the importance of grandparents in a child’s life.
Longmire, now 31, exchanged a look with his mother-in-law. “We were like, ‘I’d be OK living with you after that sermon,’ and the ball rolled downhill from there,” Longmire said.
Both families are now living in a house they bought together in Chattanooga, Tennessee, after a two-year nationwide search. Their partnership is an example of the lengths first-time homebuyers have gone to this year amid stubbornly high home prices and interest rates.
“I make $200,000 and I wouldn’t have been able to buy a house by myself. That’s ridiculous,” Longmire said. His wife’s parents contributed $200,000 from selling their own home in Utah and retired to live with them in a 3,500-square-foot house that cost $585,000.
Home prices rose this year, though not as much as inflation, so affordability increased in all regions as of April compared with a year before, according to the National Association of Realtors.
But prices are settling at a high level. After inflation adjustment, they’re still less than 4% below the 2022 peak, though some areas with large-scale building, mostly in Florida and Texas, have seen prices drop, according to real estate analyst Bill McBride’s CalculatedRisk newsletter.
Help from family and even shared living arrangements are becoming the norm in higher-priced areas.
“The family now has accumulated so much equity that they’re able to help their kids make these downpayments. Many people like to live in multi-generational households for reasons of culture and also cost,” said Nadia Evangelou, senior economist for the National Association of Realtors.
Nationally a typical single-family home cost $422,300 in April, up $4,300 from a year before, according to the National Association of Realtors. But the typical family made about $6,000 more in that time, and mortgage rates came down a little, so affordability improved.
But a shortage of affordable starter homes is slowing the market and keeping it hard to buy for first-timers. Last year the median age of first-time buyers reached a record 40 years old, while the median repeat buyer was 62, as the housing market became dominated by repeat buyers who could sell a house at today’s high prices.
“Affordability today is still nowhere near what it was for much of the last decade,” Evangelou said. Between 2009 and 2016, the typical family had about 70% more income than it needed to buy the typical median-priced house, while today it’s a much smaller margin of about 11% as of April.
Many young households still face the most challenging home-buying environment in decades.
– Nadia Evangelou, senior economist, National Association of Realtors
San Francisco is an extreme example: The artificial intelligence boom has driven median home prices to a record $2.15 million, according to the real estate brokerage firm Compass. So Charlie and Nettie Culp felt lucky to get a 1,500-square-foot condo for $1.5 million. The couple, both 32, work in finance and tech and saved for years with some family help, putting down $500,000 and taking a $1 million mortgage in May.
“That’s a lot of money for what you get, but that’s the market and it’s a beautiful city,” Charlie Culp said. He has lived in the city since 2015, at times sharing rent among as many as four people while saving money.
“I saw the AI boom coming in San Francisco, so we decided to reach out to our landlord and ask if she was willing to sell,” he said.
First-time buyers are particularly hard-pressed: They lack profits from a previous house, and the smaller houses they can buy are in short supply. The number of houses on the market is rising, but mostly at the high-priced end.
“Many young households still face the most challenging homebuying environment in decades,” Evangelou said. “The question isn’t simply whether more homes are coming into the market, the question is whether those homes that are available for sale are at price points that local households can actually afford.”
The nation needs another 311,000 houses selling for less than $261,000 to meet the needs of middle-income families — buyers earning around $75,000 — according to a May report that Evangelou co-authored. Several states considered legislation this year aimed specifically at creating more starter homes.
A New Mexico law signed in March by Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham creates no-interest loans of up to $75,000 for down payments to first-time buyers with moderate income. The loans are meant as an incentive for builders to create smaller houses.
Several states moved to curb minimum lot sizes, seen as an impediment to starter homes and other affordable housing, often drawing opposition from cities.
Colorado considered a measure this year allowing smaller lots for building, hoping to “expand attainable homeownership opportunities for first-time homebuyers.” It was opposed by the Colorado Municipal League, which said it “removes community planning and public input from the decision-making process.” The bill passed the state House but was killed in a state Senate committee.
Florida also considered smaller lots and other incentives for starter homes in a bill this year that died in committee after opposition from the Florida League of Cities.
A similar bill that would limit minimum lot sizes, aimed at creating more starter homes and other affordable housing, was under consideration this year in Hawaii but did not pass after clearing a state Senate committee. Democratic state Sen. Stanley Chang, the bill’s sponsor, told Stateline that “some version of the concept” will be considered in future sessions.
The Midwest continues to have the highest affordability, according to the National Association of Realtors report.
Ty Setty, 29, and his wife, Allisha, 32, had been renting for six years near Cincinnati, but they needed no family help to buy their new $170,000 house, a two-bedroom in suburban Delhi Township, Ohio.
“We had been looking at houses for a few years and just couldn’t afford them, or we let ourselves think that,” Ty Setty said.
After two weeks of looking on Zillow and touring nine houses, they saw this house as a new listing and “fell in love. We put an offer on it that night,” Ty Setty said. “They accepted the next morning. That was a long 12 hours.”
For the Longmire family in Chattanooga, the partnership between parents raising children and grandparents needing their own affordable housing has worked out well.
“Grandparents want to live with their grandchildren, and you know parents need a babysitter on date night,” Micah Longmire said. “The story that we’re telling through our life right now is, that if you can work with your family, don’t give in to the pressure of the world to go it alone.”
Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
A volunteer records details about a person experiencing homelessness in Salt Lake City on Jan. 30, 2026. There was a slight year-over-year decline in homelessness between 2024 and 2025, according to new federal data. (Photo by Aline Walker for the Utah News Dispatch)
There were fewer homeless people in the United States on a single night in January 2025 than in January 2024, but homelessness increased in 28 states, according to the latest federal count.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development counted 745,652 homeless people in its latest “point-in-time” estimate, down 3% from the year before. The count was conducted before the Trump administration late last year announced a shift away from long-term housing in favor of funding transitional housing with work and addiction treatment requirements.
HUD said the decrease was driven largely by a 4% decline in the number of people in emergency shelter. The number of unsheltered homeless people fell by 3%.
In releasing the new numbers, the Trump administration noted that the overall homeless population has increased 27% since 2013 — proof, it said, that so-called housing first policies that many cities and states have pursued during that time have not been successful.
Among the states, North Carolina saw the largest percentage increase in its homeless population. Its homeless count jumped by 3,886 or 33%, largely because of Hurricane Helene, which displaced thousands of residents in the fall of 2024, prompting the addition of 4,000 emergency shelter beds.
Oregon (up 19%) and Maryland (up 17%) were the only other states that reported increases of more than 15%. Hawaii (down 41%) and Illinois (down 44%) saw the largest percentage decreases.
Nationwide, about 22 of every 10,000 people are homeless on a given night. The state with the highest percentage of homeless people is New York, where 73 out of every 10,000 people are homeless.
One of the big improvements from 2024 to 2025 was a decline in the number of unhoused families with children, which was down 11%.
Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
After 35 years renting her home, a leaky and unkept roof forced Farina Brooks and her husband to move into a hotel.
It wasn’t a rash decision. For three years, Brooks said, she pleaded with the property management company to fix the roof as water damage spread and conditions inside the home worsened.
City inspectors eventually came, issuing citations and fines. Still, she said, little changed.
“We kept getting the runaround,” Brooks said.
Eventually, she and her husband entered Milwaukee’s rent abatement program. Even that failed to improve conditions, she said.
Now, she said, the couple is burning through their savings to pay for a hotel room while searching for stable housing in an increasingly expensive rental market.
Brooks said the situation was not always this way.
“For the 30 years or so (the landlord) was good, you know, she handled things,” she said.
But in recent years, she said she learned the woman had developed dementia and was placed under a conservatorship, a change Brooks believes coincided with the property’s decline.
Her story reflects a growing frustration shared by many Milwaukee tenants confronting deteriorating housing conditions and asking a question that local officials hear constantly: Why can’t the city force landlords to fix problems with their properties?
According to Milwaukee City Attorney Evan Goyke, the answer lies in a complicated mix of state law, property rights and limited local authority that has steadily narrowed the city’s oversight powers on rental housing during the past decade.
The city has powers to do certain things, but not others, Goyke said.
“The federal government can limit what states can do, and the states can limit what municipal governments can do.”
State Sen. Dora Drake said Wisconsin law requires landlords to maintain rental properties, including making necessary structural and plumbing repairs and complying with local housing codes. But, she said, tenants often face barriers when conditions deteriorate.
“Under most circumstances, a tenant may not refuse to pay rent entirely unless the conditions are so poor as to force a tenant to move out,” Drake said. “If the conditions in the rental premises are poor where the tenant’s health or safety is affected, or the tenant is unable to use part of the premises, the tenant is entitled to reduce the amount of rent proportionately.”
Much of Milwaukee’s housing enforcement is controlled by Wisconsin state law, particularly by legislation passed between 2013 and 2017 that limited how municipalities regulate rental housing.
One major change, specifically state statute 66.0104, pushed cities into complaint-driven inspection systems – meaning inspectors cannot proactively inspect properties for violations unless someone files a complaint.
“The Department of Neighborhood Services can’t just walk up and down the street and say, ‘That house, that house, that house,’ ” Goyke said.
Instead, the city relies heavily on tenants and neighbors to report unsafe conditions to the Department of Neighborhood Services.
Drake said the current system leaves too many renters vulnerable before problems are addressed.
“We need more accountability measures and preventative measures and standards to prevent those situations from getting so bad with tenants,” she said.
When tenants report unsafe conditions, Department of Neighborhood Services inspectors investigate and may issue written orders that require repairs within a specified time frame.
If the violations are not addressed, the city can issue citations and pursue penalties in municipal court. Unpaid judgments can eventually become liens on the property.
But that process can take a long time, especially for a city balancing thousands of complaints with limited staff and funding, according to Goyke.
He said many residents get frustrated because they expect immediate intervention.
The city can escalate serious or repeated violations into lawsuits in Milwaukee County Circuit Court. In extreme cases, courts can appoint a receiver to take over management of a property.
Under receivership, a court-appointed manager can collect rent and use it to make repairs if a landlord has failed to maintain safe conditions.
“It’s a very heavy hammer for the landlord,” Goyke said. “Somebody else is going to step in and fix (the properties) for you.”
Housing advocates have long argued that complaint-driven enforcement creates another problem: potential retaliation or displacement of tenants.
Many tenants won’t report poor conditions out of fear.
Goyke said those fears are real, particularly for tenants living in severely deteriorated buildings who worry they could lose housing if the property is condemned.
“I feel terrible that people are placed in a position where they feel they need to live in unsafe conditions because it does beat living outside,” he said.
He encouraged tenants to report violations to DNS and to explore programs such as rent withholding and rent abatement.
Under Milwaukee’s rent withholding program, tenants continue paying rent, but the money is held by the Department of Neighborhood Services until repairs are completed. Rent abatement, meanwhile, allows tenants to reduce rent payments when serious conditions affect habitability.
Legal and service organizations, including the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, Legal Action of Wisconsin and Community Advocates, can help tenants understand their rights and options.
Residents also frequently question why landlords with poor track records are still able to purchase additional properties, Goyke said.
Goyke said cities generally cannot interfere in private property transactions unless the city has a legal interest in the property, such as unpaid taxes or code enforcement judgments.
“If we do not have an interest in the property, we can’t stop it,” he said.
That limitation stems from long-standing American property rights protections, he added.
“It is not a shortcoming of some ordinance that could be tweaked,” Goyke said. “That question goes to core property rights in America.”
Drake said she has co-authored proposals aimed at expanding rent abatement protections and shielding renters from landlord retaliation.
“We know it happens,” Drake said. “Whether it’s Berrada or other properties that are known to have these stories, those are things that we can do.”
Berrada Properties owns more than 8,000 units and has been named in lawsuits by both tenants and the city attorney.
Drake also said the state should expand access to legal representation for tenants facing eviction or living in unsafe housing.
“We can create an office of civil legal aid to provide a right to appointment of counsel at the state’s expense for tenants in eviction actions,” she said.
Brooks said she was pushed to leave her home by her daughter and several local community leaders.
“They told me you cannot live here,” she said. “The final straw for me was when water started coming in through the light fixtures.”
Brooks said community leader Ajamou Butler shared a post about her situation that garnered support from the community and helped pay for her first several days in the hotel.
She said local leaders including Butler, Vaun Mayes and state Rep. Sequanna Taylor have supported her through the move. Metcalfe Park Community Bridges and Community Advocates have supported her search for accountability and a new home.
“It was hard accepting help, but it reminded me of how the community shows up,” Brooks said. “This made me worry for the people that don’t know who to call or have people to show up.”
Goyke encouraged residents to vote and stay engaged politically and also emphasized on-the-ground organizing and collective action to address housing issues.
He pointed to local organizations like Common Ground, the Community Development Alliance and the RON Coalition as examples of groups working to improve housing conditions.
“There’s a lot more that people can do individually that make an impact,” he said.
Goyke described a boarded-up house on his own block that has sat vacant for years, saying neighbors could potentially organize fundraising efforts to help support redevelopment.
“Don’t wait for somebody else to solve your problems,” he said. “There’s a ton of energy in trying to figure out how to do this, and it’s a great time for people to get involved.”
Drake said stronger tenant protections are part of the Wisconsin Legislative Black Caucus agenda this year.
“We know that at the state level, we need to do more to ensure that we’re protecting tenants’ rights,” she said.
Policies make it harder for Milwaukee tenants to demand repairs 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.
The Corliss in Wisconsin will include 576 affordable housing units in eight buildings when it is completed later this year.
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The median home cost in Wisconsin’s two biggest metro areas is at least five times the median household income in those communities, among the highest in the Midwest.
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While housing is a critical issue all around the state, rural areas face unique challenges. But the communities of Ellsworth and Hillsboro are having success.
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Milwaukee’s homelessness crisis is growing more visible, but advocates say there are still signs of progress.
A few years ago, Milwaukee leaders said the city was on track to end family homelessness. Since then, the number of people who are homeless has grown. Organizations on the front lines and others working on the issue still say Milwaukee has quietly become an example of how coordinated prevention efforts can work during a larger national crisis.
“When we talk about ending family homelessness, it doesn’t mean no family will ever experience homelessness,” said Krystina Kohler, impact manager at United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County. “It means we’ve built a system that can respond quickly, prevent homelessness when possible, and rapidly connect families back to stable housing.”
Data collected through the Milwaukee Coalition on Housing and Homelessness shows more people are entering Milwaukee’s homeless service programs than exit it.
The 765 people who entered homeless service programs in 2025 had been without stable housing for an average of 88 days; 77% were homeless for the first time.
Ten percent became homeless again within a year.
According to David Nelson, chair of the Milwaukee Coalition on Housing and Homelessness, the totals include people living in shelters and those sleeping in cars, abandoned buildings or other places not meant for habitation.
“On any given day, we have 750 shelter beds in our city,” Nelson said. “Beginning in November through the end of March, we have an additional approximate 250 shelter beds, which (are) our winter warming rooms.”
Even with the extra capacity, he said beds are almost always full.
Nelson said official homelessness figures fail to capture the full scope of housing instability because many people who temporarily stay with friends or relatives are not counted until those arrangements end.
“What we don’t count (are) people who are doubling up,” he explained. “If you let me stay on your couch through the winter, it’s not counted as homelessness. But the minute you say, ‘You gotta go,’ suddenly I become homeless.”
Sister MacCanon Brown is president and CEO of MacCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary. She said her organization’s welcome center at 2461 W. Center St., which distributes clothing, food and household necessities and offers showers to people in need, saw 4,600 people in 2025.
Most people leaving homeless service programs have no documented housing destination, making it difficult to know whether they are securing stable housing or eventually returning to homelessness, Nelson said. The percentage of people transitioning into permanent or temporary housing remains mostly unchanged.
Nelson said the end of pandemic-era federal housing assistance contributed to the rise in homelessness.
“During the Biden-Harris administration, we were sheltering people in hotels, and that was paid for by the federal government,” he said. “That funding is no longer there, and so you can see this gradual increase and then the spike in the number of people having to go back to homelessness.”
Other economic pressures are pushing more residents toward instability, especially low-income renters already struggling with rising housing costs.
“The people who are most squeezed are the people who are most vulnerable,” Nelson said. “Those at the lower ends of the economic spectrum are sometimes paying 50% and 60% of their income just to keep an apartment.”
People over 65 are now the fastest-growing age group entering Milwaukee’s homeless services system.
“It’s the fastest growing population in the country,” Nelson said. “If they go on Social Security, they are suddenly on a fixed income. The numbers don’t meet.”
Kohler said senior homelessness is becoming a major concern for local providers.
“Older adults experiencing homelessness for the first time in their lives is something that should never happen in our community,” she said. “They’re often widowed, on fixed incomes and one emergency away from losing housing.”
NNS has reported on housing crises among younger adults and families and seniors recently.
Kohler said she hopes homelessness initiatives expand beyond families to include seniors, single adults and people exiting facilities.
Nelson added that eviction records can trap people in long-term instability.
“The eviction stays on their record for a long time,” Nelson said. “Landlords can use CCAP and see there was a legal proceeding against them. Suddenly they’re charged first, last and middle month’s rent.”
Brown said that many of the housing unstable people she sees were renters.
“The lack of landlord regulation, the evictions and the prices have a lot to do with increased homelessness,” she said. “Some type of landlord regulation is crucial in keeping people housed.”
There have been assumptions by some that homelessness may be tied to migration from outside the city. But nearly everyone enrolled in Milwaukee’s homeless services programs during 2024 and 2025 was from Milwaukee County, according to local data.
Kohler said Milwaukee’s prevention efforts increasingly focus on helping families before they lose housing entirely.
“We’re trying to get ahead of the trauma of homelessness,” she said. “Sometimes a family just needs help with a car repair, utility bill or mediation with a landlord before a housing crisis begins.”
She pointed to partnerships with schools and even animal welfare organizations as part of Milwaukee’s early intervention strategy.
“If a family is surrendering a pet because of housing instability, we can now connect them to services immediately,” Kohler said. “That’s a unique approach here.”
Though homelessness overall has risen, Kohler said Milwaukee has seen family homelessness remain relatively stable, or even decline, compared with many similar cities nationwide.
“Nationwide, family homelessness has increased dramatically, but Milwaukee is one of the only peer cities that has stayed relatively flat or even slightly decreased,” she said. “That’s because of intentional investments in prevention services and rapid rehousing.”
Organizations across the city continue working together through the Milwaukee Coalition on Housing and Homelessness, which includes nonprofits, universities, faith organizations, outreach teams and local government agencies coordinating resources and services.
“We have a really rich and robust system in our city,” Nelson said. “Homelessness is not a choice. It’s not something people choose to be in.”
Kohler said Milwaukee’s coordinated response system has become a model for other communities.
“Right now, there are no families on the literal homelessness list searching for shelter,” she said. “If a family is identified as needing emergency shelter, they should have immediate access to beds.”
She said Milwaukee’s collaborative approach deserves more recognition.
“The providers here are doing amazing work,” Kohler said. “Other communities are reaching out to Milwaukee to model what we’re doing.”
Kohler said Milwaukee’s response shows progress is possible even during a growing national housing crisis.
“Milwaukee is actually an example of success inside a larger crisis,” she said. “There’s still tremendous need, but we’ve shown that prevention and rapid response can work.”
She encouraged residents facing housing instability to seek help early by calling 211 and connecting with local support services before a crisis escalates.
“Keep calling and keep advocating for yourself,” Kohler said. “Sometimes resources open up quickly, and that early connection can prevent homelessness entirely.”
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
Milwaukee homelessness rises despite some prevention successes 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.
Private equity firms own nearly 3 million apartment units, about 13% of the total apartments across the country, according to a new analysis. (Photo by Robbie Sequeira/Stateline)
Private equity firms own nearly 3 million apartment units, about 13% of the total apartments across the country, according to a new analysis from watchdog group Private Equity Stakeholder Project.
And most have been fairly recent purchases. The companies acquired more than 1.7 million of those, or 57%, since 2018, and about 45% of them since 2021, the report found.
More than two-thirds of those units are located in just 10 states: Texas, Florida, California, Georgia, North Carolina, Colorado, New York, Arizona, Virginia and Washington.
Texas has the highest number of private equity-owned apartments, the analysis said, with more than 1,900 properties and nearly 580,000 units.
Private equity firms own nearly 1 in 3 apartment units in Georgia and almost 1 in 4 in North Carolina, the report found.
Private equity firms use pooled investments from funds, endowments and wealthy individuals to buy a controlling stake in a company, try to maximize its value — often by cutting costs — and then sell it at a profit.
The metropolitan areas of Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; Dallas-Fort Worth; and Orlando, Florida, have private equity ownership shares above 30%.
Many of the states with the highest private equity ownership also have seen some of the largest increases in “cost-burdened” renters, the report said, meaning they spend at least 30% of their income on rent and utilities. Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Texas and Florida were among the six states with the biggest increases in such renters.
Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
More older residents in Milwaukee are facing homelessness, according to findings from a yearlong study funded through a grant from the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment, which included Community Advocates Public Policy Institute and the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Community Advocates is a social service agency that provides a number of services, including those related to housing.
Researchers examined why older people are at risk for homelessness and what changes need to be made to keep them housed.
“Older adults used to be stable and now there’s instability,” said Erin Cronn, director of nursing for the City of Milwaukee Health Department.
The study showed that the majority of Milwaukee’s homeless older adults are Black males between 55 and 65, who have a high school diploma or some college.
According to Community Advocates Public Policy Institute and the Medical College of Wisconsin, their homelessness was due to a loss of income, family conflict or health challenges.
Matt Raymond, supportive housing programs director for Community Advocates, said intakes of people 62 and older have doubled and sometimes tripled over the last 10 or so years.
Raymond said that many of the older adults had never been homeless and that accessibility to resources for them can be difficult.
“This is many of their first time experiencing homelessness and having to navigate a system that can be complex and nuanced,” Raymond said.
To help get older adults the housing resources they need, Cronn said, there needs to be a better way of sharing important information.
“A lot of information is disseminated in electronic ways and there’s a lot of isolation, so word of mouth doesn’t always work,” Cronn said.
The study also revealed that many older adults would prefer for all services to be in one place and have better transportation and more places to stay.
Although the study highlighted promising solutions, Emily Kenney, director of strategic initiatives and transformation at the Milwaukee County Department of Health & Human Services, said there’s still no housing system, which is why older adults struggle.
She believes that homeless shelters, housing programs and landlords should be functioning under one system instead of operating separately.
“When you think about the criminal justice system, health or behavioral system, those systems work together with you from beginning to end, but not for housing,” she said.
She said this gap causes a lack in prevention support for older adults and only assists people when they’re already homeless.
“When I was running a coordinated entry system, what I heard all day was people were on the brink of losing their housing and needing resources, and the only solution was to come into a homeless system first,” Kenney said.
Family medicine specialist Dr. William Calawerts said he’s received older patients with high blood pressure, diabetes and other health challenges but can’t help if they don’t have stable housing.
Without a home, older adults can’t take their medicine or attend doctor appointments, which will make them more ill, he said.
“Their health issues are usually extremely complex and serious, but oftentimes we’re not able to address that adequately in the outpatient setting,” he said.
Cronn said health can mean different things to homeless older adults compared with health care professionals.
For older adults, it means having safe housing, clipped nails, ability to wash their hands or having clean and dry clothes, but professionals may see health as traditional doctor visits, he said.
“As a practitioner, it’s hard to prioritize health and the folks we’re seeing because their version of what their needs are is different than what we’re seeing,” Cronn said.
Calawerts said when he’s training medical students about homeless patients, he teaches them to take their time, have compassion and treat them beyond their illness.
“We try to tell them that you’re a human first and a physician second,” Calawerts said. “I think we’ve lost the humanism component in a lot of things we do.”
Kenney raised concerns about housing programs that give out vouchers to help with paying rent but have been a contributing factor to older adult homelessness.
She said developers are using loans to build houses, and the way the loans get paid off is through rent.
“Developers can’t offer rent at a price people need because the tax credits they get aren’t enough,” Kenney said. “The people who get the vouchers have already entered the homeless system.”
As a result, Raymond said some older adults have been moving into permanent supportive housing. These programs help homeless individuals get their own long-term place and additional services to help.
Community Advocates refers some of its intakes to Autumn West Safe Haven, an apartment on Milwaukee’s North Side that gives homeless or mentally ill individuals a place to stay short term until they find stability.
According to Community Advocates, 36 individuals who were homeless or mentally ill received services and housing through Autumn West Safe Haven, while 101 individuals who were chronically homeless and living with a disability received immediate help in 2025.
“Over the last few years at Autumn West Safe Haven, we’ve gone into outreach community centers to offer on-site telepsychiatry care to our residents and established a relationship with Advocate Aurora to bring in their mobile clinic on a monthly basis,” Raymond said.
Overall, community leaders want people to know that existing organizations need to make their population broader and do a better job at synthesizing resources, even though it may take time.
“There’s no reason for Milwaukee not to be at the forefront fighting this nationally,” Kenney said.
Calawerts also mentioned the resilience of older adults, having heard many success stories of them getting through mental health, homelessness, unemployment and other challenges.
“Those stories are the ones that give me hope, and with more robust services that are connected in these spaces, we can see more of those successfully,” Calawerts said.
Health care professionals and leaders want change as more older Milwaukee residents become homeless 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.
Construction workers build a 575-unit apartment complex combined with retail in Paramus, N.J. The state lags in providing housing for new residents, according to a Stateline analysis. (Photo by Tim Henderson/Stateline)
Housing shortages have eased in most states since 2020, as new construction has made apartments and houses more affordable.
Connecticut, New Jersey and Rhode Island are the only states that have lost housing units per capita since 2020, according to a Stateline analysis of housing data released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Most other states have built more than enough housing to account for population growth.
The increase in the supply of apartments helped drive down the nation’s median rent in April by 1.7% compared with the same month last year, according to a May report from Apartment List, a company that posts rental listings online.
Single-family homes also are starting to get more affordable, according to a May report from the National Association of Realtors. The group determines “affordability” by calculating whether or not a typical family earns enough income to qualify for a mortgage on a median-priced, existing single-family home.
The improvement in affordability is especially dramatic in the South and Midwest, while affordability is lagging but improving in the West and Northeast.
In analyzing the housing supply, one housing unit for 2.5 residents is considered a healthy balance, though the ratio can be lower in places with large families or higher where there are many young singles or older people living alone.
Nationwide, the ratio ranges from 1.8 people per unit in Maine to 2.7 people per unit in Utah, according to the Stateline analysis. In most places, the ratio of people to housing units is shrinking, as the housing supply grows.
Some states have added far more housing than residents since 2020. Vermont, for example, has added nearly 10 times as many housing units — around 12,000 — as new residents. The District of Columbia and New Mexico have added five times as many new units as new residents.
The story is different in Connecticut, New Jersey and Rhode Island. In those three states, the housing supply is lagging behind population growth, with about three new residents per new housing unit in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and almost four residents per unit in New Jersey.
New Jersey has added about 260,000 new residents since 2020, but only about 66,500 new housing units. The state is seeking to impose affordable housing quotas on towns, but has run into strong resistance from suburban residents.
In February, a group of New Jersey towns, led by Montvale in Bergen County, a New York City suburb, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop a March deadline for a new phase of affordable housing plans to start, but were rebuffed without explanation later that month by Justice Samuel Alito.
In court papers, town leaders said their residents don’t want the denser housing required by the 2024 state law, and that residents would likely vote them out of office if they implemented it.
At a February public hearing about the plan in Ridgewood, a town in Bergen County, “elected officials continued to receive objections from residents…ranging from accusations against local leaders of conspiracies, accepting campaign donations and personally benefitting from the rezoning,” according to court papers filed by the towns.
Apartment List does not consider Bergen County separately from the New York City area, where home prices have increased 5.6% from last year as of April 30, according to Zillow, to a median $773,069. A one-bedroom apartment in the county can command $2,400 or more according to Rentometer, a rental market analysis site.
In contrast, Travis County, Texas — which includes most of Austin — has added about 99,500 new residents and 120,000 new units since 2020. That disparity helps explain why the Austin area had the largest drop in median rent between 2025 and 2026 in the new Apartment List estimates, declining 5.7% since last year and 22% since 2022.
Along with Austin, apartment-building has driven a decline in rents in Sun Belt metros such as Denver, Orlando, Phoenix and Tampa, according to the Apartment List report.
Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Tennessee Republican leaders unveil their “Immigration 2026” agenda at a news conference in January. Tennessee and other conservative states are mandating that state and local social service providers verify and report the immigration status of the people they serve — in some cases threatening stiff penalties for public employees who fail to comply. (Photo by John Partipilo/ Tennessee Lookout)
An increasing number of conservative states are mandating that state and local social service providers verify and report the immigration status of the people they serve — in some cases threatening stiff penalties for public employees who fail to comply.
Under federal law, immigrants who are in the United States illegally are generally barred from receiving public benefits such as nonemergency health care, food aid and housing help, though a handful of left-leaning states use their own money to provide such benefits.
Supporters of the new verification and reporting laws say they will help curb illegal immigration by making it more difficult for people who aren’t eligible for public aid to receive it.
Government-funded health care, housing aid and the right to have a driver’s license are a “pull factor that encourages illegal immigration,” said Cooper Smith, director of homeland security and immigration at the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank that has worked on policy development with the current Trump administration.
Government benefits, Smith said, are “an incentive for (immigrants) to come here and cross the border and make this their home, and we don’t want to see that.”
In Tennessee, legislators this week sent a bill to Republican Gov. Bill Lee that would require all state and local agencies to verify the immigration status of people who apply for federal, state or local government benefits, and to report those who are here illegally to the legislature and the state’s new immigration enforcement agency.
The measure, which the governor is expected to sign, authorizes the state attorney general to investigate possible violations, and threatens jail time or a loss of state funding for workers or agencies that fail to comply.
The potential penalties in Tennessee’s law are especially strict, but this year Indiana, Utah, and Wyoming also enacted laws requiring state and local agencies to verify the immigration status of people applying for certain benefits. In Indiana and Wyoming, agencies also must report immigrants who are here illegally to federal authorities. Louisiana enacted a similar verification and reporting law last year.
The Indiana and Wyoming laws go beyond the specific individuals applying for aid.
In considering an application for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the Indiana law requires agencies to notify federal authorities if they cannot verify the immigration status of any member of an applicant’s household. Similarly, the Wyoming law requires the state health department and the state department of family services to notify federal immigration authorities if they determine that anyone applying for public benefits resides in a household that includes a person who is here illegally.
Critics say the new state laws will dissuade many people who are eligible for benefits — especially those with family members who are here illegally — from getting help they are entitled to, and force state and local officials to perform an immigration enforcement role for which they are ill equipped.
“They have to do this verification process for everybody that walks in the door. This is something that slows down services for every Tennessean in the name of collecting data and trying to make assessments that folks are not trained to make,” Democratic state Sen. Jeff Yarbro said last month during the floor debate on the bill.
“There’s probably no one who understands enough of the rules to make that determination,” he said. “But we are forcing that decision upon every single government office in the state of Tennessee — it’s just a little bit insane.”
Tanya Broder, an attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for immigrants, said the new laws represent an escalation of state anti-immigration efforts. She said the measures demonstrate that conservative states are moving in lockstep with the Trump administration.
“There are many, many states that impose restrictions on access to public to state and local public benefits, but some of these reporting requirements that states are proposing now likely do violate the law,” Broder said. “I think they are sowing a campaign of fear and misinformation.”
Broder added that the fear of penalties might prompt agency workers in Tennessee to overreport and potentially engage in racial profiling.
The Tennessee bill is part of a sweeping package of immigration enforcement measures the state legislature approved this year. Tennessee’s broad immigration agenda was crafted in coordination with the White House, specifically with Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Earlier this month, Lee signed a measure that requires state judges to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. And last month, the governor signed a bill that makes it a crime under Tennessee law for an adult to refuse or fail to leave the state within 90 days of a final order of removal. The law also makes it a crime for immigrants to try to enter the state if they have an outstanding deportation order.
Other bills that would require local sheriffs to cooperate with federal immigration agents and make it illegal for people who are living in the U.S. illegally to operate a commercial vehicle or truck in the state are on Lee’s desk awaiting his signature.
Smith, of the America First Policy Institute, said Tennessee is “serving as a model for other states to follow.”
Republicans struggled this year to secure funding for the Department of Homeland Security, Smith noted, “so they know that their ability to get meaningful legal immigration reform, through both houses of Congress and signed by the president, is very, very unlikely,” he said. “So the next step is to do as much as you can at the state level.”
Julia Gelatt, an associate director at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington-based think tank, agreed with Smith’s assessment of the political situation.
“There are things that the federal government can’t control, or that may be harder to achieve at the federal level, particularly with a Congress that isn’t passing bills,” Gelatt said.
“We know that Stephen Miller advised Tennessee on their immigration bills, and I think that his philosophy is that the federal government and state governments should make life in the United States so hard for people who don’t have legal status that they decide to go home.”
Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
The average single-family homes in Madison jumped above $500,000, a sign of a housing market with low supply and high demand.
The post Low supply is pushing Madison’s home values higher and higher appeared first on WPR.
Housing instability for young adults in Milwaukee is a growing problem. Looking for solutions, young adults, residents and leaders gathered at Wellpoint Care Network in late April to discuss systemic gaps and realities young adults face with renting and homeownership.
“Homeownership is a privilege when it shouldn’t be,” Tamia Abney, youth-coordinated entry liaison at Pathfinders, said.
The convening challenged members to think of possible solutions to the young adult housing crisis.
A 2024 Wisconsin Policy Forum study revealed that half of Milwaukee renters are using at least 30% of their income to keep a roof over their heads.
In 2024, the average monthly rent in Milwaukee was $1,177. Workers in common jobs like fast food, retail, nursing assistants and other occupations earn between $28,000 and $44,000 a year and can only afford approximately $720 to $1,100 in rent, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum.
“Those are important jobs that make up most of our society,” Abney said. “The income isn’t meeting the needs to pay for their living.”
During the convening at Wellpoint Care Network, Mayor Cavalier Johnson said there are young people who have decent jobs and still struggle with affordable housing.
“When you make that first good job out of college and make a certain dollar amount, everybody thinks you have it when that’s not the case,” Johnson said. “I lived it, too.”
One reason for the high rent prices in Milwaukee is that the number of people needing homes is growing faster than the number of housing units available.
According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, Milwaukee’s households increased by 17,335 between 2010 and 2024, but only 11,038 housing units were available, leaving an underproduction of 6,297 units.
“There’s a shortage for low-income families because somebody else has already snatched it away from them,” said Carl Mueller, founder and chairman of Mueller Communications.
The mayor, who declared 2026 the year of housing in Milwaukee, said the city is working to increase housing supply so rent can become cheaper and change how tax dollars are being used to support young professionals.
“We still invest in affordable housing, but what we’ve done now is open it up to make investments in workforce housing, so young professionals don’t end up in situations where they’re spending 30% of their income, too,” Johnson said.
Mueller and other community members suggested the city build developments similar to NeuVue and ThriveOn King, which bring housing and community resources together.
Another reason for the local housing shortage is that residential projects take the longest to get approved.
According to the Wisconsin Policy Forum, the median time it takes for a Milwaukee building project to go from zoning to final building permit approval is 145 days, but for residential projects it takes about 224 days.
Johnson said when he came into office, he challenged the City of Milwaukee Department of Neighborhood Services to speed up the permit process.
“I think if we had been more aggressive and if we had cut more red tape over the years, then a lot of the development that’s happening in some of the surrounding communities would have happened in the city,” Johnson said.
Johnson added that Milwaukee’s zoning policies need to be updated so more properties can be built.
“We haven’t had a whole-scale zoning policy since John Norquist was mayor,” he said.
Al Smith, chief operating officer at Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity, said youths, families and young adults are living in places with high rent prices but are experiencing poor conditions – lead issues and infestations among them.
“Some are paying up to $1,500 a month for places they don’t want to live in, but it was the only option they were left with,” Smith said. “We need a better quality of housing stock.”
Iasia Sawyer, 21, a member of the Wisconsin Youth Advisory Council and participant of the Youth Transitioning to Adulthood program, said she’s already in her second apartment and has faced ongoing challenges with her landlord over mold and pipes.
Smith said more young adults and families in stable housing would bring an increase in graduation rates and other benefits.
“When I think about education or even kids having to switch schools constantly, there’s no stability in that,” he said.
Johnson recalled how traumatizing it felt when he had to attend six Milwaukee Public Schools throughout his childhood because of housing instability.
“As mayor, I’m working to make sure that more kids in Milwaukee have the stability that I didn’t have growing up,” Johnson said. “It’s not just about housing support; you guys are also providing the foundation for everything else in life.”
Smith said he found it disheartening to know there are some who have no desire to become a homeowner.
“If you’ve seen multiple generations of your family that were only renters and never owned a home, they don’t think homeownership is a possibility for them,” he said.
He said the best way to encourage young adults into homeownership is through community support to address credit, bankruptcies and other barriers so they can make the adjustments to become eligible to buy a home.
Smith said Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity is teaching individuals how to financially prepare for homeownership.
According to Smith, it takes about $275,000 for the organization to build a home, and families who participate in the program only pay about $150,000 for their first mortgage. The program provides additional financial support to help keep monthly payments affordable.
“You’ll also get the benefit of building wealth and equity into that,” Smith said.
Sawyer said she wants young people navigating adulthood to know that although finding stable and quality housing is a challenge, it can be attainable.
“There are people who are ready to give up because they don’t have the right support around them for their situation,” she said. “Now it’s about moving forward.”
Milwaukee’s housing crisis leaves younger adults and families struggling to find stability 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.
Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce Fact Briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.
The median price of a Wisconsin home has increased significantly in the past few years, but it has not doubled.
Median means half the sale prices were higher and half were lower.
The latest full-year figures:
2025: $325,000
2024: $310,000
2023: $285,000
2022: $265,000
The 2025 median was 23% higher than in 2022.
In each of the first three months of 2026, the median price was higher year-over-year compared with 2025.
The last time the median decreased was in 2011.
Experts say the COVID-19 pandemic and a 2022 interest rate spike in 2022 caused homeowners to postpone or cancel plans to sell. The smaller supply pushed prices higher.
Also, construction costs have risen and new home building has not kept pace with population increases.
In 2023, the Republican-led Legislature and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers allocated $500 million toward loan programs aimed at creating affordable housing.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Have Wisconsin home prices doubled in the last three years? 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.
Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin announced Friday that the federal government will transfer housing grants from a now-defunct northeast Wisconsin nonprofit to other organizations.
The post US Sen. Tammy Baldwin: HUD will transfer Newcap housing grants to other nonprofits appeared first on WPR.
A shuttered northeast Wisconsin anti-poverty nonprofit filed for bankruptcy this month, as Gov. Tony Evers urges the federal government to transfer its housing grants to other agencies.
The post Shuttered northeast Wisconsin anti-poverty nonprofit files for bankruptcy appeared first on WPR.
Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce Fact Briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.
A 2023 report found Wisconsin needs around 200,000 new housing units to meet demand by 2030.
Forward Analytics, the nonpartisan research arm of the Wisconsin Counties Association, said in the 2023 report that Wisconsin needs between 140,000 and 227,000 new housing units.
Those differing estimates are based on population changes, migration to Wisconsin and other trends, such as whether young adults choose to live with parents. Forward Analytics concluded the total need is “200,000 or more” units.
The League of Wisconsin Municipalities, Wisconsin Realtors Association and Wisconsin Builders Association cite that 200,000 estimate as part of their joint effort to address the shortage.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2026 housing profile for Wisconsin found the state needs to make 118,000 more homes available and affordable for the lowest-income households.
The needed housing represents about 7% of the state’s 2.8 million housing units, according to Census figures.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Is Wisconsin projected to need 200,000 more homes to meet demand by 2030? 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.
Congress is looking to curtail investor-owned rental property in hopes of boosting family home ownership. But the idea could backfire, a Wisconsin housing expert says.
The post Build-to-rent unfairly singled out in federal bill, Wisconsin housing experts say appeared first on WPR.
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