Attorney General Josh Kaul said he believes the $1.7 million settlement is the largest settlement for a housing case in state history.
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Two years after a federal agency warned about mismanagement of Milwaukee's public housing authority, a newly released report shows those issues continue
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Gov. Tony Evers kicks off a budget listening session in Appleton, Wis. on Monday, Dec. 2 | Photo by Andrew Kennard
Members of the public traveled to Einstein Middle School in Appleton Monday to tell Gov. Tony Evers about their priorities for Wisconsin’s 2025-2027 budget.
During the first of Evers’ five planned listening sessions around the state ahead of his next budget proposal, Wisconsin residents expressed concern about the cost of housing, Wisconsin prisons and other issues in a breakout group attended by the Examiner.
In opening remarks, Evers expressed support for addressing “long neglected” priorities and cited Wisconsin’s budget surplus of over $4 billion for the 2024 fiscal year.
Evers said his priorities include expanding BadgerCare, legalizing marijuana, protecting access to reproductive health care, gun and justice reform, protecting the environment and investing in kids and schools.
Local Republican state Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) has a different view on the surplus, Fox 11 reported. He wants to use it to return money to taxpayers and provide relief from inflation.
Members of the public split into six breakout groups. Each group focused on different topics relevant to the budget. The Examiner attended the “Strong & Safe Communities” group, which addressed issues ranging from affordable housing to Wisconsin’s prison system.
A De Pere resident brought up the high cost of housing, saying that she and her husband are from Door County but couldn’t afford to live there even though they both work. Even in De Pere, “all the houses in my neighborhood are getting bought up and flipped,” she said.
Tom Denk, who was formerly incarcerated, said he wants to see change in Wisconsin prisons. He said he wasn’t allowed access to enrichment programs in prison.
“The DOC needs more funding because their staff need to be educated. They need to have that trauma-informed care,” Denk said. “Because most people are going to get out of prison. I’m one of them.”
Substance abuse and anger management programs in the Wisconsin prison system have waitlists in the thousands. The Department of Corrections’ website says the agency tries to enroll people in programming as they get close to their release date.
Karen Winkel, a homeless prevention specialist, said many of her clients have been recently released from the Department of Corrections or the Green Lake County Jail, with “no place to go. There’s no place to live.”
Lisa Cruz, executive director of Multicultural Coalition, Inc., said her nonprofit is overwhelmed with serving immigrants and refugees.
“It’s [a] humanitarian crisis,” Cruz said. “And I think we often think about that happening somewhere else, in another country, maybe in another state. It’s right here and it’s right now.”
Members of the group expressed concerns about American Rescue Plan funding running out, including funding for services for crime victims. Wisconsin passed $10 million in funding for victim services earlier this year, but providers are still facing budget cuts.
“My agency received a 72% reduction, really impacting nearly half of our budget,” said Isabel Williston, executive director of ASTOP Sexual Abuse Center.
Jared Hoy, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, attended the group discussion, but mostly listened since the focus was on the public’s input.
An informational packet distributed at the event described positions the governor has taken on criminal justice. These include increasing funding for Wisconsin’s TAD (treatment alternatives and diversion) program and addressing staffing shortages that have worsened conditions in state prisons.
Evers will introduce his budget proposal early next year, Communications Director Britt Cudaback told the Examiner in late October. In his remarks, Evers praised Wisconsin’s new legislative maps as more reflective of the “will of the people.” In last month’s election, the maps helped Democrats flip 14 previously Republican-held seats in the Legislature, narrowing Republican majorities.
Evers’ next listening session is Wednesday evening in La Crosse, followed by Milwaukee, Ashland and a virtual session.
Members of the public can submit comments on budget priorities through the governor’s constituent services page.
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A red barn in rural Wisconsin. (Greg Conniff | For the Wisconsin Examiner)
In a purple corner of Wisconsin that reflects both the struggles and the promise of the state’s rural communities, a nonprofit group is trying to forge a path beyond isolation and political polarization.
River Valley Commons began six years ago with a lecture series to help residents of the village of Spring Green and the surrounding towns build community, expand critical thinking and foster hope and a sense of agency.
Today the organization connects disparate groups to address the concerns and needs of residents across a three-county area.
Stephanie “Stef” Morrill-Kerckhoff launched both the lecture series and River Valley Commons in 2019 after asking herself, “what can we do to increase the well-being of our area and the people who live in it?” she says. “And how can we do that collaboratively and in a way that brings in as many people, as many organizations, as we can?”
Stef and Joshua Morrill moved to the Wisconsin River valley area near Spring Green in 2013. Both were natives of western New York where the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit learning community and educational center, was founded 150 years ago and still operates.
The couple “felt like we would love to do something similar, where we could bring people together in a lovely natural space to learn and share information,” Stef Morrill-Kerckhoff says. They began organizing the first lecture series, working with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Continuing Studies program, when Joshua Morrill died suddenly in February 2019.
The lecture program, usually held at the Octagon Barn, a distinctive rustic-looking venue northwest of Spring Green, became a memorial to Josh Morrill. His widow decided not to stop there. Since they had first moved to the region, the couple perceived a gap between the interest of local residents in addressing community needs and the wherewithal to reach their goals.
“One of the things that we had always wanted to do is to help with that … just getting people together to talk about things, trying to move forward with solving problems, whatever they were,” says Morrill-Kerckhoff, who has since remarried.
The organization set its boundaries as the River Valley School District, with 11,000 residents and covering more than 400 square miles. Within the district are four villages and portions of nearly a dozen towns.
“The communities are different, but if you look at the broader picture, we all need broadband, we all need housing, we all need child care,” says Joy Kirkpatrick, the board chair of River Valley Commons who works for the University of Wisconsin Extension.
The organization’s work is informed by a desire to address the general problem social scientist Robert Putnam diagnosed in “Bowling Alone.” The book, first published in the year 2000, analyzes the erosion of communal and civic life as engagement has declined among neighbors and with public institutions over the last half-century, fraying the social fabric.
“Whatever the reason, the civic groups and the clubs and the bowling league and the churches, indeed, dwindled, and we’re more alone in our houses,” said the author Sarah Smarsh, citing Putnam’s book when she spoke in August as part of the Morrill Lecture Series.
In early November, the series showed the documentary “Join or Die,” based on Putnam’s work, about the importance of participating in clubs and organizations as a component of healthier living for individuals as well as communities.
The goal of River Valley Commons isn’t to replace existing civic organizations but to help connect them with one another and “lift them up,” Kirkpatrick adds, whether they’re service clubs, local libraries, individual local government bodies or other groups.
By the time River Valley Commons officially got off the ground, the COVID-19 pandemic was just setting in. That redirected the organization’s initial mission toward fundraising for food pantries, including from people who were donating their federal pandemic relief checks.
“That wasn’t how I expected to start, but it was a way that we were able to provide some value very quickly, in an unexpected thing we were able to help with,” Morrill-Kerckhoff says.
Since then, the organization has focused on “helping people and organizations with ideas they have that they want to implement, or problems that they perceive in the community that they want to work on.”
One such project started in Spring Green. The Sauk County village has grown into one of Wisconsin’s prime tourist destinations on the strength of the nationally renowned American Players Theatre along with the quirky House on the Rock and the Frank Lloyd Wright Taliesin studio.
When some visitors in 2021 stopped Spring Green resident Patti Peltier on the street and asked about a place to eat, “I couldn’t think of any place that was open to direct tourists too,” Peltier says. “I took this concern to Stef, and we started looking for what sort of things could serve as an economic engine for our community.”
The result was Savor the River Valley, bringing together restaurants, shops, small farmers and food processors to help support and promote each other.
Peltier, a retired corporate marketing professional, says that there are many such food entrepreneurs in the area. Savor the River Valley aims to connect tourists with those businesses, but also “to connect all those food businesses so they could help support each other, help solve common problems,” she says.
Savor the River Valley has grown to 40 members. Membership is free, Peltier says, and open to all food-related businesses in the region.
In the winter, a slow time for the industry, the group sponsors food classes and pop-up dinners to draw in off-season visitors. A farm-and-food tour in April brings in some shoulder-season traffic, and the network publishes a local food guide for the tourist season.
“We’ve got a very collaborative model,” Peltier says. “We’re trying to see how much we can do by working together.”
Peltier sees Morrill-Kerckhoff and River Valley Commons as a community catalyst. “It created a focal point for gathering up ideas and concerns about what we need in our community, looking for ways to solve those problems and looking for people who are willing to work together on those problems,” she says.
River Valley Commons also offers practical support, providing administrative assistance and serving as the fiscal agent for Savor the River Valley. It has done the same for other local projects and institutions.
“If you look at what people want to happen, what people believe in and what some of those core values are, there’s actually more overlap than we think there is, and the big issue is the social perception of that divide.
– Rachel Peller, executive director, Wisconsin Partners
Stacey Feiner and her husband, Bill Meyer, operate My Fine Homestead, a small organic farming operation about a half-hour west of Spring Green. They distribute produce, eggs, meat and other wares using the community supported agriculture model — CSA for short — with consumers paying an annual subscription fee and receiving deliveries every week or every other week.
A community farmer’s market in Spring Green led by My Fine Homestead and other providers is now part of River Valley Commons, providing a legal structure and acting as the market’s fiscal agent. Savor the River Valley helps “bring people to the area and creates a buzz,” Feiner says.
She and her husband were both raised on Wisconsin dairy farms. At a Morrill Lecture event in October, Feiner told the audience the story of how the couple navigated the shift from the farm life they’d grown up in to the small-scale organic farming that they practice now.
The couple’s business model thrives on forging personal relationships with customers. After Feiner shared their story that evening, “people have come up to me who saw it or watched it on YouTube and said, ‘I just feel more connected to you,’” she says.
“There’s all these little community projects that are happening, and sometimes couldn’t get a foot off the ground to get going,” Feiner says. “River Valley Commons has provided an umbrella, a safety-net organizational structure,” bringing together people with diverse skills “to piggyback off each other.”
River Valley Commons has helped convene a broadband coalition of local governments and others interested in upgrading internet service in the area. That work was made easier as state and federal funds for broadband expansion became available, Morrill-Kerckhoff says. The coalition has sponsored regular monthly technology help sessions at area libraries.
The lack of affordable housing has been another issue for the region, one that it has in common with the rest of Wisconsin. The organization has assembled a group including architects, lenders, local government officials and employers, but housing has presented bigger challenges not so easily resolved.
In the meantime, the organization is continually evolving.
Morrill-Kerckhoff envisions convening what she has been calling “common ground tables” — “where we can bring together groups of people to talk about different issues from any perspective, all perspectives, to try to find some common ground within some of the bigger issues that maybe we are always talking about.”
As for the lecture series itself, Morrill-Kerckhoff says, “I’d like to try to find ways to engage different communities than we have so far.”
River Valley Commons is also working to ensure its stability for the long term. To that end, it recently joined Wisconsin Partners — a confederation of nonprofits.
Wisconsin Partners’ executive director, Rachel Peller, says that organization also arose from the concerns highlighted in “Bowling Alone” — “the reality and the idea that membership in associations has declined, so we’re all more isolated than we were before.”
Peller traces the heightened polarization of these times to that isolation as well. It’s not just political polarization, but a divide that is represented in the media people consume and in their social contexts. Those divisions can obscure the potential for common ground, she says.
“Our policy differences are actually not that sharp,” Peller contends. “If you look at what people want to happen, what people believe in and what some of those core values are, there’s actually more overlap than we think there is, and the big issue is the social perception of that divide.”
That perception is made worse by the retreat from community life that “Bowling Alone” describes, she says, which also leaves people feeling powerless. “So the more isolated we are, the less we feel like we can make an impact in our communities.”
Wisconsin Partners’ member groups include AARP, the Wisconsin Council of Churches, organizations of public health workers and child care educators, and the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority.
Part of what animates the organization is “recognizing the connection between all these different sectors,” Peller says. “If we don’t have child care, then we don’t have health care, and if we don’t have health care, our seniors are struggling, and if our seniors are struggling, then so are our churches.”
Wisconsin Partners has started up local groups in Southwest Wisconsin, the Kickapoo Valley and the Fox Valley. River Valley Commons is the first such group to join after launching on its own.
Peller credits River Valley Commons with being “really creative and nimble and adaptive” in its efforts.
“The work that Stephanie and River Valley Commons does almost just speaks for itself,” Peller says. “It’s just very powerful to know that everyday people are working together to make a difference in their own community, and trying and trying and trying again because it matters to them.”
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A ‘For Sale’ sign is seen on March 19 in Austin, Texas. Policymakers are watching for indications of what President-elect Donald Trump plans to do to ease housing costs next year after an election where voters were laser-focused on the economy.
Americans hand over a huge chunk of their paycheck for a roof over their heads. Policymakers are looking out for indications of what President-elect Donald Trump plans to do to ease housing costs next year after an election where voters were laser-focused on the economy.
Housing accounted for 32.9% of consumers’ spending in 2023, making it the largest share of consumer expenditures, according to the most recently available data Bureau of Labor Statistics. And that was an increase of 5.7% from 2022.
This year, many Americans still struggle to find affordable housing, whether they choose to rent or buy a home.
There’s a lot economists and housing advocates still don’t know about what to expect from a second Trump term. It’s unclear which campaign promises will find their way into administrative rules or legislation, even with a Republican trifecta – the GOP will control the White House and both chambers of Congress.
But policy experts, researchers and economic analysts are looking at Trump’s record, his recent remarks on housing, and Project 2025 – the conservative Heritage Foundation’s 900-page plan to overhaul the executive branch – for a glimpse of what may lie ahead.
Trump has spoken frequently of his proposed 60% tariff on goods from China, which he has said would create more manufacturing jobs in the U.S. Tariffs could be as high as 20% on goods from other countries.
But housing economists and other experts say that could be bad news for building more affordable housing.
Selma Hepp, chief economist for CoreLogic, a financial services company, said tariffs are one of her main concerns about the effects of a second Trump term.
“One of the biggest concerns is not just lumber [costs], but the overall cost of materials, which have been going up,” said Selma Hepp, chief economist for CoreLogic, a financial services company.
Construction material prices have risen 38.8% since February 2020, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors’ analysis of October Producer Price Index data.
Kurt Paulsen, professor of urban planning in the department of planning and landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, said building costs are already high from tariffs on Canadian lumber that Trump first imposed and that the Biden administration kept and increased.
“It used to be in construction that you would get a bid from a contractor or a subcontractor or supplier and it would be good for 60 days. Now, the bids are good for like five days because you don’t know where prices are going to be,” he said.
Trump tweeted on Nov. 18 that he is planning to use the declaration of a national emergency as part of his mass deportation plan.
Besides disrupting lives, Trump’s plan could have effects on what it costs to build housing, Hepp said.
“There is the cost of labor as well, if we do indeed have all these deportations. That’s a big, big concern,” she said. “A large share of labor in the construction industry obviously comes from immigrants. That is a huge issue for new construction and particularly new construction as it relates to affordable housing.”
Foreign-born construction workers made up 3 million of the 11.9 million people who work in the construction industry in 2023, according to the latest American Community Survey data.
The former president hasn’t always been clear on where he stands with zoning regulations and making way for more affordable housing in a wide variety of neighborhoods.
In a July Bloomberg interview, Trump spoke critically of zoning regulations and said that they drive up housing costs. But Trump also has a record of tending toward a “not in my backyard,” or NIMBY, approach to housing that maintained some of these zoning regulations. The Trump administration moved to roll back an Obama-era regulation that tied HUD funding to assessing and reducing housing discrimination in neighborhoods.
“He’ll talk about reducing regulations on developers, but he’ll also use this NIMBYism talking about protecting suburbs from low-income housing and you really can’t have it both ways,” said Sarah Saadian, senior vice president of public policy and field organizing at the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
Paulsen said Project 2025 embraces a pushback against anti-NIMBY approaches to expand multi-family housing.
“What I read in the Project 2025 documents is a clear statement that says every local community and neighborhood should be able to choose the housing it wants to accept or not. The challenge of that is that if every community in every neighborhood can veto housing, then we just don’t get enough housing and prices go up and prices and rents go up,” he said.
Last year, homelessness rose to its highest level recorded since the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development began collecting this information in 2007. The ending of pandemic safety nets that gave some households better financial stability and a lack of affordable housing supply contributed to the number of unhoused people, the report explained.
Trump has been outspoken on his view that homeless people should be “off our streets.” The president-elect has also proposed putting unhoused people with mental health issues into “mental institutions.”
“There’s a movement that I think is largely reflected in Project 2025 that says, actually, cities need more coercive policy tools to enforce public order and to require that someone who’s camping take a shelter placement even if they don’t want it,” Paulsen said.
Saadian said that given the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Grants Pass v. Johnson, which makes it easier to criminalize unhoused populations for sleeping outside, she’s worried about a changing political environment where policies that prioritize stable housing over policing fall out of favor.
“I think all of that just shows a culture shift in the political dynamic here that we’re definitely worried about,” she said.
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A worker saws wood at Canal Crossing, a new luxury apartment community consisting of 393 rental units near the university city of New Haven on Aug. 2, 2017 in Hamden, Connecticut. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump late Friday announced his intent to nominate former NFL player and Texas state lawmaker Scott Turner to lead the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“Scott will work alongside me to Make America Great Again for EVERY American,” Trump said in a statement.
Turner, if confirmed by the Senate, will administer a roughly $68 billion agency that provides rental assistance, builds and preserves affordable housing, addresses homelessness and enforces the Fair Housing Act that prohibits discrimination in housing.
Turner has some experience with housing. During the first Trump administration, he worked with then-HUD Secretary Ben Carson on Opportunity Zones, which were part of the 2017 law that provided tax breaks for investors who put money into designated low-income areas.
“Those efforts, working together with former HUD Secretary, Ben Carson, were maximized by Scott’s guidance in overseeing 16 Federal Agencies which implemented more than 200 policy actions furthering Economic Development,” Trump said. “Under Scott’s leadership, Opportunity Zones received over $50 Billion Dollars in Private Investment!”
Turner will be tasked with addressing the housing shortage of about 3.8 million homes for sale and rent, according to 2021 estimates from Freddie Mac that are still relied upon. Homelessness has also hit a record high of 653,100 people since January of last year, according to a study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.
While on the campaign trail, Trump proposed opening up federal lands for housing, which would mean selling the land for construction purposes with the commitment for a certain percentage of the units to be kept for affordable housing. The federal government owns about 650 million acres of land, or roughly 30% of all land.
Trump has also opposed building multi-family housing, and has instead favored single-family zoning and while such land-use regulation is controlled on the local level, the federal government could influence it.
During Trump’s first term, he proposed slashing many of HUD’s programs, although those requests were not granted by Congress. However, for his second term he’ll have control of both chambers.
In all of Trump’s budget requests, he laid out proposals that would increase rent by 40% for about 4 million low-income households using rental vouchers or for those who lived in public housing, according to an analysis by the left-leaning think tank the Brookings Institution.
Trump also called for cutting housing programs such as the Community Development Block Grant, which directs funding to local and state governments to rehabilitate and build affordable housing.
The former president’s budget requests also would have slashed the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, which assists low-income families.
The Wisconsin Realtors Association reports home sales were up 3.5% in October compared to the same time last year. Still, tight supply means a sellers market and the state's median home price grew to $310,000.
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The city of Milwaukee owns hundreds of vacant, abandoned houses. More than 100 are set for restoration and homeownership under the Homes MKE program.
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A Connecticut Department of Transportation crew works on an Interstate 95 bridge on Nov. 05, 2023, in Westport, Connecticut. The Federal Reserve’s rate cut earlier this month could mean lower borrowing costs for state and local governments and bring changes for housing development, tax revenue and road, water and sewer construction. (By John Moore/Getty Images)
The Federal Reserve’s second consecutive key rate cut could mean more than just lower borrowing costs for the average consumer — state and local governments stand to benefit, too.
Lower interest rates may bring changes for housing development, tax revenue, debt refinancing and bread-and-butter projects like roads, water and sewer, state and local government officials told States Newsroom.
The Fed’s cut earlier this month followed an aggressive rate-hiking campaign to beat down inflation, and it came years after the last time the U.S. central bank lowered interest rates. Key borrowing rates now stand at 4.5 to 4.75%, and inflation has cooled to 2.7%. Economists expect another rate cut in December.
“On average, the lower the interest rates are expected to help stock market returns if historical trends hold,” said Liz Farmer, who focuses on budgets, fiscal distress, tax policy and pensions at The Pew Charitable Trusts. “So generally, you would expect a more positive effect on your average pension portfolio that has a good amount invested in equities.”
This change means states and localities will have lower borrowing costs, which will make it easier to make big long-term changes in infrastructure, to see higher sales tax collections as a result of more spending, and it is likely to result in better pension performance in an environment where stocks tend to respond to lower rates, fiscal policy experts at Pew say.
In 2021 and 2022, states had record high revenue growth due in part to federal pandemic aid and the impact of the federal aid on workers and businesses, according to Pew. But that kind of growth was unsustainable.
Recently, nearly all states have entered into a slower revenue growth environment, said Brian Sigritz, director of state fiscal studies at the National Association of State Budget Officers, a professional membership group for budget and finance officers. More than three dozen states had a fall in revenue in fiscal year 2023, Pew’s analysis found. At least five states experienced budget shortfalls in fiscal year 2024, the think tank explained.
“States overall are remaining in a strong fiscal position. It’s just that we’re starting to see slower growth compared to what we did see for those a couple of years after the start of the pandemic,” he said. “That was really a unique set of circumstances where we had the additional federal aid provided by all the different COVID relief bills and at the same time where state revenue growth was growing so strongly, and that led to very strong growth in tax collections.”
Sigritz said that states, which have to almost entirely use borrowing for infrastructure and capital projects, will benefit from lower borrowing costs as a result of the Fed rate cuts.
David Schmiedicke, finance director for the city of Madison, Wisconsin’s finance department, said he’s hopeful that the lower cost of borrowing will reduce the cost of public infrastructure when seeking construction bids.
“We’re seeing a lot of development, even with the higher rates. Madison is an attractive place to live. People from around the country are moving here,” he said.
Rebecca Fleury, the city manager for Battle Creek, Michigan, said interest rates affect key services the public relies on, including fire departments.
“[Interest rates] have an impact on our ability as a city of 52,000 to provide the full services that we do. Every little bit impacts us, because we have to buy fire trucks,” she said.“If there’s a decrease in one of our three largest revenue sources, we feel it.”
But there are both pluses and minuses to the cut in the federal funds rate, Schmiedicke said, as it brings down the interest income states receive.
“It probably will reduce the amount of investment income the city receives on its cash balances. We saw that go up dramatically in 2022 and 2023, so that’ll probably come down as the Fed cuts rates,” Schmiedicke said.
Different tax policies also change how states and localities experience the Fed rate cuts.
H.D. Palmer, deputy director for external affairs and principal spokesman on fiscal and financial issues for California Gov. Gavin Newsom, said that the lower interest rates are overall positive for the nation’s largest state because of the concentration of technology firms there, its progressive tax rate, and the taxing of capital gains and stock options as personal income.
“When the markets are doing well, those types of firms that are concentrated in California do well and in consequence, our revenues do well,” Palmer said.
The Alabama Department of Finance told States Newsroom that it is closely following the Fed’s actions as it “closely follows all actions that could impact our citizens and the State’s revenues.”
But the state agency said it may take some time to see any of the effects of recent rate cuts.
“While recent changes in the federal funds rate may lead to increased state revenues, absent a significant change in the rate, the impact on revenues and expenditures would not likely be seen immediately. We will continue to monitor and assess all economic indicators to ensure steady, sustainable, conservative growth for the benefit of all Alabamians,” the department said in a statement.
Schmiedicke said Wisconsin is very reliant on property taxes because although state law allows a statewide sales tax and counties can impose a 0.5% sales tax, cities other than Milwaukee have not been able to do so. The state also has strict limits on property tax increases.
“We could see more development in the city and that could definitely help with our overall property tax base, as well as if it results in more travel and room taxes,” he said.
As states and localities wrestle with how to provide more affordable housing, with nearly half of renters having to spend more than 30% of their income on housing, lower interest rates could help spur more building. Fleury said the costs of loans and labor and materials has been “astronomical,” making it hard for developers to build. Although she said Battle Creek would love to take advantage of Low Income Housing Tax Credits, it’s challenging to fund projects.
“I think that a lower interest rate could really help us get farther along in our housing plans,” she said “If you can’t get your project to pencil within what they’re able to fund or finance, we just never make the list.”
Despite lower interest rates creating a better environment for affordable rent and homes, states will likely continue to spend a lot of energy on housing programs, Sigritz said. Governors’ budget proposals and state of the state speeches have prioritized affordable housing more and more in the past few years, he said, and he expects this to continue.
“Housing affordability is not an issue that’s going to go away overnight, and there’s still a need for more housing,” Sigritz said. “It takes a while to build additional housing even in the lower-interest environment.”
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Tents around King Park in Milwaukee. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)
Milwaukee County Supv. Shawn Rolland is calling on board supervisors to support allocating more funds to help people living unhoused. The additional $500,000 in Housing Division funding would come from an amendment to the 2025 county budget, and help unhoused residents to find stable shelter and resources.
The call comes during Homeless Awareness Week, which ends Nov. 2. Rolland noted that the county has relied on pandemic-era funds to help underserved residents find stable housing. “If there are insufficient Flexible Housing Pool funds, the Housing Division will not have the tools they need to help,” Rolland said in a statement. “With rent and mortgage costs up by 31% and 43% respectively, many people are facing severe housing insecurity, including some who are homeless for the first time in their lives.” Currently, unlike some other cities nationwide, Milwaukee has no “safe camping” initiatives, which designate areas where unhoused people can camp for the time being.
Both county and nonprofit outreach teams have encountered growing numbers of people living outside who’ve never been unhoused before. Recently, that trend reached a fever pitch after local and state authorities closed Park & Ride lots due to safety concerns, stemming from the growing communities of people living in the lots. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation reported that between July 1 and September 30 of this year, there were 275 calls for service to the lots, including for assaults, thefts and overdoses.
The outreach group Street Angels reports that over a two year period, the number of unhoused people they serve has increased by 120%. In July, during the Republican National Convention, out-of-state police killed a man living unhoused in Milwaukee’s King Park neighborhood. The proposed amendment would carry no tax levy impact, according to county records. The amendment would specifically focus on people living unhoused who have “exigent housing needs.”
“For those recently forced to leave local park-and-ride lots, this means contemplating living in the woods, under bridges, or other precarious places,” Rolland stated. “This situation is a tragedy, and we must act to prevent it.” The county supervisor fears that although Milwaukee has made “significant investments ‘up the funnel’ to prevent homelessness in the future,” the current framework of the 2025 budget lacks “support for those in immediate crisis.”
Supvs. Jack Eckblad, Juan Miguel Martinez, Sky Z. Capriolo, Felesia Martin, Caronline Gomez-Tom and Priscilla E. Coggs-Jones signed on as amendment cosponsors. Recently, the county board approved $250,000 to fund a right to counsel program for tenants facing eviction, in an effort to help curb some of the housing crisis.
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Unhoused people in Milwaukee pitched tents in King Park this summer. Advocates who work with the homeless population say that a decision to close two Park & Ride lots in Milwaukee has made things more difficult for people who don't have housing,. (Isiah Holmes | Wisconsin Examiner)
Seeing people living out of their vehicles in Milwaukee’s Park & Ride lots at Holt and College Avenues wasn’t unusual for Eva Welch. As co-founder and executive director of the homeless outreach group Street Angels, she had watched for nearly a decade as the Park & Rides grew into their own unique communities.
Welch was dismayed to hear that officials would be closing the Park & Rides. Driving the Street Angels outreach bus packed with all manner of supplies, the team traveled throughout Milwaukee. Among their stops were four Park & Rides, where commuters park their vehicles and board public transit. Over the years, more and more people living in tents or out of their vehicles – functional or otherwise – chose to remain in the lots.
“Holt Avenue Park & Ride has actually been a stop on our route through the entire nine, almost 10 years that we’ve been in existence,” Welch told Wisconsin Examiner. She called the lots on Holt and College avenues the “largest by far” in terms of how many unhoused Milwaukeeans lived there. “The majority of the folks there either had some kind of camper, or a vehicle, but there was still several – more than several – people between the two Park & Rides living in tents on the grounds of the Park & Rides in the grassy areas.”
Park & Ride residents had created a modest form of shelter and community, she said. “There’s actually a group of folks that were removed from the Holt Park & Ride that are trying to move around as a group,” said Welch. “And unfortunately, it’s unsuccessful for them. Everywhere they’ve gone, they’ve been told to move within 12 hours. And they’re pretty adamant about staying together because they’ve somewhat become a family.”
That group is made up of about 15-20 people, Welch said. On Oct. 14, the Department of Transportation (DOT) announced that two Milwaukee County Park & Rides would be closed, along with another partial closure, “due to declining safety conditions.” Over a year, more than 80 people have been removed from the lots and have found housing through the county’s housing services. The press release stated that despite those efforts, more unhoused Milwaukeeans continued to find the lots.
“We’re seeing a lot of individuals who are experiencing homelessness, sometimes, for the first time,” said Eric Collins-Dyke, deputy administrator for Milwaukee County Housing Services. Different factors also seem to be leading people to the lots. “Some of it is dealing with past trauma and the complexities that accompany that, and also we’ve seen more from an economic standpoint, individuals who work and they either lost their employment for rent, or are currently working and getting income, but aren’t making enough to afford rent.”
Collins-Dyke said this trend is spreading “pretty rapidly” and not just at the Park & Rides. “It sort of made us look at having to be more robust in the preventional space.” Generally, many of the people living in the Park & Ride lots are from the Milwaukee area. “Almost across the board, from the area,” Collins-Dyke said, adding that more older adults are appearing unhoused in Milwaukee County. Nevertheless, age ranges in the encampments can vary from people in their early 20s up to elders in their 70s.
DOT’s press release stressed that camping near highways or “adjacent right-of-ways” is illegal under state law. Unlike some metro regions nationwide, Milwaukee has no “safe camping” initiatives, which designate areas for unhoused people to camp.
The DOT stated that between July 1 and September 30 of this year, there were 275 calls for service to the lots, an increase of nearly 42%. Those incidents ranged from reports of assaults, theft, and overdoses.
“Public safety is first and foremost,” WisDOT Assistant Deputy Secretary Joel Nilsestuen said. “Park & ride lots are not safe or suitable places for anyone to live. We’ve worked closely with our partners to connect individuals with available resources and relocate them to safer situations. We do not take this action lightly, but we recognize the importance of doing what’s right for the safety of the people in the park & rides, the traveling public and nearby communities.”
“We are concerned for the safety of those choosing to live in these lots, as well as for the safety of the surrounding community,” Wisconsin State Patrol Superintendent Tim Carnahan said. “The reported incidents happening inside of these encampments and nearby neighborhoods are unacceptable. We are dedicated to protecting the public, and in doing so, we must do what’s necessary to ensure everyone’s safety.”
Some wonder if these acts are actually working in the long run. Welch said that the Park & Ride residents had been sent notices warning of closures before, but authorities never followed through. “Typically what would happen is the news would pick it up, and the notices would be rescinded,” said Welch. “So for many of them, they didn’t believe that this was going to happen.” Many Park & Ride residents were on edge, said Welch. Then fences went up, police patrols came through, and other indications it was time to leave appeared. “It’s been quite an experience for the folks that were staying there,” said Welch. “They were having difficulties getting their stuff out, they couldn’t get back in to get their stuff once they went back out.”
With winter coming, immediate housing and shelter space is limited. Among local officials, reactions to the Park & Ride closures were split. County Supervisors Caroline Gomez-Tom and Jack EckBlad released a joint statement saying the DOT’s response “fails to address the underlying issues contributing to homelessness in our community.” The supervisors called for affordable housing, robust tenant protections, and support for people facing housing instability. Earlier this month, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley announced $4 million in affordable housing focused on Milwaukee and Oak Creek.
On a nightly basis, Street Angels encounters around 300 people living on the street, tucked away in wooded areas, or camping in Park & Rides. In September 2022, the group was encountering 223 people living unhoused. By September of this year, the number had increased to 488, that’s a 120% increase over a two-year period. Welch told Wisconsin Examiner, “We’ve never served so many people in vehicles…We’ve seen people in really nice vehicles sometimes, where they’re choosing their car payment over their rent because they can’t afford both and still eat.”
Outreach groups, whether attached to the county or on their own, are also struggling to keep up. Street Angels has no form of permanent funding, Welch said. “Every year what we raise is what’s getting us by the next year,” she told Wisconsin Examiner. Nevertheless, the group is adding new programs, and providing more meals ahead of the winter.
Collins-Dyke said that the county will work with nonprofits and the city to support warming rooms and increase its own presence. “I think this year, the coordination among teams within the system will be more important than ever.”
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Members of the Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union (MATU) join other Milwaukee residents in a protest calling for a freeze to rents and evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)
The Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved $250,000 to fund the Legal Aid Society’s Right to Counsel Program. Under this program, eligible residents facing eviction proceedings will receive free legal representation. Tenants and families with young children will be prioritized in the new program.
“There is a broad, positive, progressive coalition of stakeholders who support this program,” said Sup. Jack Eckblad, author of the amendment which will help fund the program. Calls to establish such a program have grown since 2020, when eviction filings sored to new heights during the COVID-19 pandemic. In Milwaukee County eviction filings rose by 26 that year.
An initial pilot program launched in late 2021 received more than $3 million in funding. Under the program, tenants who arrived to eviction proceedings were more frequently represented by lawyers, with the incidence of representation rising from 2-3% to 6-16%. Evictions were prevented in 76% of cases, and eviction records were sealed in 72% of cases. The majority of those filings, a report evaluating the pilot program found, were made in majority Black census tracts, and 78% of the program’s clients were Black women.
Housing advocates said that the program needed to expand to have greater impact. They also objected to input from landlords during the process of crafting new programs to help tenants in Milwaukee.
During the summer, outreach groups reported seeing more individuals living unhoused on the streets and in cars. In July, after an unhoused man was killed by out-of-state police during the Republican National Convention, the outreach group Street Angels reported serving up to 300 people per night. Funding for the Right to Counsel Program comes as Wisconsin’s largest braces for winter.
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A row of framed houses under construction in a file photo. The Consumer Finance Protection Board and the U.S. Department of Justice reached a settlement with a Wisconsin-based mortage company over allegations of redlining in Birmingham. The company said that it feels that "justice did not prevail" in the situation. (Getty Images)
A mortgage company has agreed to pay civil penalties of almost $9 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) alleging that the company had discriminated against people living in the predominantly Black neighborhoods in Birmingham.
The two agencies alleged that Fairway Independent Mortgage Insurance Corporation, based in Madison, Wisconsin, had engaged in redlining by failing to provide credit services, especially with respect to housing, for individuals living in communities of color.
“The CFPB and DOJ are holding Fairway accountable for redlining Black neighborhoods,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra in a statement. “Fairway’s unlawful redlining discouraged families from seeking loans for homes in Birmingham’s Black neighborhoods.”
Fairway said in a statement on its website that the lawsuit mischaracterized the matter.
“For one, the complaint characterizes Fairway’s actions as willful and reckless, a claim that was mutually rejected by the parties prior to settlement,” according to the statement. “In addition, the complaint characterizes Fairway’s actions as willful and intentional, despite the government agencies’ failure to identify any evidence to support such a claim.”
The company also stated that it has made more loans in majority-Black census tracts than any other non-bank lender with a physical presence in Birmingham, and said it moved to a settlement “to resolve the matter and curb the further expenditure of resources.”
“Fairway is disappointed in this outcome,” the company said in its statement. “We are a company that serves people and have always strived to help everyone achieve the dream of homeownership. Our numbers, our reputation, and our client testimonials prove such. We are equally disappointed in the regulatory and judicial systems over these actions. We feel justice did not prevail in this situation.”
Under the proposed settlement, which requires approval from a federal judge, Fairway would pay a $1.9 million civil penalty to the CFPB’s victims relief fund and provide $7 million to a loan subsidy program that offers people the chance to purchase, refinance and improve their homes in majority Black-neighborhoods.
The lawsuit alleged that Fairway placed all its physical Birmingham retail locations and loan officers in majority white areas without doing the same for places that were majority Black or in communities of color.
“Fairway predominantly directed its marketing and advertising to majority-white areas from 2018 through 2022, while failing to conduct effective marketing and advertising to majority-Black areas in the Birmingham MSA until at least late 2022,” the complaint from the CFPB states.
Through that practice, Fairway had discouraged minorities from obtaining loans, and that the data showed that the company generated a disproportionately low number of loan applications from majority Black areas within the Birmingham metropolitan service area as compared to other, similarly situated lenders.
The complaint states that from 2018 to 2022, the company generated slightly more than 10,000 applications from the Birmingham area, but that only about 4% of the loan applications were from properties in majority-Black areas. Similarly situated companies, it alleged, had more than 12% of their loan applications from the same majority-Black areas.
“Fairway’s peer lenders generated applications for properties in majority-Black areas at over three times the rate of Fairway,” the complaint states.
Fair housing advocates praised the actions of both the DOJ and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
“As a general matter, an argument that says that we can make an individual judgment about any borrower based on where they actually live, or based on their race, or based on anything that is not related to that person’s individual ability to repay and evaluate their collateral, is irrational and banks should not be doing it,” Nestor M. Davidson, faculty Director at the Urban Law Center with Fordham Law School.
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Alabama Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alabama Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Brian Lyman for questions: info@alabamareflector.com. Follow Alabama Reflector on Facebook and X.
Both presidential candidates have said they have general plans to tackle the housing crisis. (Photo by Getty Images)
This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race.
WASHINGTON — As the cost and supply of housing remain top issues for voters, both presidential candidates have put forth plans to tackle the crisis, in hopes of courting voters ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
The coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020 exacerbated problems in the housing market, with supply chain disruptions, record-low interest rates and increased demand contributing to a rise in housing prices, according to a study by the Journal of Housing Economics.
While housing is typically handled on the local level, the housing supply is tight and rents continue to skyrocket, putting increased pressure on the federal government to help. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump agree that it’s an issue that needs to be solved, but their solutions diverge.
The Harris and Trump campaigns did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for details on the general housing proposals the nominees have discussed.
Harris’ plan calls for the construction of 3 million homes in four years.
The United States has a shortage of about 3.8 million homes for sale and rent, according to 2021 estimates from Freddie Mac that are still relied upon.
Additionally, homelessness has hit a record-high of 653,100 people since January of last year, and a “record-high 22.4 million renter households spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities,” up from 2 million households since 2019, according to a study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.
“This is obviously a multi-prong approach, because the factors contributing to high rents and housing affordability are many, and my plan is to attempt to address many of them at once, so we can actually have the net effect of bringing down the cost and making homeownership, renting more affordable,” Harris said during a September interview with Wisconsin Public Radio.
Trump has long opposed building multi-family housing and has instead thrown his support behind single-family zoning, which would exclude other types of housing. Such land-use regulation is conducted by local government bodies, not the federal government, though the federal government could influence it.
“There will be no low-income housing developments built in areas that are right next to your house,” Trump said during an August rally in Montana. “I’m gonna keep criminals out of your neighborhood.”
Election forecasters have predicted that Democrats will regain control of the U.S. House, but Republicans are poised to win the Senate, meaning any housing proposals will have to be overwhelmingly bipartisan.
“How much money is going to really be available without substantial increases in revenue to be able to do all these things that both Trump and Harris are proposing?” Ted Tozer, a non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center, said in an interview with States Newsroom. “All the money comes from Congress.”
Many of Harris’ policies rely on cooperation from Congress, as historically the federal government has limited tools to address housing shortages.
“On the Democratic side, there’s a hunger for more action, for more direct government intervention in the housing market than we’ve seen in a long time,” said Francis Torres, the associate director of housing and infrastructure at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Nearly all proposals that Harris has put forth would require Congress to pass legislation and appropriate funds. The first is S.2224, introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, which would amend U.S. tax code to bar private equity firms from buying homes in bulk by denying “interest and depreciation deductions for taxpayers owning 50 or more single family properties,” according to the bill.
The second bill, S. 3692, introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, would bar using algorithms to artificially inflate the cost of rents.
Both bills would need to reach the 60-vote threshold in order to advance in the Senate, whichever party is in control.
Harris has pledged to support first-time homebuyers, but Congress would need to appropriate funds for the $25,000 down payment assistance program she has proposed that would benefit an estimated 4 million first-time homebuyers over four years.
It’s a proposal that’s been met with skepticism.
“I’m really concerned that down payment assistance will actually put more pressure on home prices, because basically, you’re giving people additional cash to pay more for the house that they’re going to bid on,” Tozer said. “So by definition, they get in a bidding war, they’re going to spend more.”
Harris has also proposed a $40 billion innovation fund for local governments to build and create solutions for housing, which would also need congressional approval.
Both candidates support opening some federal lands for housing, which would mean selling the land for construction purposes with the commitment for a certain percentage of the units to be kept for affordable housing.
The federal government owns about 650 million acres of land, or roughly 30% of all land.
Neither candidate has gone into detail on this proposal.
“I think it’s a sign that at least the Harris campaign and the people in her orbit are thinking about addressing this housing affordability problem really through stronger government action than has happened in several decades,” Torres said.
The biggest tool the federal government has used to address housing is through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, known as LIHTC. Harris has promised to expand this tax credit, but has not gone into detail about how much she wants it expanded.
This program awards tax credits to offset construction costs in exchange for a certain number of rent-restricted units for low-income households. But the restriction is temporary, lasting about 30 years.
There is no similar program for housing meant to be owned.
“It’s an interesting moment, because then on the other side, on the Trump side, even though they diagnosed a lot of the similar problems, there’s not as much of a desire to leverage the strength of the federal government to ensure affordability,” Torres said.
The Trump campaign does not have a housing proposal, but various interviews, rallies and a review of Trump’s first four years in office provide a roadmap.
During Trump’s first administration, many of his HUD budget proposals were not approved by Congress.
In all four of his presidential budget requests, he laid out proposals that would increase rent by 40% for about 4 million low-income households using rental vouchers or for those who lived in public housing, according to an analysis by the left-leaning think tank the Brookings Institution.
All four of Trump’s budgets also called for the elimination of housing programs such as the Community Development Block Grant, which directs funding to local and state governments to rehabilitate and build affordable housing. Trump’s budgets also would have slashed the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, which is a home energy assistance program for low-income families.
Additionally, Trump’s Opportunity Zones authorized through the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which are tax incentives to businesses and real estate to invest in low-income communities, have had mixed results.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Trump said he wanted to focus on reducing regulations in the permitting process.
“Your permits, your permitting process. Your zoning, if — and I went through years of zoning. Zoning is like… it’s a killer,” he said. “But we’ll be doing that, and we’ll be bringing the price of housing down.”
During campaign rallies, Trump has often said he would impose a 10% tariff across the board on all goods entering the U.S. He’s also proposed 60% tariffs on China.
Trump said at a rally in Georgia that tariff is “one of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.”
Tozer said adding trade policies, such as tariffs on construction materials like lumber, would drive up the cost of homes.
Trump has argued that his plan for mass deportations will help free up the supply of housing. Karoline Leavitt, the Trump national press secretary, told the New York Times that deporting immigrants would lower the cost of housing because migration “is driving up housing costs.”
The former president has made a core campaign promise to deport millions of immigrants.
Tozer said housing and immigration are tied, because the ability to build houses comes down to workers, and roughly 30% of construction workers are immigrants.
“By shutting down the border, you’re possibly shutting down your capacity to build these houses,” he said, adding that all those policies are intertwined.
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As low-income households face the dual burden of weather extremes and high energy costs, energy efficiency is an increasingly important strategy for both climate mitigation and lower utility bills.
Passive House standards — which create a building envelope so tight that central heating and cooling systems may not be needed at all — promise to dramatically slash energy costs, and are starting to appear in “stretch codes” for buildings, including in Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington and New York.
And while some builders are balking at the initial up-front cost, other developers are embracing passive house metrics as a solution for affordable multifamily housing.
“We’re trying to make zero energy, high performing buildings that are healthy and low energy mainstream everywhere,” said Katrin Klingenberg, co-founder and executive director of Passive House Institute-U.S., or Phius.
Klingenberg says the additional work needed to meet an aggressive efficiency standard, is, in the long run, not that expensive. Constructing a building to passive standards is initially only about 3%-5% more expensive than building a conventional single family home, or 0%-3% more for multifamily construction, according to Phius.
“This is not rocket science… We’re just beefing up the envelope. We’re doing all the good building science, we’re doing all the healthy stuff. We’re downsizing the [heating and cooling] system, and now we need someone to optimize that process,” Klingenberg said.
A Phius-certified building does not employ a conventional central heating and cooling system. Instead, it depends on an air-tight building envelope, highly efficient ventilation and strategically positioned, high-performance windows to exploit solar gain during both winter and summer and maximize indoor comfort.
The tight envelope for Phius buildings regulates indoor air temperature, which can be a literal lifesaver when power outages occur during extreme heat waves or cold snaps, said Doug Farr, founder and principal of architecture firm Farr Associates.
Farr pointed to the example of the Academy for Global Citizenship in Chicago, which was built to Phius standards.
“There was a really cold snap in January. Somehow the power went out [and the building] was without electricity for two or three days. And the internal temperature in the building dropped two degrees over three days.”
Farr said that example shows a clear benefit to high efficiency that justifies the cost.
“You talk about the ultimate resilience where you’re not going to die in a power outage either in the summer or the winter. You know, that’s pretty valuable.”
There is also a business case to be made for implementing Phius and other sustainability metrics into residential construction, such as lowered bills that can appeal to market-rate buyers and renters, and reduced long-term maintenance costs for building owners.
AJ Patton, founder and CEO of 548 Enterprise in Chicago, says in response to questions about how to convince developers to consider factors beyond the bottom line, simply, “they shouldn’t.”
Instead, he touts lower operating costs for energy-efficiency metrics rather than climate mitigation when he pitches his projects to his colleagues.
“I can’t sell people on climate change anymore,” he said. “If you don’t believe by now, the good Lord will catch you when He catch you.
“But if I can sell you on lowering your operating expenses, if I can sell you on the marketability, on the fact that your tenants will have 30%, 40% lower individual expenses, that’s a marketing angle from a developer owner, that’s what I push on my contemporaries,” Patton said. “And then that’s when they say, ‘if you’re telling the truth, and if your construction costs are not more significant than mine, then I’m sold.’”
Phius principles can require specialized materials and building practices, Klingenberg said. But practitioners are working toward finding ways to manage costs by sourcing domestically available materials rather than relying on imports.
“The more experienced an architect [or developer] gets, they understand that they can replace these specialized components with more generic materials and you can get the same effect,” Klingenberg said.
Patton is presently incorporating Phius principles as the lead developer for 3831 W Chicago Avenue, a mixed use development located on Chicago’s West Side. The project, billed as the largest passive house design project in the city to date, will cover an entire city block, incorporating approximately 60 mixed-income residential units and 9,000 sq ft of commercial and community space.
Another project, Sendero Verde, located in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City, is the largest certified passive-house building in the United States with 709 units. Completed in April, Sendero Verde is designed to provide cool conditions in the summer and warmth during the winter — a vast improvement for the low-income and formerly unhoused individuals and families who live there.
Even without large upfront building cost premiums and with the increased impact of economies of scale, improved technology and materials, many developers still feel constrained to cut costs, Farr said.
“There’s entire segments of the development spectrum in housing, even in multifamily housing in Chicago, where if you’re a developer of rental housing time and again … they feel like they have no choice but to keep things as the construction as cheap as possible because their competitors all do. And then, some architecture firms only work with those ‘powerless’ developers and they get code-compliant buildings.”
But subsidies, such as federal low income housing credits, IRS tax breaks and resources from the Department of Energy also provide a means for developers to square the circle, especially for projects aimed toward very low-income residents.
Nonetheless, making the numbers work often requires taking a long-term view of development, according to Brian Nowak, principal at Sweetgrass Design Studio in Minnesota. Nowak was the designer for Hillcrest Village, an affordable housing development in Northfield that does not utilize Phius building metrics, but does incorporate net-zero energy usage standards.
“It’s an investment over time, to build resilient, energy-efficient housing,” he told the Energy News Network in June 2023.
“That should be everyone’s goal. And if we don’t, for example, it affects our school system. It affects the employers at Northfield having people that are readily available to come in and fill the jobs that are needed.
“That’s a significant long-term benefit of a project like this. And that is not just your monthly rents on the building; it’s the cost of the utilities as well. When those utilities include your electricity and your heating and cooling that’s a really big deal.”
Developers like Patton are determined to incorporate sustainability metrics into affordable housing and commercial developments both because it’s good business and because it’s the right thing to do.
“I’m not going to solve every issue. I’m going to focus on clean air, clean water, and lowering people’s utility bills. That’s my focus. I’m not going to design the greatest architectural building. I’m not even interested in hiring those type of architects.
“I had a lived experience of having my heat cut off in the middle of winter. I don’t want that to ever happen to anybody I know ever again,” Patton said. “So if I can lower somebody’s cost of living, that’s my sole focus. And there’s been a boatload of buy-in from that, because those are historically [not] things [present] in the communities I invest in.”
No longer a niche, Passive House standards becoming a solution for highly efficient affordable housing is an article from Energy News Network, a nonprofit news service covering the clean energy transition. If you would like to support us please make a donation.
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 settlement to a federal lawsuit filed against Donald Trump required him not to discriminate in housing.
The U.S. Justice Department sued Trump in 1973, alleging that Trump and his company discriminated against Black people who tried to rent his thousands of New York City apartments.
Trump denied the allegations and admitted no liability.
Under the settlement, Trump was permanently prohibited from refusing to rent to people based on race, including falsely telling racial minority applicants that apartments weren’t available. He was ordered to send weekly apartment vacancy notices to the New York Urban League and to advertise to nonwhite communities that his apartments were “equal opportunity housing.”
The Justice Department called the settlement “one of the most far-reaching ever negotiated.”
Two speakers Aug. 22, 2024, at the Democratic National Convention, National Urban League President Marc Morial and former U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge, referenced the lawsuit.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse: Consent order
Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse: United States v. Fred C. Trump, Donald Trump, and Trump Management, Inc. 1:73-01529 (E.D.N.Y.)
NPR: Decades-Old Housing Discrimination Case Plagues Donald Trump
PBS NewsHour: Marc Morial at 2024 Democratic National Convention
PBS NewsHour: WATCH: Former HUD secretary Marcia Fudge speaks at 2024 Democratic National Convention
Washington Post: Inside the government’s racial bias case against Donald Trump’s company, and how he fought it
Was Donald Trump ordered as a result of a federal lawsuit not to discriminate in housing? 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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