SEWRPC Housing Plan Website

The Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission has set up a page on their website for their new Regional Housing Plan. I urge you to go to this website and take a few moments to explore it. Be sure to check out the newsletter, the housing plan study details, and the public meetings.

The Waukesha meeting will be on June 3, 2009 (4:30-6:30) at the Waukesha Rotary Building, Frame Park at 1150 Baxter Street, Waukesha. Of course, you can go to the Milwaukee County meetings or one of the other counties' meetings if the location and/or scheduling fits your needs better.

It's important that SEWRPC has input from the community regarding the housing study. So take out your calendar and scribble or type in the date & location.

UPDATE: Link fixed & time added (missing from original announcement).

Campaign forges on for a housing trust fund

Last night about 60 people came to St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Waukesha for our second quarterly evening event, Creating Communities: Affordable Housing Now and When. Those attending were members of non-profit and faith organizations, developers, local government officials and staff, and a columnist from the Journal Sentinel. The event focused on how a housing trust fund could help current affordable housing efforts in Waukesha County.

"Land, land, land," said Ted Romberg in response to the question of what the biggest challenge is when working to provide affordable housing in the area. Ted is the president of the Community Land Development Association, a land trust in Waukesha County. Funding organizations typically require the land trust to apply for funds for a specific piece of land. But when the association finds the rarity of an affordable piece of land in the area, that land is usually sold by the time the group obtains funding to purchase it. A housing trust fund could provide funding to the land trust in advance, to help solve that problem.

David Weiss, the CEO for General Capitol Group, explained it's difficult to develop affordable senior housing projects because there is typically not enough federal funding, leaving a funding gap. A county housing trust fund could provide the gap funding needed to make more of these projects happen. And every dollar the county commits to a housing trust fund leverages $10-20 of other funding coming into the county to provide economic development in the county.

Bill Perkins, executive director of the Wisconsin Partnership for Housing Development, and Bernie Juno, executive director of the Hebron House of Hospitalty, Inc., agreed that a housing trust fund could help to increase the affordable housing their programs provide. Bernie said, "It's critical that we have this housing trust fund established, critical."

The Excitement Builds...

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist Laurel Walker wrote about the Waukesha effort in today's column!

I appreciated this part, which we don't hear enough (or ever!):

So the task force has a mountain to climb. But for their cause and their vision, participants in the Waukesha County Affordable Housing Task Force deserve thanks and encouragement.

Why Waukesha County Needs a Housing Trust Fund

Read the press release for tomorrow night's event here. Then register to attend at heatherdc@interfaithconference.org! Hope to see you all there!

Event Speakers

The Waukesha County Affordable Housing Task Force event this Wednesday will host four panelists on the discussion of current affordable housing efforts in Waukesha: David Weiss, Bernie Juno, William Perkins, and Rev. Ted Romberg.

David Weiss is the CEO of general Capital Group, a private real estate development company in the Milwaukee metro area, began his career with Citibank in New York. David joined Citicorp Real Estate in Chicago in 1993. In 1997 David was a founding partner of General Capitol Group.

Bernie Juno is the founder and executive director of the Hebron House of Hospitality, Inc., a provider of emergency housing and related services in Waukesha. She is a member of the State Interagency Council on Homelessness that helped develop the Ten-Year Plan for Wisconsin on Ending Homelessness.

William Perkins is the executive director of the Wisconsin Partnership for Housing Development, a private nonprofit affordable housing corporation. Bill founded the Wisconsin Partnership for Housing Development in 1985. Bill directed work on local housing and neighborhoos partnerships in Wisconsin and other states. This corporation has offices in Milwaukee and Madison.

Rev. Ted Romberg is president of the Community Land Development Association, a land trust in Waukesha County. Rev. Ted Romberg served 21 years as lead pastor at Ascension Lutheran Church in Waukesha. He retired in 2004 and is working on the land trust in Waukesha.

Remember that the event will be held at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Waukesha this Wednesday from 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. The panel will discuss what more could be done in Waukesha County with a Housing Trust Fund. If you are planning to attend, and have not RSVP'd, please do so to heatherdc@interfaithconference.org or 414 276 9050.

April 22 Event Reminder

From Heather Dummer Combs...
---

Are you planning to attend the Waukesha County Affordable Housing Task Force's event next week? Have you pre-registered? Have you passed the information on to others? Now's the time to do so!

The Waukesha County Affordable Housing Task Force is working to establish a Waukesha County Housing Trust Fund as a way to support and encourage the development of workforce and affordable housing. Next week's event is a great way to learn a bit about what local affordable housing efforts are underway, what is a housing trust fund and how such a fund could support the development of affordable or workforce housing in Waukesha County.

Creating Communities: Affordable Housing Now and When...
Wednesday, April 22 from 5:30 to 7:00pm
St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Waukesha
http://www.stlukeslutheran.org/
Panel discussion on current affordable housing efforts and what more could be done in Waukesha County with a Housing Trust Fund.
If you are planning to attend and have not RSVPed, please do so.
heatherdc@interfaithconference.org or 414 414-276 276-9050.

Why I support a Waukesha Housing Trust Fund

Welcome to a new series of posts that we are starting here at the Creating Communities Campaign blog. We will be asking our supporters and endorsers why they support the Waukesha County Affordable Housing Task Force and the efforts to create a Housing Trust Fund in Waukesha County.

First up is Donald Johnson, Chair of the Workforce Housing Task Force for SOPHIA. First, a short description of SOPHIA, which is a coalition of faith communities and a member of WISDOM at the state level.

SOPHIA is dedicated to dialog with public and private persons, agencies and office holders to stimulate creative and effective efforts to improve our community, solve its problems and address both universal and particular needs in our increasingly fragmented world. We join hands with others to bring effective change rather than isolated self interest.

Mr. Johnson tells us (my bolds):

There have been at least three (3) "equal', "open", or "fair" housing bills passed since the 50's in this great country of ours. Why it takes so much legislation to insure a simple human right says something about how difficult it is to change peoples attitudes about certain things we've accepted in our society. I was always taught that the "truth'' was still true even if a falsehood was practiced.

I have been affected by or participated in civil rights since I was a young boy in the 1960's. Social justice, in many ways, has become a part of my American heritage. Housing has always been a basic part of "freedom" to me. If you live in my country, America, you should be "equally" free to go anywhere, work anywhere, and live anywhere. I became actively involved with SOPHIA, a part of WISDOM about a year ago. This social issues group practices the use of organized "money" and organized "people" to cause positive change in our community. I am the chairperson for our Workforce Housing Task Force. We endorse and support the efforts of Waukesha County Affordable Housing Task Force to establish a "housing trust fund". Housing for Waukesha county's workforce is "affordable" housing. We believe "if you're good enough to work here, you're good enough to live here". This concept needs to be "accepted" in our society today.

Don Johnson - SOPHIA, Workforce Housing Task Force
http://www.sophiawaukesha.org/

Here we see for Mr. Johnson, representing SOPHIA, that affordable housing is a moral issue, of equality. I seem to remember something in the Declaration of Independence about that.

Out of Reach

And speaking of housing-related studies being released, the National Low-Income Housing Coalition is releasing their annual Out of Reach report on April 14th. From last year's report:

Despite the emphasis on homeownership and the marginalization of renters, renter households still make up fully one-third of the households in the United States — more than 36 million households. Out of Reach is a side-by-side comparison of wages and rents in every county, Metropolitan Area (MSAs/HMFAs), combined onmetropolitan area and state in the United States.

You can access the report on their site, and keep an eye on the website for the soon-to-be released 2009 report.

NLIHC also produces an excellent Advocates' Guide and again, keep an eye on their website for the newest 2009 edition of the Guide, which I am bravely predicting will be found here when released on or soon after April 15th.

Priced Out in 2008

The Technical Assistance Collaborative works in collaboration with the Consortium of Citizens with Disabilities Housing Taskforce to produce the Priced Out series of reports which are published every two years, with the latest one in 2006.

The study compares the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments of people with serious and long-term disabilities to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Fair Market Rents for modestly priced rental units.

The next one will be released April 13th here, but until then, the link won't work.
But here's a sneak peek from their press release.

Across the United States in 2008, people with disabilities with the lowest incomes faced an extreme housing affordability crisis as rents for moderately priced studio and one-bedroom apartments soared above their entire monthly income. The national average rent for a one-bedroom unit climbed to $749 per month and the studio/efficiency unit rent to $663 per month in 2008 – both higher than $667, the average monthly income of over 4 million people with disabilities....

Perhaps the most shocking revelation in Priced Out in 2008 is the precipitous and relentless decline in housing affordability for SSI recipients since 1998 when the first edition of Priced Out was developed. The amount of monthly SSI income needed to rent a modest one-bedroom unit has risen an astonishing 62 percent from 69 percent of SSI in 1998 to 112.1 percent of SSI in 2008.

Be sure to return here on April 13th to check it out at this link!

Former YWCA Site Targeted For Affordable Housing

On Tuesday, March 31, 2009, the Waukesha Freeman carried a front page story entitled "Former YWCA site to be redeveloped." I would provide a link to the article, except the Freeman chooses to restrict online viewing of its recent news reports to only those who subscribe to the print edition. Because of that restriction, let me quote a few items in the article.

" Eleven to 16 owner-occupied, work force housing units may be built on the site. Waukesha Community Development Director Steve Crandell said work force housing consists of housing stock from $150,000 and $200,000. He said a portion of the homes will be work force housing."

Note that while the article seems to focus on "affordable" and "workforce" housing, the paragraph above says "may be built" and "a portion of the homes". I wonder how many of the 11 - 16 sites will be affordable housing.

"Crandell said the former YWCA property will be plotted and then requests for proposals will be sent to developers for the project. The Waukesha Redevelopment Authority, Waukesha Plan Commission and the city’s common council will review the plans."

I wonder again which developers will get the RFPs. Will Habitat for Humanity be considered as a developer? Will the Waukesha Community Land Development Association trust fund be permitted to aquire the land prior to development so that the units will be affordable in the future? What criteria will be used to review the plans?

On the surface, redevelopment of the YWCA site into workforce housing seems exciting and necessary in Waukesha. However, as always, the devil is in the details. As reported, there are still many questions to be answered.

Legislative Hearing on AB109

AB 109, an Assembly bill that would enable municipalities to extend the life of the Tax Incremental Districts by an additional year to finance housing, has an hearing on April 15th. You can see a list of Committee members here. If one of those fine folks is your Representative, please contact him/her to urge support of this bill. If passed, this could potentially be a source of funding of housing in Waukesha County communities, although not necessarily for a Waukesha County Housing Trust Fund.

Assembly Bill 109 has been scheduled for a public hearing by Committee on Housing in the Assembly.

Date/time: April 15, 2009 at 1:00 PM.

Location: Dept. of Natural Resources Building, 2300 N. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Room 140 and 141, Milwaukee, WI 53212.

Bill History: http://www.legis. state.wi. us/2009/data/ AB109hst. html

Relating to: authorizing a city or village to extend
the life of a tax incremental district for one ...