This Weeks Articles for 1/26/2026 ...

1. Madison unveils twin homes in affordable housing push ...
2. Trump pushes for lower rates and ban on investor home purchases in bid to make homes more affordable ...
3. FHLBank Chicago Launches 2026 Downpayment Plus® Grant Programs, Unlocking $28 Million to Support Homebuyers in Illinois and Wisconsin...
4. Developer Cinnaire Closes $134M Fund for Midwest Affordable Housing...
5. How to Fill Empty Offices With Co-Living Residents ...
6. Report: Moderated Housing Market Performance for December and 2025...
7. Government needs more than reform. Here`s how WI can lead. | Opinion...
8. Historic lots, modern hurdles: Counting down city`s challenging sites...

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Community Updates, News Stories, Best Practices, Resources, and other data supporting the development of affordable housing for the citizens of Wisconsin in every city and region in the State. Please consider partnering with us and sharing your story

MADISON, Wis. — City leaders gathered in the Owl Creek neighborhood to celebrate a new set of permanently affordable twin homes, marking progress in Madison`s push to build more "missing middle" housing like duplexes and townhomes.

The city sold the land to the Madison Area Community Land Trust for just $1 and tapped its affordable housing fund to transform empty lots into homes designed for first-time homebuyers.

"We need folks to be able to buy a home and to be able to create generational wealth through the appreciating value of that home, but we really need people to be able to buy that first home," said Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway.

For new homeowner Ariel Christian, the program made homeownership possible after years of renting. "After learning about MACLT and the generous down payment assistance from the city, we could actually buy a house and build equity. It`s incredible," Christian said.

The new homeowners moved into their properties just after Christmas, calling it the best gift after eight years of renting in Madison. The twin homes provide an opportunity for working families to build equity and establish roots in the community...

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Leo`s notes: Madison’s Owl Creek project is a reminder that solving the housing crisis isn’t only about building more units — it’s about building the right kinds of homes. By turning vacant city-owned lots into permanently affordable duplex-style homes, the city and the MACLT are creating real pathways to first-time home-ownership, equity-building, and long-term neighborhood stability.

President Donald Trump ‘s plans for bringing homeownership within reach of more Americans involve pushing for lower interest rates on home loans and credit cards, and banning large institutional investors from buying single-family homes.

In his address Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump outlined four policies his administration is pursuing in a bid to make homeownership more affordable. Each had been previously mentioned by him or his administration in recent weeks, part of a broader push to address affordability generally, a hot-button issue with voters heading into the midterms...

...In his remarks, Trump stressed the need to lower interest rates on home loans and credit cards in order to give aspiring homebuyers more financial flexibility to save up for a down payment on a home and more purchasing power when it comes time to buy...

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Leo`s notes: pushing mortgage rates lower, capping credit card interest, and restricting large institutional investors from buying single-family homes — reflect a growing bipartisan recognition that affordability is now a structural economic problem, not a cyclical one. While lower rates may help at the margins and curbing investor competition could ease pressure in select markets, these measures alone won’t resolve a housing shortage built over a decade of underproduction. The moment underscores a central truth: affordability requires aligning finance, land use, and construction at scale, not relying on any single lever to fix a deeply constrained market.

Ken Notes: Imagine an administration focused on affordable housing, lower interest and tax rates for the 30 or so million who provide retail and service labor making $16 to $22 per hour...

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago (FHLBank Chicago) is addressing housing affordability with the launch of its 2026 Downpayment Plus (DPP^®) and Downpayment Plus Advantage^® (DPP Advantage^®) grant programs. $28 million will be made available through these programs to help income-eligible homebuyers across Illinois and Wisconsin overcome one of the most significant barriers to homeownership: saving for a down payment.

This announcement comes as housing affordability remains a challenge for many households, with rising costs and limited inventory creating obstacles for first-time and low-to-moderate income buyers.

Through partnerships with member financial institutions, FHLBank Chicago’s DPP and DPP Advantage programs offer forgivable grants to homebuyers earning up to 80% of the area median income. Eligible households may receive up to $10,000 in assistance, which is applied at closing...

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Leo`s notes: For many working families across Wisconsin and Illinois, the barrier to homeownership isn’t monthly payments so much as the upfront cash required to get in the door. In a tight housing market with limited supply, pairing new construction with smart, targeted tools like these is exactly how communities turn aspiration into opportunity and renters into long-term stakeholders.

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Leo`s notes: Across Wisconsin and the Midwest, the affordable housing story is no longer about isolated projects—it’s about scale, speed, and systems that work. The lesson is clear: affordability doesn’t come from a single tool, but from stacking smart financing, flexible land use, and long-term partnerships that treat housing as essential infrastructure for economic stability and community health.

ENABLING BETTER PLACES: A USER’S GUIDE TO WISCONSIN NEIGHBORHOOD AFFORDABILITY	WHEDA’s Rural Affordable Workforce Housing Initiative	Wisconsin REALTORS® Association
WISCAP Affordable Housing Network	Division of Energy, Housing and Community Resources	Housing Authority City of Milwaukee (HACM)
Wisconsin Housing Preservation Corp	WEDA Legislative Tracker	NRA Housing Needs By State / Wisconsin
Wisconsin Housing Alliance	Office of Rural Prosperity Wisconsin Economic Development

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Nate Notes: to be included as a Workforce Housing resource email us a link and a brief note to: wwhnews.com@gmail.com...

Housing experts and advocates convened at Pew to discuss the promise and challenge of converting office space to small co-living units

In most of the United States, individuals who work full time for minimum wage can’t afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment. And buying a condo or house is out of the question even for many higher on the income scale.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of square feet of building space sit vacant and unused in the heart of our cities—prime real estate, near jobs, highways, and public transportation.

Office buildings.

That paradox animated an October gathering of housing experts and policymakers at the Washington offices of The Pew Charitable Trusts called “Reimagining America’s Empty Offices.” The meeting built on a series of reports from Pew and the global architecture and design firm Gensler that explored a novel way to transform vacant office space into housing...

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Leo`s notes: Converting office buildings into low-cost, co-living housing isn’t a radical idea. With construction costs far lower than traditional conversions and rents that working people can actually afford, office-to-housing reuse offers cities a chance to revive downtowns while meeting urgent human needs. The real barriers aren’t demand or design — they’re outdated zoning rules, financing hesitation, and political caution. If we are serious about affordability, we must stop treating empty offices as symbols of past prosperity and start treating them as the housing opportunity hiding in plain sight.

Ken Notes: We are not sure if this is a winning solution, but we are sure that what we are doing now is not working. We need smaller, shared amenities, co-branded with existing or new projects, adaptive reuse, access to health resources, safe living environments, and other outside the box thinking.

Wisconsin REALTORS® Association Releases December 2025 Real Estate Report

Madison, Wis. – The Wisconsin REALTORS® Association released its December 2025 Real Estate Report today, showing Wisconsin’s housing market closed 2025 with moderate growth. December existing home sales rose 4.4% year over year, with the median price increasing 2.5% to $312,750. For the full year, sales were 2% higher than in 2024, and the median price rose 4.8% to $325,000. Wisconsin remained in a strong seller’s market, as new listings were down 5.9% and months of supply fell to 3.3%. To reach a balanced market, total listings would need to increase 107%. Every region saw annual growth in sales and price, led by the North region. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate fell about 0.5%, supporting a 1.5% rise in the Wisconsin Affordability Index.

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE...

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Ken Notes: A good deal of this plan has little if any chance of real support but an entity focused on housing makes some sense. What we really need is a bipartisan advocacy group of developers, cities and towns, builders, banks and others to advocate for building truly affordable homes and neighborhoods.

A downtown Milwaukee parking lot has seen hotel proposals come and go for 40 years, but the city now believes a different type of development might finally stick — if the neighborhood can support it.

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Leo`s notes: With housing costs rising and workforce shortages tightening, residential development — especially mixed-income and workforce housing — may finally align market reality with community need. If Milwaukee wants long-vacant sites to move from paper concepts to poured foundations, prioritizing housing over aspirational but fragile hotel deals could be the shift that makes progress stick.

Across Wisconsin many employees can simply not afford to live where they work.

This is true in big cities and small rural communities. Both the availability and price of housing is not in line with the needs of those working in jobs that are vital to the success of our communities. Imagine a firefighter, teacher, city employee, service, or retail worker not able to afford a home in the community they serve.

We believe Wisconsin employers will support these efforts so they can successfully recruit workers to fill the thousands of job openings now hampered by a shortage of affordable housing.


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