| Wisconsin Workforce Housing News | ||
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 | ||
| Click to Display / Share This Note - Vol: 10 - Wk: 100 Date: 8/31/2026 5:42:19 PM | ||
| New affordable housing law has something for 'everybody,' expert says | ||
Leo's notes: The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act represents a meaningful shift toward treating housing supply as a national economic issue, with reforms touching permitting, manufactured housing, home repair, infill development and pre-approved housing designs. For Wisconsin, provisions protecting rural rental housing and incentivizing local zoning reform could be especially valuable, but authorization alone will not build homes—the real measure of this legislation will be whether Congress and federal agencies provide the funding and implementation needed to turn these new tools into actual housing production. | ||
| Click to Display / Share This Note - Vol: 26 - Wk: 36 Date: 8/31/2026 5:07:52 PM | ||
| VIA CDC hopes new housing model will make homeownership more affordable | ||
Leo's notes: VIA CDC’s Affordable Townhome Initiative offers a compelling model for turning small, vacant urban parcels into attainable ownership opportunities, with homes projected around $125,000 for households earning up to 80% of area median income. The project is especially noteworthy for using compact townhome design to make efficient use of infill sites while creating equity-building opportunities for working families. If successfully replicated, this type of small-scale development could become an important complement to Wisconsin’s larger affordable rental projects and help restore a missing rung on the homeownership ladder. | ||
| Click to Display / Share This Note - Vol: 26 - Wk: 36 Date: 8/31/2026 5:12:49 PM | ||
| Affordable Housing Project Underway in Sturgeon Bay | ||
Leo's notes: The Avenue offers a particularly strong model by pairing 39 income-restricted apartments with a second 20-unit phase aimed at households earning 80–100% of area median income. That second tier matters: many working households earn too much for traditional affordable housing but still struggle in Door County’s constrained market. Combining LIHTC, local TIF and WHEDA’s Vacancy-to-Vitality program demonstrates how different financing tools can work together to serve a broader continuum of housing need. | ||
| Click to Display / Share This Note - Vol: 26 - Wk: 36 Date: 8/31/2026 4:51:59 PM | ||
| Madison churches becoming housing, community spaces as religion shifts | ||
Leo's notes: Madison’s churches are demonstrating how underused institutional land can become part of the solution to the housing shortage while preserving important community gathering spaces. Common Grace alone will pair a new community center with 26 workforce apartments, while several church-led projects could collectively add hundreds of income- or age-restricted homes. For communities searching for infill opportunities, faith-based properties represent an increasingly important resource—and partnerships that help congregations navigate development, financing and zoning could unlock considerably more housing. Ken Notes: Imagine if every church in Wisconsin built just a few ADU's, small homes, multiplexes, or co-housing facilities and made their building available as community centers, day cares, kitchens, when not being used for worship. We would not have a housing problem in the state... | ||
| Click to Display / Share This Note - Vol: 26 - Wk: 36 Date: 8/31/2026 5:03:02 PM | ||
| Wisconsin Workforce Housing Resources | ||
| Notes: to be included as a Workforce Housing resource email us a link and a brief note to: wwhnews.com@gmail.com... | ||
| Click to Display / Share This Note - Vol: 10 - Wk: 125 Date: 8/17/2026 9:36:02 PM | ||
| “A Historic Day”: Ground Broken For New Apartments On Former Mirro Property | ||
Leo's notes: Maritime Lofts is a strong example of how housing policy, environmental remediation and downtown redevelopment can work together. The 59-unit project will transform Manitowoc’s long-vacant former Mirro industrial property into housing for households earning 30–80% of area median income, leveraging local leadership alongside WHEDA, state and federal resources. For older Wisconsin communities, difficult brownfield sites can become meaningful housing opportunities—but projects like this also demonstrate the patience, public investment and cross-agency coordination required to make redevelopment financially feasible. | ||
| Click to Display / Share This Note - Vol: 26 - Wk: 36 Date: 8/31/2026 5:05:14 PM | ||
| Walworth County Habitat for Humanity volunteers working to build 'missing middle' housing as fast as they can | ||
Leo's notes: Walworth County Habitat for Humanity is taking an important step beyond the traditional single-family Habitat model, building four workforce townhomes near downtown Whitewater specifically aimed at teachers, first responders, factory workers and other middle-income households. The homes are expected to sell for about $200,000 despite an estimated market value of roughly $400,000, demonstrating how donated land, nonprofit development and volunteer labor can dramatically change the economics of attainable homeownership. What makes this worth watching is the partnership with Whitewater, which provided the land at nominal cost and sees homeownership as a community-development priority. With Habitat already planning a 20-home subdivision after this project, the larger opportunity is to determine whether this model can move from a handful of subsidized homes to a repeatable strategy for producing missing-middle ownership housing at meaningful scale. | ||
| Click to Display / Share This Note - Vol: 26 - Wk: 36 Date: 8/31/2026 5:21:55 PM | ||
| Altoona shifts plans for affordable housing to industrial properties | ||
Leo's notes: Altoona’s decision to reconsider an 80-acre housing site after receiving zero development proposals is a useful reminder that identifying land and setting an affordability goal are only the beginning. The city envisioned homes around $300,000, but an estimated $11–$12 million in development costs ultimately made the concept difficult for the private market to deliver. The potential pivot to industrial development may make economic sense for Altoona, but it also illustrates a challenge playing out across Wisconsin: communities need workforce housing, yet infrastructure and land-development costs can make even publicly supported sites financially infeasible. A great opportunity to explore WI Act 235! Ken Notes: What they need is a planning and feasibility study and remember you can do both housing and industrial on a site using TIF and other tools. Altoona is 10K population so even 50 affordable workforce homes would have a positive impact! | ||
| Click to Display / Share This Note - Vol: 26 - Wk: 36 Date: 8/31/2026 5:32:32 PM | ||
| About Wisconsin Workforce Housing News (WWHNews.com) | ||
| Click to Display / Share This Note - Vol: 10 - Wk: 125 Date: 8/13/2026 3:49:48 PM | ||
| List of Housing Resources | ||
| WWHNEWS Notes: To add a resource or correct above send data and link to wwhnews.com[at]gmail.com... | ||
| Click to Display / Share This Note - Vol: 11 - Wk: 125 Date: 9/2/2025 7:30:59 PM |