You
This coming weekend, Memorial Day weekend,
kicks off the summer tourist season in Wisconsin.
In years past, tourism hotspots have seen difficulty
hiring enough workers.
Part of the trouble with hiring has to do with employees
finding a place to live that they can afford in these sought
after areas.
This week, new workforce housing units opened in
Vylus County in Lochte, Flambeau.
The two and three bedroom units are very, very welcome
according to the chair of the Vylus County Economic
Development Corporation, Jim Tuckwell.
He joins us along with the developer Kevin McDonald
and thanks to both of you for being here.
Thanks for having us.
So, Jim, first to you.
Thank you.
Why are these units so very welcome?
Well, as you pointed out, Frederica,
we badly need affordable housing here.
Our population is skewed to older residents.
We have a lot of retirees in Vylus County.
And conversely, the people that are age 20 to 34,
those that would be looking for affordable housing most
likely as they're starting out their careers,
we have much fewer, like 8% fewer people in residence
in that age group than the state of Wisconsin.
So, we really badly need units like Kevin's to attract
younger people who can join the workforce,
as you pointed out.
So, Kevin, tell me about this new development of apartments.
They're described as workforce housing,
but also luxury affordable with rents ranging,
I saw from about 900 to $1,200 a month.
What are the units like?
Yeah, I mean, the units are really great.
They're all townhouse style units,
individual entries, attached garages.
All of the buildings have rooftop solar.
And in terms of the affordability in the level,
we have a wide range of residents that we're serving.
So, we have market rate units,
which we have actually a tremendous demand for a huge waiting list right now.
We have on the other end of the spectrum,
we have about 811 housing voucher units
that are for folks that have some type of disability,
physical, mental, emotional.
There's a number of different types of disabilities
that can qualify for those units,
but those units are set aside for individuals with very low incomes,
30% or less than the county mean income.
And then we have about 27 out of the 40 units
are what we call kind of more traditional workforce housing units
set aside for 50 to 60% of the violence county mean income.
Why did you decide to break ground in lock to flambour?
So, originally, when we started,
it was kind of the beginnings of COVID.
The work from home kind of movement was starting
and we saw a lot of people moving into areas like violence county
and thought there'd be some of that trend would continue.
When we got into Viola's county and started working with Jim
and the county and the local tribal members,
we realized kind of how much of a need there was
for the local tribal members as well.
So, it was kind of originally more with kind of tourism,
kind of economy in mind with the kind of work from home thought
and then just the need in the area for the local tribal members
is tremendous as well.
Interesting.
So, Jim, how will 40 new two and three bedroom townhomes
help the affordable housing crunch in your county?
Well, the key here is that this development serves not only
lock to flambour, but also the surrounding community.
So, people typically commute anywhere from 10 to 30 miles
for work and so this is going to serve a wide range
of the surrounding communities.
Jim, you've described that some people can't take jobs
that are offered to them in your region
because they can't find the housing.
What are employers saying to you about that issue?
Oh, we hear this and have been hearing it for a while
from employers that in some cases they've offered
and had jobs accepted and then the individuals can't find
an affordable place to live and have to turn the job down
and others just aren't even applying for the jobs
just because, again, they can't find a place to live in advance.
So, it's a very key issue and this serves a very,
very significant need for us.
Speaking of seasonal jobs, tourism,
what does the worker shortage that we've experienced
post-COVID look like this year?
Well, it's significant.
We continue to see a lot of health-wanted signs
and particularly in tourism-related retail
and services businesses.
So, it's a very key thing.
Kevin, you were talking about you originally went looking
for the remote worker that would have moved north
to build housing.
What about that, the kind of demographic of folks
that are now living outside of cities?
Is that a kind of a new frontier for developers?
Yeah, I mean, I think we're seeing some of that stick for sure.
You know, I think it's kind of a constantly changing thing.
Obviously, we're seeing companies kind of backtrack on that policy,
but we're also seeing a lot of companies kind of maintain that work
from home flexibility.
So, it's, you know, I think that will probably be here for a long time.
But yeah, so we're...
The world has definitely changed a lot, right?
And I think we are seeing kind of more of those features
kind of incorporated into developments.
We're adding Zoom rooms and things like that
into some of our developments
and just trying to keep that in mind, you know, Internet.
High speed Internet is huge at all of our developments,
and we're trying to make sure we have really great options
for residents to work from home, and that's an option for them.
How rewarding is it for you to build these affordable units for folks?
It's really, really rewarding.
I mean, going to a grand opening or an open house
where we get to see residents come in
and like the smiles on their faces is priceless.
And Jim, was that your experience as well with the open house
that you had up there?
I think that was just this week.
What was the kind of response from folks?
Well, it's tremendous.
I mean, we toured, you know, individual townhomes, you know,
a three-bedroom townhome with an attached garage
and two and a half baths.
I mean, very, very high quality, very well done,
and very impressive.
So it's a phenomenal development.
Great.
We leave it there.
Jim Tuckwell and Kevin McDonald.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.