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We are.

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Sure.

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And the goal is we're not cutting this, right?

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We're going to try to do a.

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Right.

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It's about a five-minute discussion.

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But you don't have to worry about that.

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That's my problem.

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Yeah.

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I'll let you do the hard work.

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You do the hard work.

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I just ask about it.

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All right.

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Stand by.

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All right.

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Affordable rental housing across the state

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is getting a boost with the Wisconsin Housing

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and Economic Development Authority

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announcing nearly $50 million in housing tax credits

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to developers that are expected to create some 5,000 rental units for working families.

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For more on this, we are joined by WEDA CEO Elmer Moore Jr., and thanks very much for

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being here.

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I am delighted to be here and share with you some of the good news of the work we've

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been doing.

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Where is the need most acute for affordable rentals and will these developments be located

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in those areas?

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You know, an interesting thing about housing in today's environment is that it's acute

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everywhere.

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The need for affordable housing is experienced in rural, small urban, and in the city centers,

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and so wherever we can make strategic investments in the form of housing tax credits across the

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state, they're going to be desperately appreciated, and I want to make one minor correction.

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This is going to finance more like 2,128 units, but those units are going to support probably

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close to 5,000 residents.

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I see.

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So, it's residents, not units?

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Absolutely, yes.

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Gotcha.

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And these developments and developers will be working across the state.

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Absolutely, it's 35 developments.

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You know, one of the realities is that we have not seen a tax credit development in all 72

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Wisconsin counties, but in this instance, we're going to be looking at 26 communities

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across the state, which is actually pretty successful.

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What is the definition of affordable?

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I'm so glad you asked that.

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And I'm going to give you two definitions.

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When we talk about affordable housing, usually what we're referring to is what I refer to

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as capital A affordable, which means a subsidized housing development that is rent restricted

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to people with incomes 80% or below of the area median income.

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These are often financed with tax credits or other public sources.

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The other side of affordability is really just housing that occupies no more than 30%

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of a family's income.

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So, we have started a conversation about affordable housing with that capital A, also housing

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that people can afford, which might be unrestricted, but it's not necessarily as expensive as

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what we have historically called market rate.

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So, how do the tax credits accrue to developers?

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This is a great question.

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Housing tax credits work very differently than so many other kinds of tax credits.

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A developer or a community applies for competitive or non-competitive tax credits, and they sell

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those credits to an investor.

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The investor has the ability to write down their tax liability for up to 10 years, depending

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on the type of credit, for that amount every year.

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So, for instance, a million dollar tax credit award can generate something like $9 million

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in equity awarded by developers who will, for 10 years, write off a million dollar investment

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from their tax liability.

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The value of tax credits to housing is it makes it possible for the development of housing

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that will be income and rent restricted, but still operate in a sometimes profitable

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way, but certainly it's solved in twig.

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Otherwise...

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Go ahead.

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Yes, I'm sorry.

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I was just going to ask if this is a model that has worked historically.

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The LI-Tech program, the low-income housing tax credit program, was a bipartisan effort

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from 1986.

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This was Ronald Reagan's administration's work.

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It is well understood as the most successful private public partnership in our country's

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history.

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It has generated hundreds of thousands of rental housing units and home ownership units across

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the country.

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For Weida alone, we're talking 61,000 units have been created using the housing tax credit

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program.

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We have deployed, ready for this number, $644 million in just tax credits.

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That has really moved the needle and it has incentivized the investment of communities

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and developers in the form of housing across the state.

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How does a lack of such kind of affordable rental units affect the economic health of

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the state, not to mention the needs of lower-income renters?

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That is playing out in the form of diminished health outcomes.

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There's an aspect to educational outcomes.

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Everything that we care about in our society is impacted by whether or not people have

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safe, stable housing.

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If they can't afford the housing that they are occupying, and very many people, something

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like 60% of renters are in housing that actually is considered unaffordable.

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They are rent-burdered.

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The economic outcomes is they're not able to make very key investments in things that

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will support them thriving, whether that's child care, investing in their own education,

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access to health care, whether it's the choice between paying rent or putting gas in your

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car so you can get to work on time.

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Housing is at the very core of how we experience life.

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It's people who don't sleep well because they're cold, because they're cramped, because the

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quality of the housing that they have access to is affecting their health.

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They're not able to get to work on time.

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They're not able to make investments in our economy.

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They're not showing up to school, well-rested to learn.

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Everything is better when housing is better.

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Is it the expectation, though, that because of declining working-age population, the need

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for new housing units like this will also decline?

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Unfortunately, that isn't exactly the case.

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There's multitudes of housing, whether it's senior housing, family housing, housing for

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people with special physical or cognitive needs.

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In Wisconsin, 60 percent of the housing is more than 40 years old.

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I live in a house that's 120, and I can guarantee you when those craftsmen were building that

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structure, they didn't necessarily plan for me to be living in it 120 years later.

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That's how housing has always been.

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We are in a crisis because housing is both unaffordable.

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We aren't producing enough of it, and what we have is often aging out.

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Well, Elmermore, we leave it there.

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Thank you so much for joining us.

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I'm so grateful.

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Thank you for your time.

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Correct that number as well.

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Thank you.

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We will correct that number that we set at the head.

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Thank you.

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That sounds great.

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Have an amazing weekend.

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Thanks for your time.

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Thank you.

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You too.

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It was nice to see you.

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Nice to see you.

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All right.

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So, I got two leads to redo.