WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:02.040 We are. 00:02.040 --> 00:02.400 Sure. 00:02.400 --> 00:04.200 And the goal is we're not cutting this, right? 00:04.200 --> 00:05.480 We're going to try to do a. 00:05.480 --> 00:05.920 Right. 00:05.920 --> 00:08.480 It's about a five-minute discussion. 00:08.480 --> 00:10.200 But you don't have to worry about that. 00:10.200 --> 00:13.880 That's my problem. 00:13.880 --> 00:15.880 Yeah. 00:15.880 --> 00:18.720 I'll let you do the hard work. 00:18.720 --> 00:19.680 You do the hard work. 00:19.680 --> 00:22.200 I just ask about it. 00:22.200 --> 00:22.760 All right. 00:22.760 --> 00:24.680 Stand by. 00:30.880 --> 00:32.880 All right. 00:47.280 --> 00:50.080 Affordable rental housing across the state 00:50.080 --> 00:52.800 is getting a boost with the Wisconsin Housing 00:52.800 --> 00:54.440 and Economic Development Authority 00:54.440 --> 00:58.600 announcing nearly $50 million in housing tax credits 00:58.600 --> 01:05.680 to developers that are expected to create some 5,000 rental units for working families. 01:05.680 --> 01:10.000 For more on this, we are joined by WEDA CEO Elmer Moore Jr., and thanks very much for 01:10.000 --> 01:11.840 being here. 01:11.840 --> 01:15.400 I am delighted to be here and share with you some of the good news of the work we've 01:15.400 --> 01:16.640 been doing. 01:16.640 --> 01:23.160 Where is the need most acute for affordable rentals and will these developments be located 01:23.160 --> 01:26.200 in those areas? 01:26.200 --> 01:31.480 You know, an interesting thing about housing in today's environment is that it's acute 01:31.480 --> 01:33.040 everywhere. 01:33.040 --> 01:40.600 The need for affordable housing is experienced in rural, small urban, and in the city centers, 01:40.600 --> 01:46.880 and so wherever we can make strategic investments in the form of housing tax credits across the 01:46.880 --> 01:52.360 state, they're going to be desperately appreciated, and I want to make one minor correction. 01:52.360 --> 02:04.240 This is going to finance more like 2,128 units, but those units are going to support probably 02:04.240 --> 02:07.760 close to 5,000 residents. 02:07.760 --> 02:08.760 I see. 02:08.760 --> 02:10.800 So, it's residents, not units? 02:10.800 --> 02:12.440 Absolutely, yes. 02:12.440 --> 02:13.440 Gotcha. 02:13.440 --> 02:19.080 And these developments and developers will be working across the state. 02:19.560 --> 02:22.680 Absolutely, it's 35 developments. 02:22.680 --> 02:30.200 You know, one of the realities is that we have not seen a tax credit development in all 72 02:30.200 --> 02:36.520 Wisconsin counties, but in this instance, we're going to be looking at 26 communities 02:36.520 --> 02:40.600 across the state, which is actually pretty successful. 02:40.600 --> 02:44.200 What is the definition of affordable? 02:44.200 --> 02:46.800 I'm so glad you asked that. 02:46.800 --> 02:48.800 And I'm going to give you two definitions. 02:48.800 --> 02:54.200 When we talk about affordable housing, usually what we're referring to is what I refer to 02:54.200 --> 03:00.560 as capital A affordable, which means a subsidized housing development that is rent restricted 03:00.560 --> 03:06.080 to people with incomes 80% or below of the area median income. 03:06.080 --> 03:11.440 These are often financed with tax credits or other public sources. 03:11.440 --> 03:17.240 The other side of affordability is really just housing that occupies no more than 30% 03:17.240 --> 03:19.440 of a family's income. 03:19.440 --> 03:26.200 So, we have started a conversation about affordable housing with that capital A, also housing 03:26.200 --> 03:31.880 that people can afford, which might be unrestricted, but it's not necessarily as expensive as 03:31.880 --> 03:34.960 what we have historically called market rate. 03:34.960 --> 03:40.560 So, how do the tax credits accrue to developers? 03:40.560 --> 03:41.800 This is a great question. 03:41.800 --> 03:46.880 Housing tax credits work very differently than so many other kinds of tax credits. 03:46.880 --> 03:55.600 A developer or a community applies for competitive or non-competitive tax credits, and they sell 03:55.600 --> 03:59.120 those credits to an investor. 03:59.120 --> 04:04.680 The investor has the ability to write down their tax liability for up to 10 years, depending 04:04.680 --> 04:08.240 on the type of credit, for that amount every year. 04:08.240 --> 04:16.360 So, for instance, a million dollar tax credit award can generate something like $9 million 04:16.360 --> 04:25.040 in equity awarded by developers who will, for 10 years, write off a million dollar investment 04:25.040 --> 04:26.880 from their tax liability. 04:26.880 --> 04:32.640 The value of tax credits to housing is it makes it possible for the development of housing 04:32.640 --> 04:38.440 that will be income and rent restricted, but still operate in a sometimes profitable 04:38.440 --> 04:41.080 way, but certainly it's solved in twig. 04:41.080 --> 04:42.080 Otherwise... 04:42.080 --> 04:43.080 Go ahead. 04:43.080 --> 04:44.080 Yes, I'm sorry. 04:44.080 --> 04:50.400 I was just going to ask if this is a model that has worked historically. 04:50.400 --> 04:56.920 The LI-Tech program, the low-income housing tax credit program, was a bipartisan effort 04:56.920 --> 04:58.280 from 1986. 04:58.280 --> 05:02.320 This was Ronald Reagan's administration's work. 05:02.320 --> 05:12.800 It is well understood as the most successful private public partnership in our country's 05:12.800 --> 05:13.800 history. 05:13.800 --> 05:19.400 It has generated hundreds of thousands of rental housing units and home ownership units across 05:19.400 --> 05:20.800 the country. 05:20.800 --> 05:29.240 For Weida alone, we're talking 61,000 units have been created using the housing tax credit 05:29.240 --> 05:30.240 program. 05:30.240 --> 05:37.800 We have deployed, ready for this number, $644 million in just tax credits. 05:37.800 --> 05:44.200 That has really moved the needle and it has incentivized the investment of communities 05:44.200 --> 05:49.040 and developers in the form of housing across the state. 05:49.040 --> 05:54.000 How does a lack of such kind of affordable rental units affect the economic health of 05:54.000 --> 05:59.520 the state, not to mention the needs of lower-income renters? 05:59.520 --> 06:06.480 That is playing out in the form of diminished health outcomes. 06:06.480 --> 06:10.440 There's an aspect to educational outcomes. 06:10.440 --> 06:14.520 Everything that we care about in our society is impacted by whether or not people have 06:14.520 --> 06:16.840 safe, stable housing. 06:16.840 --> 06:21.480 If they can't afford the housing that they are occupying, and very many people, something 06:21.480 --> 06:27.240 like 60% of renters are in housing that actually is considered unaffordable. 06:27.240 --> 06:28.920 They are rent-burdered. 06:28.920 --> 06:33.400 The economic outcomes is they're not able to make very key investments in things that 06:33.400 --> 06:38.320 will support them thriving, whether that's child care, investing in their own education, 06:38.320 --> 06:44.200 access to health care, whether it's the choice between paying rent or putting gas in your 06:44.200 --> 06:47.000 car so you can get to work on time. 06:47.000 --> 06:51.200 Housing is at the very core of how we experience life. 06:51.200 --> 06:57.000 It's people who don't sleep well because they're cold, because they're cramped, because the 06:57.000 --> 07:00.960 quality of the housing that they have access to is affecting their health. 07:00.960 --> 07:02.400 They're not able to get to work on time. 07:02.400 --> 07:05.000 They're not able to make investments in our economy. 07:05.000 --> 07:09.080 They're not showing up to school, well-rested to learn. 07:09.080 --> 07:11.760 Everything is better when housing is better. 07:11.760 --> 07:17.000 Is it the expectation, though, that because of declining working-age population, the need 07:17.000 --> 07:21.560 for new housing units like this will also decline? 07:21.560 --> 07:25.120 Unfortunately, that isn't exactly the case. 07:25.120 --> 07:30.680 There's multitudes of housing, whether it's senior housing, family housing, housing for 07:30.680 --> 07:35.320 people with special physical or cognitive needs. 07:35.320 --> 07:41.040 In Wisconsin, 60 percent of the housing is more than 40 years old. 07:41.040 --> 07:46.400 I live in a house that's 120, and I can guarantee you when those craftsmen were building that 07:46.400 --> 07:51.960 structure, they didn't necessarily plan for me to be living in it 120 years later. 07:51.960 --> 07:54.600 That's how housing has always been. 07:54.600 --> 07:58.480 We are in a crisis because housing is both unaffordable. 07:58.480 --> 08:02.640 We aren't producing enough of it, and what we have is often aging out. 08:02.640 --> 08:05.080 Well, Elmermore, we leave it there. 08:05.080 --> 08:06.960 Thank you so much for joining us. 08:06.960 --> 08:08.440 I'm so grateful. 08:08.440 --> 08:12.920 Thank you for your time. 08:12.920 --> 08:14.920 Correct that number as well. 08:14.920 --> 08:18.440 Thank you. 08:18.440 --> 08:23.360 We will correct that number that we set at the head. 08:23.360 --> 08:24.360 Thank you. 08:24.360 --> 08:26.560 That sounds great. 08:26.560 --> 08:27.560 Have an amazing weekend. 08:27.560 --> 08:28.560 Thanks for your time. 08:28.560 --> 08:29.560 Thank you. 08:29.560 --> 08:30.560 You too. 08:30.560 --> 08:31.560 It was nice to see you. 08:31.560 --> 08:32.560 Nice to see you. 08:32.560 --> 08:33.560 All right. 08:33.560 --> 08:40.040 So, I got two leads to redo.