leave it on that note. Jeff Lamont, thanks so much.
>> Thank you so much. >> Affordable rental
housing across the state is getting a boost with the
Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development
Authority announcing nearly $50 million in housing tax
credits to developers that are expected to create
rentals for up to 5000 people from working
families. For more on this, we are joined by WHEDA CEO
Elmer Moore RFK, Jr. Thanks very much for being here.
>> I am delighted to be here and share with you
some of the good news of the work we've been doing.
>> Where is the need most acute for affordable
rentals, and will these developments be located in
those areas? >> You know, an interesting
thing about housing in today's environment is that
it's acute everywhere. The need for affordable housing
is experienced in rural and small, urban and in the in
the city centers. And so wherever we can make
strategic investments in in the form of housing tax
credits across the state, they're going to be
desperately appreciated. >> And these developments
and developers will be working across the state.
>> Absolutely. It's 35 developments. You know, one
of the realities is that we have not seen a tax credit
development in all 72 Wisconsin counties, but in
in this instance, we're going to be looking at 26
communities across the state, which is actually
pretty, pretty successful. >> What is the definition
of affordable? >> I'm so glad you asked
that. And I'm going to give you two definitions. When
we talk about affordable housing, usually what we're
referring to is what I refer to as capital A
affordable, which means a subsidized housing
development that is rent restricted to people with
incomes 80% or below of the area median income. These
are often financed with tax credits or other public
sources. The other side of affordability is really
just housing that occupies no more than 30% of a
family's income. So we have started a conversation
about affordable housing with that capital A also
housing that people can afford, which might be
unrestricted. But it's it's not necessarily as
expensive as what we have historically called market
rate. >> I was just going to ask
if this is a model that has worked historically.
>> The the light tech program, the low income
housing tax credit program was a bipartisan effort
from 1986. This was Ronald Reagan's administration's
work. It is well understood as the most successful
private public, private public partnership in in
our country's history. It has generated hundreds of
thousands of rental housing units and homeownership
units across the country. For WHEDA alone, we're
talking 61,000 units have been created using the the
housing tax credit program. You know, we have deployed.
Are you ready for this number, $644 million in
just tax credits? That has really moved the needle,
and it has incentivized the investment of communities
and developers in the form of housing across the state.
>> How does a lack of such kind of affordable rental
units affect the economic health of the state, not to
mention the needs of lower income renters?
>> That is playing out in the form of diminished
health outcomes. There's an aspect to educational
outcomes. Everything that we care about in our
society is impacted by whether or not people have
safe, stable housing. If they can't afford the
housing that they are occupying. And very many
people, something like 60% of renters are in housing
that actually is considered unaffordable. They are rent
burdened. The economic outcomes is they're not
able to make very key investments in things that
will support them thriving, whether that's childcare,
investing in their own education, access to health
care, whether it's the choice between paying rent
or putting gas in your car so you can get to work on
time. Housing is at the very core of how we
experience life. >> Is it the expectation,
though, that because of declining working age
population, the need for new housing units like this
will also decline? >> Unfortunately, that
There's multitudes of housing, whether it's
senior housing, family housing, housing for people
with special physical or cognitive needs. In
Wisconsin, 60% of the housing is more than 40
years old. You know, I live in a house that's 120. And
I can guarantee you, when those craftsmen were
building that structure, they didn't necessarily
plan for me to be living in it. 120 years later, that's
how housing has always been. We are in a crisis because
housing is unaffordable. We aren't producing enough of
it, and what we have is often aging out.
>> Well, Elmer Moore, we >> Well, Elmer Moore, we