Habitat for Humanity of Wisconsin affiliates unite to address affordable housing

Local affiliates of Habitat for Humanity of Wisconsin are uniting in Green Bay to continue addressing the state’s affordable housing crisis.

For 40 years, the organization has served hundreds of low-income families as housing costs steadily rise across the state.

According to the Wisconsin Realtors Association, the median price of a home is $293,000.

“In Dane County, that’s $422,000, which means people need almost $85,000 for a down payment, which is out of reach for a lot of renters,” said CEO Peter Lewandowski with Habitat for Humanity of Wisconsin.

He spoke with  “Wisconsin Today” ahead of the March 3-4 conference to discuss the challenges of building affordable homes — as federal financial support “comes up short” due to the funding freeze initiated by the Trump administration.

“We’re political, but we’re nonpartisan,” Lewandowski said. “Homeownership is part of the American dream and should be bipartisan.”

Lewandowski said the state organization began its mission in Milwaukee, where 68,000 homes are needed to rectify the region’s housing shortage.

Today, Habitat for Humanity continues to focus on making homeownership possible across the state.

He said this year’s annual state conference will focus on topics such as energy efficiency, modular homes and sustainability. 

The following was edited for clarity and brevity

Rob Ferrett: One of your conference speakers will be talking about environmentally sustainable housing. This includes modular housing as part of a solution. What might that look like for Habitat projects?

PL: Modular housing is exciting. It’s been around for several decades, believe it or not, but not very well understood. Essentially, modular homes are produced in a factory environment. They are up to all the code standards that you would come to expect.

What makes modular homes interesting is that they can be customized in virtually any way that you know a homeowner wants or needs. They’re incredibly efficient in the sense that you know all the materials going into them, that the rate of production is pretty steady. You can build year-round if you’re inside a factory. 

I would also say the great thing about modular homes is that they’re incredibly energy efficient. What you’re looking at is essentially a great platform that can be customized by Habitat affiliates — or by any other developer really out there — and you can incorporate and layer other technologies like solar, like heat pumps, geothermal.

Really, the sky’s the limit. And it really helps us to boost production as well, and eventually pass along that savings to the homeowner.

RF: You’ve got a rural roundtable at this event looking at the needs of rural communities. What might other parts of the state not know about?

PL: Rural communities are unique in the sense that it actually takes a lot more effort to build Habitat models, even leveraging more of the emerging technology. What we find is that there tends to be a greater need. Cost of living does tend to be lower. However, infrastructure isn’t quite there, as you would obviously find in an urban community. 

Of course, demographically, you tend to find more veterans and aging communities so I think there’s a great need there. I think that it takes more resources to meet that need. Looking at those communities, putting in infrastructure to help veterans who might need a mobility ramp, or helping seniors with critical home repairs such as a roof or aging in place so that they’re safe — raising money is a key part of that. We rely on community partners, community governments. In return, we’re giving people an opportunity to expand the housing market and tax base there.

RF: Are your organization and affiliates looking for volunteers to step up and help out?

PL: We have everyone from church groups, companies — you name it. I encourage folks to reach out to their local Habitat affiliates to volunteer. It’s a really empowering experience.

I love being on the build site, swinging a hammer. It’s really contagious. We have a term in the Habitat world for folks to get drawn into the mission. It’s called “Habitatitis”, where it’s highly transmissible.