Wisconsin is experiencing a housing crunch, and the northwest area of the state is no exception. The construction of new homes faces several challenges, including a labor shortage and the cost of materials.
One answer is to revitalize existing housing stock, targeting older homes.
“A law passed in 2023 gave us $50 million to support the renovations of homes more than 40 years old,” said Elmer Moore Jr., the director of the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority.
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Members of the Superior Days delegation met with Moore and other state officials at the Capitol last month to discuss these opportunities, as well as some unintended challenges to development that the drafters of the programs hadn’t anticipated.
Moore spoke with WPR’s Robin Washington about those issues following his Superior Days presentation.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Robin Washington: What Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority programs would you like people to know about in northwest Wisconsin?
Elmer Moore Jr.: We have a great portfolio of mortgages, including down payment assistance programs, that are available at a network of about 100 partners across the state. We are also able to offer an opportunity to finance the renovation of your home, called a “More Like Home” loan.
RW: Those are the loans for renovation of homes more than 40 years old. That includes quite a few in northwest Wisconsin.
EM: Homes in northwest Wisconsin have some of the oldest median ages in the state. So, if your home needs a roof, if you need windows, doors, appliances, there’s an eligible list available on our website. If you are below 140 percent of the area median income and you own your home, you can get access to some of these opportunities, including financing up to $50,000.
RW: And the interest rate and repayment plan?
EM: It’s typically 3 percent. There was a tranche of funding that made the loans forgivable, but that’s very nearly exhausted.
RW: You have a program I was calling the Second Story program that state Sen. Romaine Quinn told us about.
EM: We call it Restore Main Street, which allows a building owner who might have commercial space on the first floor and former residential space available on the second and third floors to finance up to $20,000 per unit to rehab those units into affordable housing.
When they were built, maybe the family ran a store and lived upstairs, and then they built room for their parents or their kids on that third floor. I was in Milwaukee for the groundbreaking of a vacant building owned by a Restore Main Street applicant who is going to restore the entire building and make six beautiful new apartment units.
RW: Your mention of Milwaukee leads into one hitch in the plan: Quinn described the program as limited to cities or municipalities under 10,000 in population.
EM: We work to assure that we have adequate distribution of the funds across the state and that there’s plenty of resources left for smaller towns and communities.
RW: Another concern that was expressed by Bayfield County Housing Educator Kelly Westlund during your Superior Days presentation is when mixed-use commercial and residential buildings are all on the same level in buildings that are only one story. The spirit of the law would seem like that would qualify, but would it under the letter of the law?
EM: The spirit of the program was to create affordable housing in these mixed-use buildings. One of the limitations that we didn’t catch was it is limited to second- and third-floor units, and it’s unavailable to those first floor units. But we have a good working relationship with both the governor and the Legislature, and we’re doing our best to make sure that these laws get the necessary changes to make them even more useful.
If you have an idea about something in northern Wisconsin you think we should talk about on “Morning Edition,” send it to us at northern@wpr.org.
