NEWS: Lack of housing units in Madison, ever-growing population results in racial disparities

As housing and rent prices continue to rise in Madison, design justice may be the key to affordable housing progress.

Recently, the Bayview Foundation redeveloped a 50 year old low income housing community located on Madison’s south side. Also known as the Triangle neighborhood, residents can look forward to integrated job services, health services, education and children’s programs.

UW-Madison urban planning professor Kurt Paulsen describes the overarching housing shortage narrative in Dane County. A shortage of housing means prices are rising as affordability continues to be a struggle in Madison.

“On the extreme end, people who have [lower] income spend more than 50% of their income on rent,” Paulsen said. “You see people being doubled up [which] is overcrowding the housing. Young people can’t afford to buy a starter home. You see homelessness and of course it manifests itself in tremendous racial disparities in housing burdens and homeownership.”

In Madison, these effects compound due to the large demand for the number of individuals looking to live in the city and lack of housing units available. This two-fold issue is unique to Madison for now. Milwaukee, for example, still has an affordable housing crisis but also has a larger supply of resources relative to the demand.

Organizations like the Bayview Foundation strive to address the overlapping issue of the affordable housing crisis and the lack of supply to housing needs and demands.

“The other part of the story is no matter how much new housing you build, [people] whose income is low are never going to be able to afford a decent quality place to live at the low wage rate,” Paulsen said. “You can solve the overall supply problem by building more housing but you still need to increase state and federal resources for affordable subsidies.”

City of Madison Community Development Supervisor Linette Rhodes has worked alongside the Bayview Foundation by providing the financing necessary for community engagement and pre-design work.

Rhodes’ department seeks out leverage funds like tax credits to drive down the costs of the development of a property.

“Some of our biggest challenges [and] some things that are out of the city’s control are just access to quality areas or quality properties in the city of Madison,” Rhodes said.

Land banking funds allow the city of Madison to be proactive and start purchasing some quality land and property opportunities but the competitive housing market can prevent the city from doing so.

An increase in population means more of a range of income— the need for market rate housing at the city level is what Rhodes aims to address. The city also sees a need for housing developers to keep up with the demand of the population.

“There are very few developers that are just proactively building low income units,” Rhodes said. “The other big barrier that the city has is we just don’t have unlimited funds when it comes to an operating budget.”

Organizations like The Road Home and Salvation Army secures housing for individuals while providing support in case management but the budget is limited. Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway Madison budget for 2023 includes a $4 million increase in private-public homeless shelter operations and doubling the size of the Affordable Housing Fund.

Jim O’Keefe, Madison Community Development Director, focuses on the social services needed to support agencies that provide crisis intervention and prevention services, employment training and career programming.

“I think the biggest challenge is trying to assist those who have difficulties finding and maintaining housing. So housing stability is sort of the big challenge that we try to deal with on a number of fronts,” O’Keefe said.

O’Keefe continues to help increase the production of housing, specifically low-income housing, and has administered $40 million in emergency rental assistance to help families stay in homes, despite the lasting effects of COVID-19.

Under the new 2023 budget and development efforts, O’Keefe sees the need to further expand support services for individuals and families in unstable housing situations, protection against evictions and even mental health and substance abuse.

“You can’t take somebody off the street and put them in an apartment and expect them to be successful without addressing some of the underlying issues that have brought them to that point,” O’Keefe said. “All of these things are intertwined and we have to do more.”

According to O’Keefe, the Affordable Housing Fund started in 2015 has created nearly 1600 new low-income housing units while increasing the budget by double.

The affordable housing crisis in Madison is a community concern, according to Rhodes. There is a need for more advocates and awareness of affordable housing needs to support community organizations.

“A lot of people look to the city or the county to address a lot of these concerns,” Rhodes said. “I just want to highlight that it’s really about our community partners as well.”