Idris Espada, a tenet advocate from Holyoke, Massachusetts, said she lives in a low income housing complex.
“Every month I make decisions between paying for groceries, my phone, my light bills,” Espada said. “I am struggling. It is very painful.”
Affordable Housing
The typical annual rent increase nationally fell to zero in June for the first time since the pandemic began, after peaking at 17.8% in 2021, according to Apartment List, a rent information aggregator and research firm. In September, rents fell 1.2%.
About 200 attendees came to Lansing to hear stories of climbing rents, unsafe living conditions and organized efforts to tackle the growing cost of living in Michigan. Nationally, experts say wages are remaining stagnant as rents skyrocket.
The climbing cost to rent a home in Michigan, advocates say, is destabilizing communities and leaving everyone from seniors to families with children and students living with roommates struggling to make ends meet. Michigan legislators are expected to introduce a “renters’ bills of rights” package in the fall to address this ongoing issue.
In a partnership between St. Joseph County Habitat for Humanity and Intermediate School District Career and Technical Education (CTE) students, a home is being built in Three Rivers for a family in need.
Higher building costs, a shrinking supply of low-cost rental units and more people with higher incomes choosing to rent rather than buy are driving the increase in higher-priced rentals and corresponding decline in low-cost units.
Colorado voters passed Prop 123, which will allow 0.1% of the state income tax rate to go toward a number of grants and programs to increase affordable housing, assist unhoused people or prevent eviction, and provide rental assistance, among other provisions.
Sponsors say the bills will create more affordable housing options, particularly in cities, which in turn will help alleviate the shortage of affordable housing for Michigan families.
Mobile home parks provide affordable housing for millions of low-income residents — including seniors on fixed incomes — to own homes while renting the land underneath. But in an exploding housing market, that land is increasingly in demand for other projects, or park owners propose major rent hikes or changes in leases. Residents have few protections under a patchwork of state laws.
The bipartisan $5 billion Building Michigan Together Plan is a major first step in addressing the state’s housing crisis. The funding, mostly from Michigan’s federal American Rescue Plan Act money, addresses a number of housing needs in underserved communities and both urban and rural areas.
A recent report by the Lansing-based Michigan League for Public Policy (MLPP) hones in on ways to achieve housing justice for older adults and people with disabilities, as Michigan continues to top the charts as one of the fastest-aging states in the nation.
Julie Cassidy writes, “Michigan has suffered from a crisis-level shortage of affordable homes for years and housing programs have been underfunded for decades, but our policy choices in this brief moment will have an impact for generations. By focusing these unprecedented federal resources and our political will on safer, accessible, and inclusive housing for people with disabilities and older adults, we will ensure that all individuals and families are valued.”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of the Biden administration’s last-ditch effort to extend a federal ban on evictions has put hundreds of thousands of American renters at risk of losing their housing — and is increasing pressure on states and localities to get rental assistance dollars distributed faster
Housing policy experts have warned that millions of Americans are still struggling to pay their rent, and that the end of that legal protection likely will lead to a surge in eviction filings across the country.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced plans in Detroit on Tuesday to make a significant investment in affordable housing that addresses the health, safety and well-being of Michigan residents. The proposal would assist 6,000 Michiganders, produce 2,000 rental housing units, and leverage an additional $380 million in private funding, while creating 1,600 jobs.
The mayors of cities in Ohio, Montana and Arizona stressed the need for affordable housing to be included in any congressional infrastructure package during a Tuesday hearing before the U.S. Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee.
U.S. Rep. Cindy Axne is pushing for tenants’ rights to extend to residents of manufactured housing communities to protect them from predatory rent hikes.