By Julian Emerson
The 2020 Eau Claire city budget includes not only money to address a shortage of affordable housing but also the addition of another employee whose tasks will include work on that topic.
The budget approved last week by the City Council calls for spending $700,000 toward creating more affordable housing in the city.
Next year’s budget also calls for creating a new associate planner position. The duties of the person hired for that job would include work on affordable housing and neighborhood outreach.
New position shows ‘importance of this issue’
Filling that position would also free up other city employees to work on affordable housing, several City Council members said, and is a sign of the importance city officials place on making inroads on that issue.
The inclusion of the new position in the budget “signals the importance of this issue,” council member Andrew Werthmann said. “This is something we as a Council are taking very seriously.”
The Council previously backed moving $700,000 forward from future planned expenditures for affordable housing as part of capital improvement budget discussions in the summer. That money includes $200,000 to incentivize single-family homes and $500,000 to help developers offset the cost of building affordable apartments.
City leaders and other Chippewa Valley government officials have discussed the shortage of affordable housing for the past 1½ years. A report by the Chippewa Valley Affordable Housing Task Force notes housing shortages at all income levels in the region.
People at the bottom of the economic ladder have the biggest need for affordable housing, the report states.
A recently released study by the Institute for Research on Poverty at UW-Madison shows that the region comprised of Eau Claire County and the southern half of Chippewa County has the second-highest poverty rate, at 14.4 percent, among 28 geographic areas in Wisconsin, trailing only Milwaukee County’s 17 percent rate.
Another report, the United Way of Wisconsin ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) study, shows 42 percent of Eau Claire County residents and 46 percent of those living in the city either live in poverty or are barely getting by. Many of those residents are in danger of losing their housing, local officials said, as their incomes have remained relatively stagnant in recent years while the cost of housing in the region has grown significantly during that time.
Eau Claire rents nearly double 10 years ago
For instance, rents in Eau Claire have nearly doubled during the past decade, with the average rent now about $800 monthly. Leaders of local agencies that serve homeless people have said that population continues to grow as more people are priced out of their homes.
“We are seeing more and more people without homes, and as affordable housing becomes a bigger issue, the number of homeless people is likely to grow,” said Brianne Berres, director of the Sojourner House homeless shelter in downtown Eau Claire.
In addition, many people seeking housing are being denied because of such factors as low income, past poor credit or evictions, or past criminal records. With a local rental vacancy rate of just 2 percent, landlords often can choose from numerous applicants seeking rental homes and exclude those they view as risks.
LeAnn Simpson, an Eau Claire resident, said she has been denied opportunities to rent simply because landlords are concerned her annual income of about $17,000 won’t leave the single mother of two enough money to pay housing costs and other bills.
“It’s a tough situation to be in,” said Simpson, who said she and her children are living with a friend for now while she seeks a more permanent home. “I’m trying to get a higher-pay job. But right now this is the best I can do.”
To assist such situations, the JONAH (Joining Our Neighbors, Advancing Hope) affordable housing task force recently announced its intention to form a tenant rights resource center in the Chippewa Valley in 2020. The effort is designed to assist tenants, in part by reducing the number of evictions, as well as to educate tenants and landlords about rental responsibilities.
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