Housing is the biggest issue facing communities across Dane County. Families are locked out of home ownership, lower- and middle-wage workers commute throughout the county increasing their transportation costs and employment turnover, older adults who can no longer maintain their homes have limited options, lower income households are increasingly sharing rental spaces, evictions are on the rise and so is homelessness.

To talk about what Dane County is planning to do about the housing crisis, host Douglas Haynes talks with three staff and committee members of the Dane County Housing Advisory Committee about the Dane County Regional Housing Strategy. Olivia Parry, a Senior Planner at Dane County says that “unstable homes make unstable communities,” and Dane County has a history of segregated housing that exacerbates housing inequities in the present.

Becky Binz, the Housing and Equitable Development Planner for the city of Sun Prairie, says that in her community people who want to can’t afford to live in Sun Prairie and that social services organizations are seeing an uptick in requests for assistance.

Alex Allon, the Community Development Director for the Village of DeForest says that folks in his community are making trade offs in order to afford rent. One local food bank serves 800 families who experience food insecurity, in part from the rising price of housing. That’s in a community with a total population of about 11,000 people.

To address housing affordability, communities are changing their zoning restrictions, using affordable housing funds, increasing the number of units, and creating incentives for developers to meet communities’ goals. 

Image courtesy of Dane County.

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