Building Relationships for Affordable Housing

7/7/2023

During a recent trip to visit friends living in Washington, DC, I was given the perfect opportunity to seek out and speak with people working within the government and directly with tenant-specific laws. In addition to the meetings I’ve been scheduling with members of the housing community here in Eau Claire, I was able to gain further understanding of how our elected officials work with increasing access to affordable housing. 

I first sat down with a member of Senator Tammy Baldwin’s staff for a conversation about the concerns we have regarding access to affordable housing here in the Chippewa Valley, and how the problems we face relate to those in larger cities like Milwaukee and Madison. I was able to discuss the housing boom we are experiencing, where we see plenty of rental units being built, but so few offering assistance-eligible units, or rents that most in the ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed; see link below) population would find affordable. This emphasized the focus of the Tenant Landlord Resource Center (TLRC) and our hope to serve those in that ALICE population, who may not be able to apply for housing assistance but who experience difficulty in accessing housing that is affordable to them. Our conversation kept coming back to accessibility and the barriers faced by renters in our area, whether they be transportation, language, time, or simply resources, and those who face the highest of barriers to rentals and home ownership—a history of evictions and/or criminal histories. In addition to assisting with resources, the TLRC’s goal is early eviction prevention through mediation, and I hope that by sharing our mission as an organization, I was able to provide an important perspective for the Senator to consider.

The impact of that first conversation was emphasized when meeting with a lawyer with the D.C. Tenant Rights Center. We focused on the ways that their Center approaches difficult conversations, and how I can apply these strategies (understanding the line of advice vs. legal advice, and knowing when to ask for support from community partners, for example) to help both tenants and their landlords in my work with the TLRC. And he left me with an important thought: in the grand scheme of things, constituents don’t often walk in to speak with their government representatives, and when they do, it’s often assumed that if the concerns discussed were important enough for one person to bring forward, then they must be shared by thousands of others in that area, and this can impact the way our officials vote. This perspective, highlighting the day’s earlier conversation, bolstered my confidence to reach out to other state representatives and advocate for community members to use their voice with their elected officials.

My final conversation was with an economist in the Financial and Market Characteristics Branch of the US Census Bureau, whose job is to provide data from various housing surveys to federal, state, and city government entities. Discussing the information he pulls from their surveys, and how these results are used by HUD and the agencies they work with to determine who lives in different cities, what their home situations look like, and what financial scenarios they face helped inform how our housing programs are funded, and what kinds of barriers we’re up against when it comes to increasing affordable housing options. This raised plenty more questions for upcoming conversations with public officials, and it’s empowering to know how to access this information when needed.

This trip felt daunting at the start, but my trainings with JONAH have reminded me that these are all just people, and we can find a common goal through conversation. I’m very grateful to the folks who made time to sit down with me, provide information and advice, and to point me in the direction of even more connections, and I look forward to continuing these discussions. It all starts with relationship.