Karen Gagnon, Office of Housing Strategies manager at the
Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA), has worked on high-level, high-visibility statewide initiatives before. She’s been at MSHDA for almost two decades, and for many of those years, there was one thing lacking: a Statewide Housing Plan.
When her office became one of the many stakeholders invited to draft a plan, she was excited at the opportunity. Although the comprehensive plan has many overarching themes for the entire state, it’s the regional housing partners that are pushing these goals forward — making a real impact in their own communities each day. It’s this collaboration that makes the plan something special, and worth talking about, she says.
“We knew that we wanted to be wide-reaching, we had done research across the country on what states had statewide housing plans,” Gagnon says. “We didn’t really have much of a model because we knew we wanted our plan to be extremely collaborative and broad statewide with a lot of intersections to housing.”
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Courtesy photo.Karen Gagnon is the Office of Housing Strategies manager at the Michigan State Housing Development Authority(MSHDA). Tim Klont, chief operating officer at MSHDA, also worked on
Michigan’s first-ever statewide Housing Plan. The plan utilized national housing trends, housing experts and focus groups, homeowner surveys, renters, potential buyers, landlords, and engagement from partners and stakeholders all over the state. Released in June 2022, the plan is a little bit past the
halfway point in its five-year timeline of specific objectives.
He’s proud to see the plan being brought up in meetings, featured in the press, and referenced in previously unfamiliar areas.
“To see the statewide housing plan referenced or cited in conversations that historically, housing has not been part of, also makes us proud,” he says. “It validates the work we’re doing, and the sectors that we continue to engage in the work.”
Klont is also proud of the collaborative work that’s been done within the plan’s framework across 15 different geographic regions, each with their own distinctive demographic, economic and housing characteristics. Each region also has one or two lead agencies tasked with their own goal of developing an action plan in support of the statewide goal.
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Courtesy photo. Tim Klont, chief operating officer at MSHDA, worked on Michigan's first-ever statewide Housing Plan.“I’m also very proud of the organization of the regional housing partnership leads and their ability to address their needs,” Klont says. “Some of our regions are large geographically, they have diverse housing markets and needs. They’re urban, rural, or tribal, examining how leads can bring that diverse regional ecosystem together to build consensus. The fact that we had 15 regional housing partnerships around the state all produce a regional action plan identifying their highest priorities in the near-term was a big success.”
Creating a collaborative initiative across an entire state requires partnerships, discussion, and flexibility across all stakeholders.
“You can’t do it alone and government can’t decide,” Gagnon says. “This is really important to stress — this is not a MSHDA plan. This is not a state government plan. This was spearheaded and funded by MSHDA, but it is a state of Michigan plan for everyone. When it comes to regional housing, we can’t prescribe for regions what they should do. Each one makes that decision on their own. I’ve been involved in enough statewide initiatives through my time to know that’s the last thing you want to do. At the end of the day, we want to build a connected, collaborative and inclusive housing ecosystem across the state. Housing is too important not to have it.”
Working with CEDAM, Michigan State University Extension, and other partners, MSHDA held kickoff meetings to help build the network and its framing. CEDAM helps provide training and different strategies on facilitation and communication, helping groups engage and increase outreach.
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Courtesy photo.MSHDA hosted Regional Housing Partnership (RHP) kickoff meetings to discuss the objectives, and benchmarks at the halfway point of the five-year comprehensive Michigan Housing Plan. That engagement has led to successful benchmarks just about two and a half years into the plan, says Klont.
“At just about halfway through the plan, we’re at about 60% of what is now the 115,000 unit target. That’s significant, and a lot of housing in a short period of time. I’m very proud of that,” he says.
One of those
regional housing partnerships (RHPs) critical in moving the goals forward is the Southwest Housing Partnership, located in Region J, which includes seven counties: Berrien, Branch, Calhoun, Cass, Kalamazoo, St. Joseph, and Van Buren. The Local Initiatives Support Corporation, or
LISC Kalamazoo, a nonprofit focused on community development — has been actively implementing local efforts in the Southwest region of the state.
As a co-covener and co-leader for Region J, in partnership with
Integrated Services of Kalamazoo and
W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, LISC Kalamazoo is part of the leadership and subcommittee structure.
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Sonja DeanSonja Dean is the deputy director for LISC Kalamazoo, and has been with the national nonprofit CDFI for over 21 years. Whether being a capital funder, a connector, or an innovator, LISC Kalamazoo helps support financial inclusion within the ecosystem of community development.
One of their current goals from the state plan is capacity building for the
MEDC redevelopment ready communities (RRC).
“We host a national AmeriCorps program and have done that since 1995,” Dean says. “LISC was able to bring AmeriCorps members to help build the capacity of partners in Van Buren, Kalamazoo and Berrien Counties. They can help those partners to identify municipalities in their counties that are on the track for redevelopment-ready communities but need some additional capacity to help get through the milestones required by MEDC to get that designation.”
The second goal LISC is working on is forming development funds in the region to help bring private-public financing to help support the development of affordable housing units. The focus is on the smaller unit development, those 5-49 unit size projects that don’t typically fit with a low-income housing tax credit model, but are still critically needed in the community.
“In Kalamazoo, we’ve invested about $147 million, which has helped to create about 4,000 units of affordable housing and just shy of 1 million square feet of commercial space and community spaces,” Dean says.
Although the statewide goals are aggressive, Dean also knows there’s power in the more easily digestible, bitesize goals too.
“Our region has done a good job of trying to break down those aspirational goals into tangible bites to make progress towards the overarching goals,” she says. “Development always feels like a slow process until you’re looking at it in retrospect. Sometimes it’s hard to see that movement has happened.”
Jackie Koney, executive director of LISC Kalamazoo, knows the benefits that these redevelopment-ready certifications can bring to smaller municipalities. She’s also impressed with the level of followthrough within the initiatives and goals set across the board. But for her, the work means more than the benchmarks.
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Jackie Koney
“I’m passionate about reducing the health-wealth opportunity gaps that we have in any way possible,” she says. “Philanthropic dollars are a key component but other dollars are just as important. One way to build wealth is to have people have rent that’s affordable, and to be able to own homes eventually.”
Looking ahead, MSHDA is using this first-ever statewide housing plan to help inform the next 2.0 version too.
“We have seen that having a statewide housing plan gives people and organizations something to rally around and something to point to,” Klont says. “We are looking forward to the next iteration of it to continue the momentum that we have spent the last few years building to implement the current plan.”
Teresa Gillotti is on the housing development team at CEDAM that works with supporting the 15 RHP leads across the state, in partnership with MSHDA.
“We’ve seen a lot of the regions immediately want to work on communication and education,” she says. “A number of them have been putting together really robust resource guides. In some cases, it’s to help residents get connected to housing and services. Another case, it’s just to support landlords and to get connected to tenants.”
Gillotti has also witnessed regions’ purpose and intentions behind bringing in newer, nontraditional agencies into the mix.
“A lot of the regions have been building those ecosystems with nonprofits, private sector partners, residents, and activists,” she says. “They’re bringing everyone together, trying to respond to what they’re hearing as gaps and the needs and providing some support. You always have different housing agencies, different partners, but others have chambers of commerce and economic development agencies showing up in lead roles. They’re working with community action agencies, workforce development, people in the private sector — so they’re making sure it’s a community-wide group within the region to stay connected.”
CEDAM helps the regions consider additional partners, connect them with other successful region’s plans, and help bridge gaps, says Gillotti.
Gillotti says the growth that has happened within the RHP leads and partners has been amazing.
“It’s been really exciting not just to see people cross things off, and be able to say they’ve had success and do these things on their action plan, but to really build capacity with their teams — that’s probably one of the biggest successes is to seize that growth and capacity throughout the ecosystem.”
There’s something special about the work that’s being done with the
Statewide Housing Plan, Dean says. Not only has the plan got folks talking to each other in different sectors in Michigan, it’s also captured the attention of other state governments.
“This is really something different,” she says. “I think it is because there’s an understanding that it’s not a privilege, it’s a right for everybody to have housing. It’s just resonating with people. You know you’re doing good work when you get a call from another state governor’s office. That’s happened on several occasions.”