This post originally appeared at https://www.badgerinstitute.org/four-companies-step-up-to-make-homes-affordable-for-sheboygan-county-workers/

New housing development model can ease workforce shortage

To combat a severe shortage of affordable housing — a problem reverberating throughout the state — four family-owned Sheboygan County businesses and a local economic development agency have created a $10 million fund for building entry-level homes.

The goal of the Forward Fund is to build 400 to 500 single-family homes over the next several years, says Brian Doudna, executive director of the Sheboygan County Economic Development Corp. (SCEDC), which acts as the homes’ developer.

Johnsonville, Kohler Co., Sargento, Masters Gallery Foods and Sheboygan County each kicked in $2 million to create the fund — but home buyers need not work for any of them.

Employees of other Sheboygan County companies, or those with an accepted job offer, can also buy the homes.

Wisconsin will need to build 200,000 housing units by 2030 to accommodate all the people who want to live and work here, according to More Housing Wisconsin. Sheboygan County is a microcosm of the problem — but on the forefront of a possible solution.

The shortage of affordable housing has “absolutely” hampered hiring and contributes to higher turnover with employees frustrated by long commutes, says Michael Stayer-Suprick, chief executive officer of Johnsonville’s parent company, Johnsonville Holdings.

Stayer-Suprick is part of a third generation of Stayer family ownership of the company, which was founded in 1945 and employs roughly 1,300 people in Sheboygan County.

“The lack of affordable housing makes it challenging to bring in people from outside the community,” Stayer-Suprick says. “As we are hiring, we often hear people say that it would be great to work here, but there’s no place to live affordably.”

The average sale price of a home jumped 24.4% to $243,700, from $195,900 in 2021, according to a 2023 report compiled for the City of Sheboygan by Redevelopment Resources, a consulting firm. Single-family home sales in the city declined during the last three years, while the time homes were on the market shrank from a 41-day average in 2021 to 19 days in 2023, the report stated — a 54% drop.

At the same time, the vacancy rate for rental properties in Sheboygan is below 1%. A desirable vacancy rate is 4% to 7%, the study said.

Sheboygan needs 1,300 to 1,850 new units of all housing types to meet five-year demand projections, the report stated.

The tight housing market is causing buyers to settle for entry-level homes even if they could afford larger, more expensive homes. This further tightens the entry-level market.

Making progress

The SCEDC, a non-profit group that gets roughly 60% of its funding from private-sector contributions and 40% from government grants, collaborated with the four companies to start the Forward Fund in 2021, recognizing the lack of entry-level homes was hampering economic growth in the county.

The county’s contribution to the Forward Fund came from money the county received from the federal emergency American Rescue Plan Act, passed in 2021, Doudna says. Combined with contributions from the four companies, which will not get a cash return on their investment, the Forward Fund pays for everything: land, streets, sewers and the homes being built by Werner Homes.

The SCEDC sells the homes without real estate brokers on a website, www.someplacebetter.org. Homes sell for as close to the cost of construction as possible. Revenue from the sales is plowed back into the Forward Fund to pay for the next round of home construction, Doudna says.

The fund’s first project is Founders’ Point, a 54-home subdivision in Sheboygan Falls, about five miles west of Sheboygan. Through the end of July, 16 homes have been built and 11 have been sold. Doudna expects the other five homes will be sold by the end of August.

Due to anticipated high demand for the new homes, buyers must meet certain requirements, such as an annual household income that doesn’t exceed $134,474, which is 140 percent of the median county income. (All of the criteria can be found at www.someplacebetter.org/homes/selection-process.)

Thirteen banks in the county have agreed to finance purchases of Founders’ Pointe homes for qualified buyers. The City of Sheboygan Falls also provides up to $65,000 to qualified buyers through a down payment assistance program.

The Founders’ Pointe homes range from 1,300 to 1,500 square feet and include three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a two-car garage. They sell for between $315,000 and $325,000, Doudna says.

Eight of the first buyers were buying homes for the first time and six were moving from outside the county. All 11 buyers work for different companies in a variety of jobs. “It’s a good melting pot of different business sectors and job skills,” Doudna says.

Founders’ Pointe is just a start.

Construction of a 41-home subdivision called Founders’ Pointe Neighborhood, adjacent to Founders’ Pointe, is slated to begin in August. Construction of an estimated 90-home subdivision in an as-yet-to-be-decided location is to begin next summer, he says.

Collective concerns

The private contributors to the Forward Fund volunteered the seed funding without being asked, Doudna says. 

“We’re in a very fortunate position,” he says. “We have a lot of locally owned, family-held corporations where the families are still involved with daily operations and are committed to investing in their communities, growing their companies and ensuring their employees have a good quality of life.” 

“One of the reasons it works,” Stayer-Suprick says, “is the companies working together here are owned by multigenerational families that know each other both professionally and socially.

“We’re all driven by the fact that we want our communities to have the investments and amenities they need to thrive well into the next generation. We collectively look at the good of the whole.”

Ken Wysocky is a Milwaukee-area freelance journalist and editor with more than 40 years of journalism experience. Permission to reprint is granted as long as the author and Badger Institute are properly cited.

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