Housing North - Region D Regional Housing Partnership Lead

What is a Regional Housing Partnership?

In September 2022, the Michigan State Housing Development Authority launched its First-Ever Statewide Housing Plan. The goal of the statewide housing plan is to address housing challenges and promote the availability of safe, affordable, and sustainable housing options for all residents within the state.

To be successful, the plan requires a collaborative, statewide, data-driven approach that identifies and provides steps on how to overcome our housing challenges. These are complex issues that cannot be resolved overnight and this is where the Regional Housing Partnerships come in. They aim to have every stakeholder in the housing industry working together, to identify and implement solutions that will result in meaningful changes at the individual, neighborhood, community, regional, and state levels.

Housing North was officially chosen as the Regional Housing Partnership lead for Region D through the Statewide Housing Partnership at the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA). Click here to access a brief document describing our role as the Regional Housing Partnership for Region D and the process.

Regional Housing Partnership Task: Developing a Regional Action Plan

Our task was to gather all the stakeholders in the region to create our own Regional Housing Plan for Region D. There are EIGHT priority areas of the statewide housing plan, 37 goals, and 134 strategies. Each of the regions is charged with creating its own plan, prioritizing the goals and strategies for our region including action steps towards these goals. The priority areas chosen by our region are:

1. Housing ecosystem

2. Preventing and Ending Homelessness

3. Housing stock

4. We chose #4 main goals for the Statewide Housing Plan and our Regional plan includes NINE goals and 33 strategies.

What does the Regional Housing Partnership do?

A new statewide housing partnership, along with the regional groups and Michigan’s Campaign to End Homelessness (MCTEH) will work together to meet the goals of the plan. The regional groups will engage local organizations to create regional action plans for achieving the goals and strategies they select from the eight priority areas. The statewide housing partnership will also create an action plan, focusing on those goals and strategies that are most appropriate to that level. In summary, the Michigan State Housing Development Authority announced lead agencies to 15 Regional Housing Partnerships (RHP) across the state to work with local governments, nonprofits, developers, businesses, local health departments, grassroots organizations, and other partners to create and implement action plans that address the housing needs of their regions in alignment with Michigan’s Statewide Housing Plan.

As a result of this designation, Housing North will receive $175, 000 in grant funding for two years to coordinate the regional action plan, identify its goals and name its objectives. Through the Regional Housing Partnership, our region has the opportunity to develop a regional housing plan that decides how, and what parts and priorities of the Statewide Housing Plan need to be implemented in our communities.

Data and communication have been key to achieving our goal of developing this action plan. Thanks to funding from the Frey Foundation, Networks Northwest, and Hagerty we rolled out the results of the Housing Needs Assessment (HNA) for the 10 counties in Northwest Michigan, which provides an understanding of the housing needs for our region.

Regional Housing Partnership (RHP) Happy Hours - Key Takeaways! On September 2024, we hosted RHP Happy Hours in two locations in our region. The Happy Hours brought together stakeholders and community members to discuss the support and resources needed to advance housing readiness for our region. Top takeaways included:

• The need for more guidance and education for small cities and villages on updating master plans and zoning ordinances.

• A strong demand for increased funding, including startup housing funds resources to implement tools like Tax Incremental Financing (TIF) and PILOT.

• A strong emphasis on the importance of partnerships to share funding opportunities, address exclusionary policies, and connect nonprofits with housing funding.

• Educational opportunities were in high demand, particularly around best practices from other communities, funding housing, and policy development to support housing.

We'd like to hear more from you and the ways we can continue to support the implementation of our Regional Housing Plan. Click here to share insights with us on the RHP process. Your input and feedback are important!