This resolution should be passed-up to the Legislature by the organizations which represent the Counties, the Cities/Municipalities, as well as the Townships in the state of Wisconsin. This process can only happen with a high level of public participation by citizens represented by these local governments pressing upon first, these organizations and then, State Legislators themselves.

Below is a Resolution for citizens to put before your County Government representatives in the County where you live:
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Resolution: To the Wisconsin Legislature for Enabling Legislation and Appropriations for Large-Scale Build of Public Low-income Housing Statewide

WHEREAS, Wisconsin people have been living through an affordable housing crisis that extends back the past two decades; in cities small and large, elderly on fixed incomes, people with disabilities, young workers and students in 4-year or technical colleges have borne the burden of economic stress along with townspeople in campus towns, and homelessness is increasing everywhere in Wisconsin;

WHEREAS, human-service agencies such as Community Action Programs and the United Way in whatever County you represent, have been reporting out for many years now, the data concerning the stressful impact of rents (or mortgages) upon low-income households,with many of our northern rural Counties having 45% or higher economic stress of the Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained, Employed persons or ALICE;

WHEREAS, housing insecurity is often a factor in our Counties’ Health and Human Services departments, as it contributes to the stress and instability of parent’s lives, often contributing to Child Protective Services cases;

WHEREAS, many Counties in the North-Central Region, for example, are experiencing alarming increases in the population of homeless persons, including our elderly people, even in smaller cities such as Stevens Point and Wausau, and many different ad hoc efforts at mutual aid are unable to keep up with this rising population’s needs to get back into housing security;

WHEREAS, for disabled people, struggling to afford housing, the shortage means they could be forced to live in homes that do not fit their support needs; resources to accessible and affordable housing are currently an extremely complicated process and force disabled people to prove the reality of poverty to even get basic needs met; disabled families especially do not receive supports they are eligible for due to the inability to physically and mentally comply to the very restrictive housing guidelines;

WHEREAS, owing to a decade of austerity for local governments with frozen state shared revenue flowing back to them, local governments are generally short on funding to be able to provide much in the way of ambitious initiatives for public-funded public housing;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, Wisconsin Counties Association, in conference assembled, requests the Wisconsin Legislature to enact enabling legislation, and make appropriations, to provide the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Agency, with funding adequate to provide both grants and loans to all 72 Counties, start-up funding for County-municipality collaboratives providing publicly-built, publicly-owned, and publicly-managed low-income public housing initiatives which fully accommodate disabled persons under ADA guidelines and promote child safety and welfare.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that Wisconsin Counties Association requests that legislation passed by the Legislature assures that these initiatives will employ a system-level approach for Design/Build of multi-family sustainable and energy-efficient housing communities which will build new public housing units on a renewable-energy substrate from the ground up, both to reduce “carbon footprints” and to prepare for future natural resource limits and insufficiency of fossil fuels in our region.