Communities across the state are working to address a shortage of workforce housing. In northwest Michigan, the Petoskey-Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation (PHSACF) continues to support efforts that address the housing needs in the communities it serves in Emmet County. 

The community foundation has been working to support the housing shortage for several years and began partnering with other organizations to form the Little Traverse Bay Partnership which includes local nonprofit organizations Housing North, Habitat for Humanity, the Petoskey Regional Chamber of Commerce, Harbor Inc and others. 

“That partnership has been working to bring awareness to the issue, to talk to local municipalities and townships about what they could do in terms of making their communities more housing ready through zoning changes and policy changes that they could enact,” Sarah Ford said, director of community philanthropy at PHSACF said.

The coalition recognized that the cost of land was a barrier to getting housing projects started. 

PHSACF created the Emmet Housing Solutions Fund, to focus on the predevelopment phase of housing development.

“One of the things we also included in the focus is land acquisition. As a resort community, the price of land is a barrier, and it keeps getting more expensive especially when you think about prime real estate that’s close to services or has infrastructure readily available,” Ford said.  

During the recent virtual Foundations on the Hill (FOTH), David “DJ” Jones, executive director of PHSACF and chair of CMF’s Advisory Cabinet, shared with policymakers the community foundation’s plans to support the workforce housing crisis through the purchase of a vacant lot for a development project. 

The project was in need of funding and wasn’t able to secure it through other state-supported programs. 

“We didn’t want the property to potentially go back on the market at either a higher price or to be purchased for another purpose. That’s when we stepped in to help secure the property so it could be preserved for workforce housing,” Ford said. 

Ford shared that PHSACF’s donor advised fund (DAF) holders played a significant role in the fundraising process of the project. The community foundation’s initial outreach was to its DAF holders.

“They really kickstarted our fundraising and helped us get it off the ground and were a significant portion of the dollars raised either through their existing DAFs or in some cases they made additional gifts outside of their DAFs,” Ford said. 

According to Ford, PHSACF is in the final phases of purchasing the lot and hopes to complete the purchase within the next month. 

The development is anticipated to include 60 units of workforce housing that the community foundation anticipates will serve households with income up to 120% of its area median income.

“Our vision is we will gift the property to the project so that will take the cost of land out of the equation of the overall project cost, that’ll be our initial financial contribution on the project,” Ford said. 

The community foundation plans to bring in a nonprofit partner to own and manage the project long-term. 

Ford shared that the community foundation recognized its role in supporting this issue which impacts communities across the state and can’t be solved alone. 

“If we don’t play a role in helping fill this gap then who’s going to do it? The market isn’t supporting it on its own, the government can’t do it on its own so we felt philanthropy should play an important role in getting things going and filling gaps that exist,” Ford said.