Coverage of low-income and affordable housing solutions, housing developments, and resources for the unhoused.
Traverse City's Commongrounds is a mixed-use building, offering affordable housing, co-working space, a coffee shop, child education center, and performance venue. It's the first real estate cooperative in northern Michigan.
Michigan communities are repurposing spaces to bring services, create meeting places, and meet the many needs of neighborhood residents.
As part of the Region I Regional Housing Partnership, the Capital Area Housing Partnership and the Tri-County Regional Planning Commission are tasked with developing local action plans to address the housing crisis. City and state government, neighborhood developers including Forsberg Real Estate, and area nonprofits are working together to address homelessness in greater Lansing and to attract residents to Eaton Rapids.
Although headquartered in Indiana, the FHLBank of Indianapolis provides access to grant programs and resources for small businesses throughout Michigan. The Elevate Grant aims to generate more economic opportunity for all, and helps small businesses like Mushroom House Tours in Charlevoix and The Poke Bowl in Flint to level up.
As part of the Make it in Michigan Strategy, the state of Michigan has new finance tools and opportunities to convert vacant land into housing via the Transformational Brownfield Fund and tax increment funding. The State Land Bank Authority and Michigan Community Capital are working with state, local, and federal organizations to develop attainable workforce housing in their communities.
As Kent County grows faster than the rest of the state, the community looks at ways to address its ongoing housing shortages. Through government entities, upcoming developers like Housing Next, and seasoned community development financial institutions like IFF, Grand Rapids has a collaborative plan in place to address the issue.
Block by Block spoke with Lansing and Detroit organizations on how they’re addressing the need for single-family housing in their communities. Building Community Value, based in Detroit, and the Capital Area Housing Partnership, based in Lansing, share their perspectives of the needs and how their resources are serving as building blocks for a better housing ecosystem.
Citizens Research Council, Michigan Municipal League, and Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation weigh in on state's housing needs, regional, minority-driven resources, and development within individual communities.
Block by Block spoke with the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, Housing North, and Communities First about how individual communities are working together to tackle the specific housing needs of their residents. For the first time ever, the state of Michigan released a statewide coordinated, comprehensive housing plan, working with stakeholders across the housing sector
“This award will help us replenish an area that became a vacant lot after we tore down the old playscape. This is a fresh, new, and colorful idea for the kids.”
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