Mayor Eric Genrich on The Green Bay Housing Partnership

Frederica Freyberg:
Everyone knows how expensive it is to buy a house these days. In Wisconsin, home prices have risen much faster than incomes, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum. That freezes out renters from creating generational wealth through homeownership. But there are innovative ideas to get people into their own homes, like land trusts, where the buyer gets a mortgage for the home only and then leases the land under it from a nonprofit. The result? Affordable home ownership, a new community land trust program is taking shape in Green Bay. Its mayor, Eric Genrich, joins us with more. And mayor, thanks a lot for being here.

Eric Genrich:
Thanks much for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:
So there are land trust programs in other parts of the state. What made you interested in this idea?

Eric Genrich:
Well, as you said, yes, we’re certainly not the first ones to adopt a community land trust here in Green Bay. I believe they’re in place in the Madison area, southeast Wisconsin. La Crosse, I believe, area has one as well. And it’s really a movement that’s grown pretty significantly over the last few years. You know, you did a great job of kind of giving an overview of that concept and why it’s so appealing to us is, is the idea that we will be able to set aside a certain number of homes that will remain relatively affordable forever. There’s a number of strategies that we deploy currently within the city of Green Bay and that are common, I think, across the country. But oftentimes those periods of affordability are limited to, you know, 15 years or a couple decades or something like that. With the community land trust model, because the rate of appreciation is managed a bit and regulated a bit for those who own these homes, these homes will, especially in the long term, be a lot more affordable when you compare them to other homes that are available on the private market.

Frederica Freyberg:
Yet, this wouldn’t be city or public housing, right? How would it work?

Eric Genrich:
Correct. Yeah. No, that’s a great clarifying question. Yeah. We partnered with Neighborworks Green Bay, which is a local housing nonprofit but they’re a local affiliate of a nationwide organization, Neighborworks America. And so they have a lot of access to expertise around the country with fellow affiliates who have gone down this path of community land trust. And so it’s a great partnership that’s already been established. But I should also say Habitat for Humanity was a really instrumental part of this brainstorming process. You know, they’re going to have representation on this board. A number of local nonprofits, the chamber of commerce, was really instrumental as well when we were figuring out exactly how we would structure this. And so a lot of folks have been involved, and we’re looking for even more to continue to be involved in the future, because this is not something that only can be supported by the city government. It’s really going to require private philanthropy and generous individual donors, foundations and things to make sure that this gets to the stage or to the level that really has an impact on housing affordability.

Frederica Freyberg:
Because in your community, how out of reach is home ownership for most people?

Eric Genrich:
You know, relatively speaking, homeownership is easier to attain here in Green Bay than it is in many other parts of the country. We just ended up on one of these lists where it said Green Bay was the number one place for people on Social Security to live. So relatively speaking, you know, we’re affordable. But in comparison to our history, not at all the case. You know, we’ve seen home prices in the city of Green Bay go up, you know, double digit percentage points pretty much every year over the last five years. So homeownership is out of reach, unfortunately for far too many people. And we’re in the position of really, you know, taking an all-of-the-above approach to housing affordability here in the city of Green Bay. We recognize that not one single solution is going to get us to that point. But community land trust, we feel, is definitely a tool that hasn’t been utilized in the past and needs to be part of the equation in the future.

Frederica Freyberg:
Give us a sense of this. If someone buys a house through the community land trust first, how affordable might it be to get in and then can they sell it at a profit?

Eric Genrich:
Right, yeah, so, you know, it is expensive just to construct a home these days. So some of those costs are kind of built in. The way that we’re going to be able to bring down the cost of construction is really through private philanthropy, as I was suggesting. So it’s going to be important for donors to step up to bring that initial cost down to a level of affordability for low- and moderate-income folks. Going forward, once we, you know, construct the home, find the family, set up a situation where they’re able to purchase this home, they would be able to realize a percentage of increase in value over the years. So I think the formula that’s been arrived on is 2% a year. So certainly, you know, these families are going to be able to pull out some of that equity if they were to decide to sell the home down the line. But it’s not going to be to the extent that we’ve seen in the private market. So that’s really where these homes become even more affordable 10, 20, 30 years down the line.

Frederica Freyberg:
In your city’s model, the plan is to provide wraparound services. What do those look like?

Eric Genrich:
You know, a lot of those, I think, are going to be determined in the future. But I was, you know, referencing the fact that we were working closely with Neighborworks Green Bay. They’re the — really the housing agency in town and are going to be the ones who are operating the land trust. And so, you know, they’re really well experienced with home buyer training. You know, anti-eviction training that they’ve been doing for decades here. And so, they’re really going to be the entity that are going to figure out exactly what kind of services are going to be necessary for these homeowners, but they’re really well placed to do that.

Frederica Freyberg:
What kind of stability for a community do owner-occupied homes create?

Eric Genrich:
Yeah, I mean, they’re so essential. Here in Green Bay, we have a great system of neighborhoods. We just celebrated the 50th neighborhood association to be established within the city of Green Bay. I think historically, homeowners have played, you know, more of an instrumental role in some of those organizations. But we recognize the role that all residents play and absolutely encourage people who are, you know, in the rental housing environment, in condos and homes to step up and take some ownership of their neighborhoods. But homeownership is still really a dream for many people. And it’s a great way, you know, to set aside some wealth for yourselves and for your families down the line. In the land trust model, it’s, like I was explaining earlier, it’s, you know, it’s kind of modestly controlled, but it’s still a great way, as I said, to develop a nest egg for yourselves and for your children and grandchildren and that’s something that we want to encourage.

Frederica Freyberg:
We’ll be watching this as it takes shape. Mayor Eric Genrich, thanks very much.

Eric Genrich:
Thanks so much for having me.