Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this January 31st, 2024.
Have your host, James J. Mailoff here.
And right now, we're going to talk to a couple of our favorite people.
We have Kayla Mangle from the Wood County Health Department with us.
Kayla, good to see you.
Thank you. It's nice to see you, too, Jay.
The first time seeing you in studio, that's right.
Yes.
The first time you've been here for us, it's nice to have you here.
Yeah, it's nice to be here, friendly and person, too.
Usually it was over the phone during COVID.
Yeah, and you brought in a friend.
We have our good friend, Kayla Rumbalski with us from the UWX,
Wisconsin Madison Division of Extension.
Kayla, good to have you here.
Good to be here.
Yep, I appreciate that.
Good to see you.
I want to first off, do two things.
One, thank you both in both of your organizations for everything.
Do in our community.
We appreciate you so darn much.
And thank you for all the work that you and your teams do.
And secondly, did you guys just do this to mess with me?
I've got Kayla and Kayla and Kayla and Kayla.
I've already messed with you all.
Yeah, it's okay.
You're just trying to mess with me, aren't you?
I could have corrected you, but I was like, it's okay.
If people call me so many different names, I'm used to it.
Please correct me.
As long as it starts with a K, you're good.
Please correct me.
I am bothered by this.
I'm so rude.
You're so rude.
No way.
We do have a big topic to talk about today.
We're talking about not only the Wood County housing summit coming up,
but housing in general.
I want to kind of begin there if you guys don't mind.
Talking about the issues in this community when it comes to housing.
I think a lot of people are seeing a lot of national stories.
And while some of those in some of the details that that might apply to us,
I'd like to get a little more like, let's talk about local.
Let's talk about right here in Wood County.
Yeah, definitely.
So, James, you and I, as you know, and as your listeners may know,
we talk about these key issues for Wood County and for Central Wisconsin often when I come in.
So, we've talked about child care.
We've talked about economic development and entrepreneurship.
We've talked about broadband and technology infrastructure.
And right up there with those key issues is housing.
So, before we start, before I, you know,
go into the landscape of housing as it currently exists in Wood County,
I would call your listeners attention to the fact
that we had a conversation about this a little while back.
And that conversation was really data-heavy.
So, we're going to be less data-heavy today.
But if people are interested in the numbers and really looking at the statistics,
they can go ahead and listen to that interview.
Just go to civicmedia.us, go under the show midday magazine.
You'll see all of our shows archived right there.
You can check out that great conversation with Kayla.
It was a month or two ago, maybe.
But if you go ahead and you keep, or you're looking through, you'll find it.
Just looking under UW Extension,
along with all the other extension interviews, the original pop-up.
For sure, perfect.
All right, so we wanted to talk just a little bit about housing as it currently stands in Wood County.
So anecdotally, we are hearing that there is just
all-around shortage of housing.
There's a shortage of affordable housing.
There's a shortage of workforce housing.
There's a shortage of rental properties,
just all-around shortage of housing.
So, as we are trying to tackle this challenge,
we have been talking with different stakeholders.
We've involved real estate professionals in this work.
We've involved local HR professionals and what we're hearing from folks is just that
it really is a different environment when you're looking to buy a home or you're looking at
rental properties than it was, you know, even 10, 15 years ago.
So the housing stock that we do have in the county is outdated, right?
So there needs to be some rehabbing that happens of that outdated housing stock.
But then also, there's just, we're running on a space.
And so there's not room necessarily to build new housing.
And so when we look at this housing issue,
we're looking at it from all socioeconomic levels.
So we know that we have a population of people that are
unhoused in the county.
Folks that are looking to get into maybe their first home,
they're coming out of incarceration or other life events,
and looking to get into a rental property or a starter home,
there are not many affordable options for those folks.
But then also, we look at people, for example, in Marshfield.
Marshfield with the clinic there brings in a number of individuals that have a pretty,
that are pretty high earners, right?
We're talking about doctors.
We're talking about, you know, healthcare administration.
And even for them, they're looking at a different level of housing,
right?
A different income bracket for housing.
There's not a lot available for those folks either.
And so this is an issue that really is cross status, cross, you know,
cross community in the community.
And we're hearing, you know, one of the things anecdotally that we've heard
from employers is that they have made offers to new employees coming in,
relocating from out of the area, and they've had those candidates turn down the job
because they are not able to find housing.
They can't find a place to live.
So how are they going to, how are they going to move here, right?
So it's really an all-encompassing challenge in the community.
I was just going to say that, you know, with the problem being cross community
or cross county lines as well, I've heard from realtors
and different organizations in the community that, you know, people who are working in
plover can't find affordable housing in plover, so they're actually taking housing stock
in Wisconsin rapids as well, rental units and actual, you know, buying homes.
So it is definitely bleeding into other communities and affecting everyone.
And it affects, I mean, you think about some of those, those effects like the ripple effects,
right? It also affects tourism because we are seeing that, again, in the Marshfield community,
but a little bit here in in Southwood County and across the county as a whole,
we're seeing that folks that are coming in for maybe temporary jobs, you know,
traveling doctors, nurses, those types of positions that aren't able to find rental units
are staying in hotels. Well, that doesn't leave much hotel space for tourism and for folks that
are coming into visit and wanting to book hotels when all of those hotel stays are taken up by
longer term visitors. And even in a, let's even look at this as if, say you have a strong economy
and you have a strong population in these things, it's still the number one thing that every state
every city is looking for is bringing in new people and keeping the people you have.
That's vital. You talk to, I talked to all of our local mayors, I talked to our senators,
our congressman all the time and this comes up all the time, even when things are positive in
those regards, let alone where we have been in the last four to five years with this issue,
with this topic. So we know that I think we understand the layered impact that trickle down
effect you're talking about there, Kayla. And interestingly, I think to the listener,
the consistent listener out there that checks out our, let's talk real estate, we'll call a maker.
This has been an issue that J.R. and even current members over there that we've talked about,
kind of not around this subject, but kind of touched on this subject today. We don't have enough
inventory. It was always coming back to, in fact, J.R. and I would almost joke about it in a sense,
and I guess we're talking inventory again. We always come back to that because we just didn't
have enough housing, we didn't have enough houses. Right. Now we're looking at it and they were
running out of space or the price range for some of this where a person can't necessarily afford
what they used to. And some of them, the idea, the model of this, that so many people kind of
still look back on and think that it still exists. For those that don't understand this,
it doesn't take a deep dive under your search engine to find that the idea of what it used to be
in the 40s or the 50s, it wasn't that in the 40s and the 50s. That was an idea. That was an actual
thing. It wasn't how it, like maybe it happened every once in a while that a family was able to
hand down a home or hand over a vehicle or something like that. But even back then it wasn't as
common as they like to romanticize as it was. This has been an issue for decades. And it's just
finally, the chickens are coming home the roost. We're finally at this point where it's kind of
falling on us and our generations to have to fix this. So we've got to work together to make this
work, right? And that's exactly what we're doing. So we have a wood county housing task force
that has come together to talk about solutions, right? We spend so much time analyzing the data and
figuring out like, okay, this is a problem. What are we going to do about it? So I've got the
minutes in front of me from our last housing task force meeting in January. We had 22 people
attend this meeting, representatives from many different sectors. So we're talking about individual
builders, developers. We're talking about realtors, city and county representatives,
you know, local government representatives, someone representing a village, nonprofit representatives,
health department representatives, our chambers of commerce are really key players in this work.
And so we look at that and we look at this, this team that has come together to talk about housing.
And you can really see that it's affecting not just one one segment, right? Like it's not just an
issue for, you know, for United Ways or for social service agencies that are serving low-income
families. It's not just an issue for employers. It's an issue across the board. And so as we we talk
about housing and what the group is working on, one of the biggest things that we have coming up,
aside from the housing summit, which Kaylee will touch on in a few minutes, is a housing study.
So we've talked, James, you and I have talked in the past a little bit about comprehensive plans
and planning and the importance of planning. And so as part of Wood County's comprehensive plan
that is getting a re, you know, a fresh look, a fresh release here soon and update, and there will
be a housing chapter of that comprehensive plan. And that housing chapter will really look at
a lot of the data that we just talked about. But then more so than the data, it's linking it back
to what's actually happening in Wood County. So we're going to be comparing incomes, property values,
rent data, and then actually connecting that to what we're hearing from residents. And so what
the task force has talked about is doing a set of surveys to the general public, to folks that are
out there right now experiencing, experiencing challenges, experiencing life events surrounding
housing. So maybe they're trying to buy a home, they're trying to, you know, maybe as Kaylee mentioned
earlier, they're, they're renting in plover, but they're looking for a place in what's going to
wrap it. So what is that, what does that feel like? What does their experience been? So to question
those residents about that, to question employers to get more of that qualitative data rather than
rather than just the, you know, anecdotal, here's what we've heard. But to have some some more,
some more, a little more detail. Yeah, yeah, a little more to it. Yeah. And then finally a survey
or a questionnaire for local government officials. So we know that each of our municipalities in
Wood County has its own way of incentivizing housing and incentivizing developing. So there are
different financial incentives that different municipalities offer to builders and to folks that
are looking to come into their, their municipality and offer housing. But there's not really a
comprehensive look at what are each of those? What is the difference for a builder of building in
Pitzville? The city of Pitzville versus building in the city of Wisconsin Rapids. And so wanting to
try to do sort of an assessment or a survey of those different incentives to see what is being
offered in Wood County. And maybe, you know, looking at the data, where are the gaps? And how can we
fill in those gaps? So that's going to be the biggest thing aside from the housing summit that
the task force is working on. As with all of our coalitions and, and we call them implementation
teams for the ready plan. At extension, we look for community involvement in this. So we would
welcome any listener who's interested, who has a passion for housing to join us in this work.
And also to come to the housing summit. Yeah. Which is a great segue for talking about the housing
summit. I mean, real quick, Kayla, you are killing it today. You are just on fire. You're
segue way. Is there anything nice that's done? Very well done. She's doing a job for you. She is.
She is. We thought about this ahead of time. So we had a flow in mind about how we wanted this
conversation. I feel like I'm getting in the way. I feel like you guys are going to just take
care of yourself. That is really good.
Kaylee, thank you so much for joining us. And again, being here in the studio. It's nice to
have you in the studio. I always love talking to our wood kind of health department. Big shout out
to you guys and appreciate you guys so darn much. Let's talk about the housing summit and the
details of the event. Sure. Yeah. So the housing summit is March 7th, 2024. It'll be at mid-state
technical college in Wisconsin. Rapids tentatively. We're planning 9 a.m. to 3 30 p.m.
registration and networking will start at 8 30. So this is really about coming together
and trying to find solutions to the problem. We are hoping for all different sectors.
And like Kayla had spoke earlier of the many different people that are involved in the housing
task force. We are hoping for a similar mix of people to attend the summit. So if you're a
concerned citizen, if you are a renter, a homeowner, somebody who is a landlord, a property manager,
we're going to be having elected officials there, city and county staff, people from public
health, nonprofit organizations, really just a broad range of people. We all live in a house,
are hopefully living a house. So that's really what this is about is this problem affects everybody.
And so we're just hoping for people to attend this event and find solutions. So I can go over just
a little bit of what the event will look like. Sure. I will say right away, Kayla, I appreciate
you touching on that right away because I think when we see these things, especially in just
in print, and I see housing summit, oh, I don't know, no, home, that doesn't apply to them. No,
it applies to you. It applies to you. Trust us. It applies to you. So I think that's a nice note
to mention. Yeah. Yeah, it applies to everybody. Right. And when we say housing, I think it's important
to know that like, you know, you say a house, but really you're referencing an apartment,
a trailer home, wherever your dwelling is, wherever you reside, that's what we mean when we say
housing. So it definitely does not just apply to home owners. Yeah. Right. And it applies to people
who are homeless too. So this is just our way of bringing people together so we can talk, we can
learn about success stories in our state and and then find solutions. The more wide range of
different sectors of different people we have attending these things to the better data will have,
the better collection of information will have. So yeah, wide range is really vital to this.
It really is. And I will jump to the end of the agenda. We add like two, 15 to three, 15,
so towards the end of the day, we are actually going to be having a facilitated discussion where
we break people into groups and they will be asked to answer a set of questions on their own
and they'll write them down and then they will discuss them as a group. And the questions are really
about like their thought provoking. They're really trying to get people to talk about their ideas
on how we can, you know, get solutions. But then also when you start talking to people, then you're
like, oh, that's a really great idea. And then how about this? So it helps to create a shared vision
for our future. And we are hoping after that session that we will, because everything will be
recorded, we, you know, written down, I should say, not not actually recorded voice, but written
down. We're going to collect that information and then create a recommendations report. And our
housing task force will actually be working on some of those recommendations in the book then.
So it's really putting, you know, the paper to action. Yeah. And go ahead.
I was just going to say that oftentimes with these, I've never seen a bad agenda or a bad summit
or anything like that. But I love the idea of sharing information. Okay. And now what do we do?
How we fix this? Let's work together. Like actually trying to create solutions during the
during the actual discussion. Like that's a very cool idea. And I don't think we see enough of
that. I completely agree with you. Yeah. Yeah. Typically people attend conferences or, you know,
summits. And then it's like a one day get motivated. This is our problem. Here's some solutions.
But then it's like, okay, how do you actually put that into action? And so this, this last session
is really about bringing everything together. Not only that people have learned during that day,
but that you already know. And then and really putting that to action through the report and through
our housing task force. So it's we're really hopeful for a good turnout because like you said,
we want people from different sectors to be there. That'll help give us better data and information.
We go ahead. Okay. We also have a legislative panel that will be happening in the afternoon.
We do have confirmed Senator Testin and representative Krug. We are reaching out. Well,
we already have reached out to other local legislators waiting to hear back on anyone else
for confirmation. And that panel will be a question and answer style panel. And they'll also be
talking about what they are working on for housing issues with different bills and policies
at the state level. Previous to that, we will the first half of the morning is really just kind
of setting the stage. So in the morning, there will be a brief very brief session about the
just the context, you know, what is the housing issue in our county? We don't want to spend a
whole lot of time on it because we all know that housing is an issue. We need to find the solutions,
right? So there will be some information. We'll probably have a real to speak about what they're
seeing. And then we might have another individual from the county or city talk about some different
things that they're working on. And then after that, we'll have a lot of success stories. So
different communities in in Wisconsin that are working or have worked. I should say have worked
on the housing issues in their area and maybe things that we can replicate here. So we don't have
any anyone confirmed yet that I'm aware of. But we're reaching out to Shaboykin, Washington County,
Wassa, Merrill area. We also have talked with maybe some people for backup in case people aren't
able to make it. So yeah, so I think it's a good agenda. I'm excited. Very good agenda. I didn't
want to get in your way. I just want to let you keep going. It's a really smart and really put
together, really thought out agenda. I love that you can you can feel you can tell especially from
the passion of both of you. You're speaking about it that you really took your time with this.
Really wanted to how do we this isn't just to, you know, well, we're trying. No, this is to get
something done. This is to get some answers. This is like that's this is the kind of thing. Not only
that we as a community back and get behind. I think we as American people like are looking for.
We've been wanting more and more of these kind of things. It's not just enough to give people
information anymore. That worked for a while. Now, here's the information. Now, what are we going
to do with it? You know, instead of just like as you were retouching on there, Kaylee, the idea
of getting the information, then I go home and I think about it a little bit. Tomorrow comes
and a new set of problems hit me and I completely forgot about all that. This is if you get people
more engaged, you get people thinking getting their hearts involved, all of a sudden it stays with
them. And we really need this to stay with you because it's that big of an issue. So many people
are working so hard on this and so many people are from the ground up working on this subject.
We want to make sure that we're they're not alone on this that we're helping with this. And
when it comes to just a real quick last question for you to when it comes to the summit. Is there
a group or an organization that we are needing more data from that we're not having represented
here? Say we didn't have landlords showing up or something. You know, we need more landlords.
Is there anything like that we could use more of at this at this agenda at this meeting?
That's a great question. That is a great question. I would say yes and so certainly at the meeting
itself we want as many you know people who have a passion for wanting to to make changes with
housing to attend. But beyond that I would I would ask that anyone who is interested
both attend the summit but then also share your thoughts and your experiences in that survey
whether you're a government official sharing it with within that government survey, an employer,
maybe you have a perspective from hiring or from human resources sharing it within that
context and then certainly you know if you have a story related to your own journey of
of finding housing we want to hear that and I think the best place to do that certainly is
is at the summit itself but also to be able to to report that data to us in the survey would be
incredibly helpful. Yeah and to add to that I would say too that we are you know hoping for more
like landlords, people from construction developers, you know bankers, people who are really
going to be our main players in building the if we need to build or changing you know prices,
changing styles like different things like that we're really trying to look out of the box
and partner so how can we partner with them not only as a test force but as the city or the
county to find solutions. We need everybody to be a blue trend, we need all different types to
attend this and we're looking forward to seeing you at this great event. The Wood County Housing
Summit is coming up March 7, 932-330 over mid-state technical college you can sign up find out more
by just typing your search bar Wood County Housing Summit should pop up I tried it this morning
and it worked right away is the first thing that popped up for me so go ahead and type that in
there should be able to find it. Thank you both for your the time and everything you're putting
into it and putting up with me. Thank you. Thanks so much you too. Thank you. Well I'm more
midday magazine tomorrow for you right here at WFHR locally grown radio.
