

Think Differently About Housing
Success Stories & Leveraging your Community for Housing
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Seth Hudson - CEDAR Corporation
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What are the factors affecting the housing market these days? Housing shortage, a major shift in the market's composition, rising construction costs faster than inflation & incomes, outdated land use regulations and infrastructure. What are housing developers seeking? Ways to facilitate housing developments? What are communities doing? What challenges lie ahead?
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Mariah Goode – Door County
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Discussing the establishment, mission, and workings of the Door County Housing Partnership. The Housing Partnership – also called a “housing trust” – is a new nonprofit that will ensure the housing it acquires or builds will be affordable in perpetuity for workforce homebuyers in Door County.
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Wally Orzechowski – SWCAP
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SWCAP partnering with Cinnaire, a national, non-profit housing development organization has for the past five years worked on developing a 32 unit housing project (called the Meadows) for farm workers and their families in Darlington Wisconsin. The project has received financial support from USDA Rural Development, Low Income Housing Tax Credits from WHEDA, funds from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago and HOME funds from the Wisconsin Department of Administration. We are hoping to break ground sometime early this year.
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Seth Hudson
Cedar Corporation
Seth Hudson has worked in the field of Economic Development for the past 20 years at the local, regional, and state levels in both rural and urban settings. Seth Hudson works for Cedar Corporation; a Planning and Engineering firm that serves public and private clients throughout the State of Wisconsin. Seth works with clients in the areas of economic development strategies; Housing market studies, project financing: including TIF, state and federal financial programs; and advises on business attraction and expansion projects. Seth has a BA in Economics and Political Science from the University of Southern Maine and holds an Economic Development Finance Certification from the National Development Council.
604 Wilson Avenue
Menomonie, WI 54751
Phone: 715-235-9801
Cell: 503-884-4998

Mariah Goode
Door County Housing Trust
Mariah has been the Director of the Door County Land Use Services Department since 2006, and has worked in community, organizational, and land use planning in Door County since 1996. Mariah’s housing-related work includes overhauling zoning ordinance regulations pertaining to housing, serving on the Door County Economic Development Corporation Attainable Housing Committee, serving as a board member of the relatively newly (re)established Door County Housing Partnership, serving as staff to the Door County group working with WHEDA on its rural affordable workforce housing pilot, and working with the UniverCity program currently studying affordable housing in Door County.
Door County Land Use Services & Door County Housing Partnership
Phone: 920-495-6639

Wally Orzechowski
SWCAP
Wally has master’s degrees in health care planning and business administration. His background includes public health, hospice, affordable housing, housing market research and development and community development. For the past almost twenty years Wally has been the Executive Director of SWCAP a rural, Wisconsin anti-poverty agency and has focused on reducing health disparities, developing affordable housing, encouraging local food production, job creation, small business development and many other projects to eliminate or reduce the problems faced by the rural poor. In recent years Wally’s focus has been on developing housing for specific rural populations including farm worker housing, small scale housing in rural communities and housing for person recovering from opioid addiction.
Resources for Rural Housing
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Shreedhar Ranabhat – WHEDA - Rural Housing Tax Credit Updates
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The shortage of affordable housing in rural Wisconsin poses far-reaching challenges. Access to safe, affordable shelter is fundamental to the sustainability of our communities because housing provides a foundation for public health, economic well-being and environmental stewardship. Shreedhar will be discussing WHEDA’s resources available for rural housing projects, including the 2021-2022 QAP (Qualified Allocation Plan), focusing on rural scoring opportunities for Housing Tax Credit allocations.
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Steve Deller & Kristin Runge – UW Extension
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Ed White - Sauk County Economic Development Corporation
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Discussing lessons learned from Sauk County’s Housing study and implementation efforts. What I would do differently, and how to get better implementation in communities.
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Shreedhar Ranabhat
WHEDA
Shreedhar is the Commercial Lending Manager at the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (WHEDA). He brings over 25 years of experience in Multifamily Housing and Community Development. His expertise includes tax credit allocation, multifamily financing, portfolio administration and risk management.
In his current role at WHEDA, he manages the Commercial Lending department that deploys capital and resources to finance multifamily affordable housing and business development projects throughout the State of Wisconsin. The department is responsible for reviewing and allocating housing tax credits, as well as administering the financing cycle including application processing, underwriting, closing, construction and loan conversion. He rejoined WHEDA in 2018 and had previously been with the Authority from 2003-2014. During this time, he held a variety of positions in underwriting, as well as managing Authority’s entire multifamily portfolio.
Ranabhat holds a master’s degree in Urban and Regional planning from UW-Madison.
608-266-2781

Steve Deller
UW-Extension
Steven is a Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics and a Community Development Economist with the Division of Extension, UW-Madison. His applied research and Extension programs focus on the changing structure of the Wisconsin economy with an eye toward rural communities and policies that can affect changes in the local economy.
He is a Fellow of both the Midcontinent Regional Science Association as well as the Southern Regional Science Association and is currently President of the North American Regional Science Council. He has co-authored six books on community economic development, the last entitled Local Food Systems and Community Economic Development.

Kristin Runge, PhD
UW-Extension
Kristin is a community economic development researcher and outreach specialist with the Division of Extension at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Runge’s research focuses on the influence of media use on individual perceptions of the economy, and her outreach work focuses on community branding and marketing. When working on housing issues, Kristin focuses on leading communities through marketing-based housing studies that identify under-served segments of the local housing market with the goal of positioning communities to attract developers for both publicly financed projects as well as market-rate development. As a former trustee, plan commission member, and finance chair in her own community, Kristin has had the hands-on experience of implementing the results of housing studies she has led.
Kristin earned a BA in communication arts from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, a MS in marketing from Georgia State University and a PhD. in mass communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Phone:608-263-1432
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Ed White
Sauk County Economic Development Corporation
Ed serves as Executive Director of the Sauk County Development Corporation, a Public-Private Partnership based in Baraboo. Ed’s past experiences include Economic Development Program Manager for the Southwest Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission and Executive Director of the Platteville Business Incubator, Inc.
Ed is a certified Economic Development Finance Professional and Business Incubation Manager. He has more than 30 years of experience in building and financing community and economic development. Ed is a past President of the Wisconsin Economic Development Association, the Wisconsin Business Innovation Association and the former President of the Platteville City Council.
Featured on Wisconsin PBS Television