TRAVERSE CITY -- The challenge to find an affordable place to live in the city hits close to home for Jackie Gokey, who's been looking for the past 18 months.
"It's hard because it's almost like a Catch-22. How do you get affordable housing if you don't know where to go or who to talk to?" she said.
Gokey, a single working mother, is living with family in Beulah. She finds it difficult to save enough money for a decent place while still paying rent, bills and high gas prices to get to work just outside Traverse City. She recently applied for government housing assistance, but was put on a waiting list that numbers 150 hopefuls.
That list is just one indicator, along with more home foreclosures, that the growing difference between housing prices and wages is increasingly weighing on the city's workforce.
City officials hope to alleviate that burden with recommendations recently put forth by the Traverse City Workforce Affordable Housing Ad Hoc Committee.
A handful of representatives from the city, housing and planning commissions serve on the committee, which released its report last month.
Housing must cost no more than 30 percent of the household's gross income to be considered affordable, according to the report.
There's a local shortage of about 830 affordable ownership residential units, according to a recent study by Fregonese Associates. The study concluded that 1,236 units are needed at a price below $109,000, but only 405 currently are available. More low-income rentals also are needed.
Shortages are hitting cities all over the country, but Grand Traverse and Leelanau counties have it worse than some of their neighbors, said Sarah Lucas, regional planner with the Northwest Michigan Council of Governments.
"A lot of it is simply market forces," she said. "There's a high demand for property in this area."
The limited supply of land and higher city taxes deter some developers from building affordable units in town, causing more people to seek lower prices outside the city.
The committee hopes to encourage more affordable developments with zoning and infrastructure incentives, streamlined project review and neighborhood enterprise zones.
"A lot of it is for the developers, to make it easier or helpful to them to make more affordable housing," said city Commissioner Jim Carruthers, who serves on the workforce housing committee.
For example, inclusionary zoning would allow more flexible zoning requirements for projects that either include lower-cost units or opt to pay a fee that would go toward a housing trust fund.
Officials also want to raise awareness of housing assistance services to break the negative public perception of workforce housing and those who live in it.
Much of that attitude stems from older types of affordable units that sometimes create an image of inner-city slums, Lucas said.
"Things have changed quite a bit since those days," she said. "A lot of times people don't even realize they live next to affordable housing. It blends into the community very well."
She added that rising housing costs are affecting more of the city's workforce, so many people who reside in these places are employed in entry-level to moderate-wage positions.
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