REO Lansing Groundbreaking
https://www.michigan.gov/missingmiddle
[TRANSCRIPT] Today we are at REO Gateway. This is the entrance to REO Town, one of Lansing's great neighborhoods, and it's at the edge of the central business district. This project ties the two neighborhoods together, and we're really excited through our Urban Systems collaboration to have 72 units on the ground and breaking ground on the new 24 units that are part of the Missing Middle program with MSHDA today.
Having a fourth building was originally part of our plan, but we didn't have the budget to bring it to fruition. So we were excited. Thanks to the help from MSHDA and the opportunity with the grant, we were able to secure the rest of the funding to get another building on the ground here.
As part of our Growing Michigan Together Council efforts to come up with policy solutions that can help us grow our state, we identified housing as one of the, areas of focus in order for us to really lean into growth long term. And the Missing Middle needs were identified as one of those key areas where we require additional investment, frankly, in order to really grow Michigan.
The State of Michigan appropriated $110 million to create what we call the Missing Middle program. And the Missing Middle program is a very flexible housing program that was created to help families between 60 and 120% of AMI be able to find housing they can afford. So it can be used for rental, it can be used for homeownership, rehab, new construction, you name it, a pretty flexible way to help incentivize the development of housing that families 120% and below can afford.
We know people want to move here. We've seen great demand. We know we have a housing shortage. We know that we want housing for all incomes. We want to have the market rate housing that some people want to want to have the affordable housing, we want to have the workforce housing, the attainable housing. So when you look at a project like this where, you know, three of the buildings are already up and now you're going to have one that's Missing Middle funded, this is hugely important because it provides the places that people want to be, and it's got the amenities because you can get downtown and to REO Town. Its a perfect location, right off the highway and this is where people want to be is to have the housing and now we do.