Michigan helps employers build housing in Detroit, Kalamazoo as fund runs dry

Michigan awards remaining $3.2 million from Employer-Assisted Housing Fund dollars to developers in Detroit, Kalamazoo
Kalamazoo project will build housing for Bronson Methodist Hospital workers. Detroit project involves multiple employers
While the fund was not approved for additional dollars in the most recent state budget, housing officials say demand is there for more funding

LANSING — Michigan is helping employers in Detroit and Kalamazoo build new housing for their workers under a program that state officials want to continue but lawmakers have not yet endorsed.

The projects approved last month by the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, totaling $3.2 million, will drain the remaining balance of what was a $10 million pot first unveiled by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in January 2025.

At the time, Whitmer noted the state had only added about one housing unit for every 14 jobs created between 2014 and 2023, contributing to a housing crisis state officials have more recently been working to address.

The new Kalamazoo project will create housing for employees of Bronson Methodist Hospital, one of the city’s largest employers, while the Detroit project is expected to turn vacant lots into homes for workers from multiple firms.

Related:

Lawmakers did not include additional money for the Employer-Assisted Housing Fund in the new state budget approved in October, but that may just be a “bump in the road” for the larger effort, State Housing Development Authority Executive Director Amy Hovey told Bridge Michigan.

As of January, state data indicates the assisted housing fund has helped create a total of 619 rental units or homes, 232 of which will specifically be for employer-assisted housing.

While the state has put forward $10 million of its own money, employers have exceeded that match rate, putting forward an estimated $11.7 million in either cash or land offerings.

Amy Hovey MSHDA — Amy Hovey, executive director of the Michigan State Housing Development Authority, said that while the Employer-Assisted Housing Fund wasn’t approved for more funding in the most recent state budget, it’s not the end of the line for a project aimed at increasing affordable housing in Michigan. (Courtesy of Capital Area Housing Partnership)

As part of the fund, employers throughout the state could apply for grant dollars which then had to be matched by either a cash or land donation of equal value.

From there, the state requires that the resulting housing remain “affordable” — generally based on local median income levels — for at least 10 years if it’s a rental property, and at least five years if it is for-sale housing.

The state previously approved roughly $5.4 million in spending from the fund in May 2025 for new housing in Traverse City, Flint, Petoskey, Grand Rapids, Wyoming and Royal Oak.

Additional funding for projects in Battle Creek and Newberry, totaling $1.4 million, were also announced in October.

The Whitmer administration supports the program, but it’s not yet clear if lawmakers will decide to continue funding it, Hovey said. “I don’t know what their appetite is, to be honest.”

The “demand is there, and the need is real,” Housing Development Authority spokesperson Katie Bach told Bridge in an email. “… Now the question is identifying the resources to scale it.”

Detroit Affordable Homes 1, LLC, Detroit

The state approved $1.21 million in matching funds on Dec. 18 for Detroit Affordable Homes 1, LLC, to build 12 for-sale employee housing units on vacant residential lots within the city.

Construction is expected to be completed in collaboration with corporate and community partners, which state housing development officials did not explicitly name.

Documentation from the December Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) Board meeting, however, notes that “multiple Detroit area employers will provide… matching contributions to support the developments.”

Units will be restricted to households with incomes at or below 120% of the area median income, which for a family of four in Wayne County is $121,200.

The project will also utilize the Colorado-based company Alquist for 3D concrete printing used in both the external and internal framing of houses. The group claims to have completed the first owner-occupied 3D printed home in the world — in partnership with Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg — in Virginia in December 2021.

Bogan Asset Management, LLC, Kalamazoo

Also approved during MSHDA’s December board meeting was Bogan Asset Management’s request for $2.5 million in funds to match a land donation on behalf of Bronson Methodist Hospital, one of Kalamazoo’s largest employers.

In partnership with the hospital, Bogan – a Michigan-based real estate development firm – will build a five-story building “blocks from downtown Kalamazoo and adjacent to the hospital,” per state documents, which includes affordable workforce housing plus a commercial space on the first floor.

The project is expected to include approximately 84 residential units, at least 20 of which will be earmarked as employer-assisted housing units.

Like with Detroit, those units will be restricted to at or under 120% of the area median income, which for a family of four in Kalamazoo is at most $2,874 in rent.

Previously approved builds in Battle Creek, Newberry

Prior to MSHDA allocating the Employer-Assisted Housing Fund’s remaining $3.2 million balance to the Detroit and Kalamazoo projects, the board signed off on a $1.4 million investment Oct. 16 for builds in Battle Creek and Newberry.

The Local Initiatives Support Corporation — working on behalf of the Battle Creek community, the city’s economic development corporation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation — was awarded $1 million in matching grant funding to create a Battle Creek-specific Housing Development Fund.

The fund would “invest in attainable housing development projects with local and emerging developers,” according to state housing officials, with a focus “on making predevelopment and lending investments with” for-profit and nonprofit developers within the city.

The project is expected to yield 40 total units, all of which will be priced at or under 120% area median income. For a family of four in Calhoun County, that’s $98,280.

Hovey, the state’s Housing Development Authority executive director, told Bridge the Battle Creek build is “a little bit different” than anything doled out as part of the fund so far but said to expect more information in February.

“Rather than doing a single project for a single business, their approach is ‘we’re going to get all of our businesses to pool the money,’” Hovey said, adding that the state authority would then “match those businesses that are putting money into housing, and then they, as a group, will deploy it into housing projects.”

Also approved at that same meeting: $400,000 from the state housing authority to match a $466,500 donation of both cash and land by Pine Stump Property Holdings, LLC, in Newberry.

While the money will only yield four new rental units, all units will be reserved for the current and future employees of the full-service bar and restaurant Pine Stump Junction, as well as employees of Pine Stump Property Holdings, LLC.

All four units will target household incomes of at or below 120% area median income, which for a family of four in Luce County is at most $2,457 in rent.