In response to the housing shortage and affordability crisis in Madison and across the country, UW-Madison’s Wisconsin School of Business has added a graduate program slated to focus on housing affordability and sustainability.
The program defines housing affordability with the threshold set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development — that no household should spend more than 30% of its income on living expenses, said Mark Eppli, director of UW-Madison’s Graaskamp Center for Real Estate.
The program defines sustainable development as the pursuit of homebuilding in areas that make sense environmentally and with products that have minimal impact on the climate, he said.
“There’s a need for talent” in the realms of affordable housing and sustainable development, Eppli said, especially “at the policy-making level.”
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“We just don’t have enough housing,” he said.
A prototype of the program in UW-Madison’s Department of Real Estate and Urban Land Economics will have a soft launch this fall and officially debut next year.
The two-semester program for graduate students will offer 12 credits with classes focused on housing equity, housing justice, the complexities of affordable housing finance and green development, said UW-Madison affordable housing professor Christopher Timmins.
The program will eventually include an internship requirement, which would be optional at first, Timmins said.
Eppli said that the Department of Real Estate and Urban Land Economics is in the process of making connections with local housing nonprofits and agencies for prospective internship programs.
Undergraduates may also be allowed to take classes in the program “as space permits.”
“I would assume it is going to take some time for its reputation to build up,” Timmins said when asked about how popular he thinks the program could be. “There is demand within the undergrad community for more classes in this area.”
Eppli said the program reflects the Wisconsin Idea “that education should influence people’s lives beyond the boundaries of the classroom.”
A prototype of the program will have a soft launch this fall.