Support the Michigan Housing Readiness Package

Michigan is in the middle of a housing crisis. Today, our state is short approximately 119,000 homes needed to meet current demand.
The effects are being felt across our communities.

Young families are struggling to buy their first home. Seniors who want to downsize cannot find smaller homes in the neighborhoods they love. Working and middle-class Michiganders are spending more and more of their income on rent or a mortgage, leaving less for groceries, childcare, and saving for the future.

Without more housing options, people cannot buy their first home, grow their family, or move into a home that better fits their needs later in life. When people cannot find a safe and affordable place to live, our communities and our state cannot grow.

Many of the housing rules we rely on today were written decades ago and no longer reflect how our communities actually grew. In fact, many of the walkable, unique neighborhoods Michiganders love — the kinds of places built 50 or 100 years ago with a mix of homes and small lots — would be difficult or even illegal to build under today’s zoning rules.

Instead, these outdated policies have often pushed development outward into farmland and rural areas, leading to more sprawl and fewer housing options in the communities where people want to live.

The Michigan Housing Readiness Package helps reverse this trend by updating outdated rules and making it easier to build housing. It creates more options while preserving the character that makes Michigan’s neighborhoods special.
That is why a bipartisan group of state legislators, led by Representative Kristian Grant (D-Grand Rapids) and Representative Joseph Aragona (R-Clinton Township), introduced the Michigan Housing Readiness Package.

These bills work together to make it easier to build more housing options in our existing communities while respecting the character of the places people love.

The package focuses on common-sense reforms that help reduce unnecessary barriers to building homes, make the development process more predictable, and allow communities to grow responsibly.

These changes will help create more opportunities for:

• First-time homebuyers
• Seniors looking to downsize
• Young families
• Working Michiganders who want to stay in their communities

Importantly, this package does not eliminate local decision-making. Communities will continue to plan for growth and review development proposals. These bills simply update outdated rules so more housing options can be considered and built where they are needed most.
Michigan cannot solve its housing shortage without modernizing the systems that shape how homes are built.

If we want our children, our workers, and our seniors to stay in Michigan communities they love, we must make it easier to build homes people can afford.

Sign this petition to show your support for the Michigan Housing Readiness Package and for more housing opportunities across our state.
To learn more about the individual bills in the package, read more here. 

If you want to get involved in supporting this package, simply head to the Abundant Housing Michigan website at abundanthousingmi.org.