Legislature focused on relief for homeowners, but what about renters

SHERIDAN — Lawmakers spent weeks during the 2024 Budget Session filtering through over a dozen property tax relief bills that would apply to homeowners, but only one bill would have offered rental relief.

That bill, House Bill 146 — “Property tax relief program-rental property applicants —” failed to receive the two-thirds vote it needed to be introduced during the budget session on Feb. 13.

“The rental voice overall is a bit overlooked, I think, in the housing conversation,” Christopher Volzke, deputy executive director of the Wyoming Community Development Authority, told The Sheridan Press.

Even when Wyomingites think of the WCDA, most people think of its first-time homebuyer program, not renter assistance.

“I run into people on a regular basis that have no idea we have an entire division of our authority using federal dollars to build long term, affordable rentals,” Volzke said.

Renters in Sheridan over the last decade

Based on data from the latest available American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, homeownership decreased between 2010 and 2021 in Sheridan County. The median income for a property owner in Sheridan County was $81,500, but the median renter in Sheridan County made $35,600 a year, according to the same report.

“There is a big disparity there,” Volzke said, noting property owners in Sheridan County saw an increase of 41% in their median income from 2010-2021. Renters in the same period of time saw an increase of only 13%. The county’s homeowner population dipped by one percentage point from 70% to 69%, meaning over 30% of residents in Sheridan County rent their home.

“That is a big part of the base population, and they have a voice in this too,” Volzke said.

Statewide, 38% of renters are “cost burdened.”

Cost burdened is a term used nationwide by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that means a person spends over 30% of his/her gross income on housing, whether that person is a homeowner or renter. In Sheridan County, 42% of the population is cost-burdened.

“The real-world impact, when you’re saying cost-burdened, is that you’re really saying renters spend almost half their take-home pay on just their rent,” Volzke said. “You have income that has only increased on your renter base by 13%, and then we are confused why they are cost--burdened … At the same time, your rental costs went up 30%.”

“Inventory, inventory, inventory”

Rep. Dan Zwonitzer, R-Cheyenne, who was a co-sponsor on HB 146, said rental assistance must be structured in a completely different way than property tax relief. He said the topic did not get much attention during the session.

“There is not a lot of relief for people who rent, which is a concern,” Zwonitzer said.

This fall, voters may see a ballot initiative proposing a constitutional amendment to divide property tax categories, which could have an impact on commercial, residential and other structures, he said, but lawmakers must wait for voters on that issue. The Revenue Committee may take up additional discussion of a sales tax increase and property tax decrease, but Zwonitzer said that could further exacerbate rental issues.

“Your renting population would pay a little more in sales tax, and not get the benefits of the property tax deduction,” he said.

The goal, he said, is to get renters into first-time homes.

“We don’t want to be too involved in the private market, but if there is a way to incentivize people to buy homes, that is ultimately good for Wyoming, to be a Wyoming resident with roots and stability,” Zwonitzer  said. “We just don’t have the number of houses. That is half the problem.”

When it comes to closing the gap between rental income and housing cost inconsistencies, Volzke said much of the issue is supply and demand.

“I think it comes down to inventory, inventory, inventory. We, over the last decade or so, haven't built enough inventory with changing demographics and changing population,” he said.

People think of housing in a vacuum, but it does not exist that way, he said.

“Housing impacts our economic viability. So, think about the jobs and employment that is coming into your community. Do you have housing for those people? If you don’t, that puts more pressure on the community,” Volske said.

The WCDA receives no state funding and is an agency authorized to issue bonds for first time home-buying programs. Because there is no state-specific income to address attainable housing for fixed income or low-to-moderate Wyomingites, the WCDA relies on federal programs like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit; HUD’s HOME Investment Partnerships Program; and the National Housing Trust Fund, which focuses on the building, rehabilitating, preserving and operating rental housing for extremely low-income people.

“Those are the three primary conduits we use to assist in the rehabilitation of housing for those that need it the most,” Volske said. “But the federal dollars that I get are expended every year, and they are a finite amount we get through a federal calculation.”

Wyoming communities have not been able to build rental facilities at a pace that keeps up with demand, and Volzke said there must be a way to incentivize inventory beyond the federal dollars.

“There’s nothing we have statewide, so you’re relying on people to take market risk, go build more housing even if it is rentals, and there is no subsidy, no incentive, nothing for them to go out and do that,” he said.

Some claim  owners who receive benefits from the newly-created property tax breaks may pass that savings on to renters.

“There is an argument that maybe the people that own rentals are then passing that down, and the rent may be cheaper because they have less of a burden on them for property tax,” Volzke said. “I get that, but it is hard to quantify how much that helps.”

Corrine Livers, with the Department of Family Services, helped to administer the COVID-era Emergency Rental Assistance Program, which has run its course and closed last summer.

“We are back to where we were pre-COVID, so if people have rental needs, they have to go to their local resources, your community action programs,” Livers said. “There is not anything statewide like ERAP was, where we get federal funding that supports only renting.”

While DFS may not be able to help with rent, Livers said there are other programs to alleviate disposable income issues like the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program; a cash assistance program designed to help families with children become self-sufficient through intensive case management services called POWER; and the Wyoming Low Income Energy Assistance Program, which has closed for this year.

Those programs are based on federal poverty level income guidelines.

“They’re something to help families when they need it,” Livers said. “I think that we all should support that, to help people be safe and stay in their homes.”

This story was published on March 16, 2024.