RIVER FALLS — St. Croix Valley Habitat for Humanity’s modular home build site played host to Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez on June 11, as Rodriguez spoke on affordable housing at South Apollo Road in River Falls.

Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit organization that works to help families have a place to call home and make home improvements. The home coming to the site in River Falls will be a modular home built for a veteran. A modular home is a home built in a factory before being attached to the foundation. Two sections of the home were brought in on two trucks before work started to connect them together June 17.

St. Croix Valley Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Kristie Smith said building a modular home reduces costs, reduces construction waste and allows the project to be completed 40% faster.

“Safe and affordable housing changes lives, and this is the mission of Habitat for Humanity,” Smith said.

She said a common misconception about Habitat for Humanity is that they give away homes for free, when in reality the homeowner buys the house at “fair market value” and Habitat for Humanity works to make the mortgage affordable to the owner. 

“The challenge all of us face here in our communities in Pierce and St. Croix counties is the significant difference between median home sales price and area median income,” Smith said.

The median home sales price is $335,000 in Pierce County.

“We are able to build this home because cities and villages across our region are making sound investments in their communities to affordable housing,” Smith said. “The City of River Falls helped us rezone this former lot, which was an out lot, into a buildable residential spot.”

Rodriguez said her uncle is a farmer in St. Croix Falls, so she loves the area. Rodriguez worked on a Habitat for Humanity house in Waukesha at one point in time. 

Rodriguez called back on her time working as a nurse, discussing the “social determinants of health.” Social determinants of health are non-medical factors that have an impact on health.

“I can give you medicine, I can do all these procedures, it’s about the teeniest, tiniest percentage about how healthy you are,” Rodriguez said. “It’s about where you live, the air you breathe, the water you drink and whether you’ve got a good paying job to put a roof over your head and actually pay for those medications.”

A similar viewpoint was shared by Smith, who said people often cannot afford a home that will allow them to live a healthy life.

“People with lower incomes often have to choose between a healthy home and one that they can afford,” Smith said. “Substandard and deteriorating housing can contribute to a variety of ailments.”

Rodriguez said people from all over Wisconsin bring up the topic of housing, and in order to attract people into the state, Wisconsin needs more affordable housing.

“Whether it’s urban areas, whether it’s rural areas, whether it’s on tribal land, this is something that we need to make sure we’re focusing on,” Rodriguez said. “We have one of the lowest unemployment rates we’ve ever had since we started measuring it in the state of Wisconsin, most people working. Which means we’ve got to bring more people here, and if they don’t have an affordable place to live, it’s not going to be a place where we are able to attract people. We’re still going to have business owners that are going to struggle with being able to hire folks.”