The League of Women Voters of McLean County to discuss affordable housing

Image courtesy of the League of Women Voters official website

NORMAL, Ill. – The League of Women Voters of Mclean County is hosting a panel to discuss the affordable housing crisis in the area on Jan. 28. League of Women Voters of Mclean County President Laurie Wollrab explained why they’re holding an event like this. 

“We just have people that can’t afford a home. Rents are going up: part of that is inflation and part of it is interest rates and so forth,” Wollrab said. “Anyway, there hasn’t been a lot of lower cost housing built in town in many years, so it’s sort of a perfect storm of things coming together to create the lack of affordable housing on the market available to people.”

While the specific topics of the presentation are yet to be ironed out, the main ideas for the speakers consist of the problem itself and possible solutions. The affordable housing issue in the Bloomington-Normal area predates covid and has been growing due to reasons like housing costs increasing.

“There’s been a lot in the news about affordable housing or the lack thereof and it will focus on those issues surrounding that,” Wollrab said.

Solutions discussed at the panel will consist of both private and public action, so community members are encouraged to attend to learn what they can about the topic.

“Anybody in this community is invited and we hope would attend because this really affects the entire community and communities all over,” Wollrab said. 

The event will take place at 6:30 p.m. at the Bloomington Public Library.