A new report highlighting four Northern Michigan counties shows business and local government leaders are concerned about a lack of attainable workforce housing in the region
The Northern Lakes Economic Alliance is a nonprofit economic development organization covering Antrim, Charlevoix, Emmet, and Cheboygan counties. Bi-yearly, they release their Economic Pulse Report, where they survey business leaders and local government officials across the four counties.
In their Fall 2026 report, 79% of business leaders said one of their biggest barriers to growing their business is lack of attainable housing. Seventy-nine percent also said staffing was a barrier. In the spring, only 56% of respondents chose attainable housing.
Sam Bailey is the strategic initiatives manager with the NLEA.
"At a large scale, we have a number of businesses in our area who want to grow, want to expand, but staffing is their barrier," said Bailey. "And one of the biggest barriers to staffing is housing."
Housing North's 2023 Housing Needs Assessment found that Northwest Michigan needs over 22,000 more for-sale housing units and nearly 9,000 rental units to fill the gap in demand. In the four-county area the NLEA covers, Bailey says about 8,000 units, both rental and for-sale, are missing.
Bailey also noted that higher fuel prices may disincentivize people from commuting to jobs in the counties, as they would want to work somewhere closer to home.
Sixty-one percent of local government bodies said workforce housing is a desired type of development that they would like to have in their communities. This is 11% higher than NLEA’s spring report.
Bailey says that the Northern Michigan region does not fit the traditional way of addressing housing supply due to its reliance on tourism to help drive the economy.
"The challenging thing is if you put a second-floor unit in downtown Petoskey, there is an incentive to turn that into a condo and you can make more money on that than renting that to workforce housing," said Bailey.
The region’s demographics also play a role in lack of attainable housing.
"Demographic shifts in the region make it difficult for housing to turn over," said Bailey, "As people who are here are staying in their unit and the people that are moving in are typically folks who are retired, have a higher net worth and are able to purchase homes more easily than a young working professional who's already here."
Bailey says some local governments are addressing the need by altering zoning and implementing housing tax increment financing (HTIF). The Michigan State Housing Development Authority recently allow HTIFs in 2023 with the amendment of the 1996 Brownfield Act.
Bellaire Lofts in Antrim County was one of the first housing projects in Michigan to use an HTIF project in 2024. The Boyne City Housing Commission in Charlevoix County is also looking to use HTIF for a housing development, though they recently suspended their request for funding, citing increasing construction costs, increasing interest rates, and reduction of tax credit pricing. They, however, plan to resubmit the project to MSHDA in the future.
"Developers are going to be increasingly looking to local units of government to partner with them using housing TIF, and tools like that, to support housing development in their community," said Bailey.
