Wyoming communities could learn Thursday whether they will receive state funding for housing projects after a heated debate among the state’s top elected officials over tying citizenship requirements to the money paused the decision earlier this month.
The Wyoming Legislature created the “Unmet Housing Grant Funding” program in 2023 by earmarking $5 million from the state’s general fund to the Office of State Lands and Investments. That office received 22 applications, totaling over $53 million in funding requests.
The Wyoming State Loan and Investment Board is authorized to grant the money to cities, towns, counties and tribal governments to pay for infrastructure to support “unmet housing needs.” The nearly two dozen requests range from a water, sewer and infrastructure project in Sundance to an infrastructure and housing project in Meeteetse to a road extension in Kemmerer.
Out of those many requests, the board had proposed funding a total of 11 projects across the state:
- $400,000 in Lander.
- $400,000 in Upton and Newcastle.
- $450,000 in Alpine.
- $400,000 in Ranchester.
- $250,000 in Cheyenne.
- $500,000 in Rawlins.
- $500,000 in Buffalo.
- $500,000 in Ten Sleep.
- $250,000 in Washakie County.
- $350,000 for the Eastern Shoshone Housing Authority.
- $1,000,000 in Kemmerer.
When the board met April 2, Cheyenne had two affordable housing projects on the agenda. First, the panel discussed Cheyenne’s application for a separate grant to help buy land to increase a 184-unit housing project to 444 units.
Then the board hit a road block.
Secretary of State Chuck Gray made a motion to require citizenship verification for people living in the housing once it’s built. Gray suggested officials would use the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) Program database, and report findings to the board periodically.
“This is a priority of the (Trump) administration, is ensuring that these benefits are only afforded to United States citizens,” Gray said at the meeting.
However, State Treasurer Curt Meier was the first to bring up concerns regarding how Gray’s amendment could be enforced, including how it would apply to individuals in the United States on a work visa. Gray’s fellow board members, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder, State Auditor Kristi Racines, Gov. Mark Gordon and Meier all had questions about the administrative and cost burden of the motion and how it would mesh with state and federal law.
Ultimately, the board voted against Cheyenne’s first request for funding to help build housing.
The same debate then resurfaced later in the meeting, when the board took up the unmet housing needs requests and Gray made the same motion.
“There’s a national organization that actually does that,” Meier said at the meeting. “That’s ICE. They’re the people that are supposed to actually get out there and find the aliens among us and make sure that they’re taken care of. … Why are we doing ICE’s job here?”
After board members continued to debate the issue, Gordon tried to put it to bed. But Gray wanted to address “inaccurate things that were said” during the debate. As members briefly tried to talk over one another, meeting decorum faltered.
“Hold on. Hold on. Stop,” Gordon said to Gray. “Shut up.”
At the start of a State Building Commission meeting, which also includes the state’s top five elected officials, the governor apologized to Gray for the way he handled the situation. Gray accepted the governor’s apology.
Among the 22 applications that the State Loan and Investment Board will consider Thursday, the town of Jackson is asking for funding for its S4 Flats affordable housing project.
Jackson Mayor Arne Jorgensen told the Jackson Hole News&Guide that he didn’t expect to get the money because the town has already received state funding for another project. But he was disappointed the board was “distracted by a side issue,” the citizenship question, he said.
“An issue that, while it may be very important to some, does not address the structural housing needs around the state,” Jorgensen said.
While state leaders shot down Cheyenne’s first grant application, the city still has another application among the requests to be considered Thursday. Magic Meadows, a joint venture between Habitat for Humanity and Magic City Enterprises, would be 12 units, with six units for Habitat’s low area-median-income participants transitioning into homeownership, and six for developmentally disabled individuals in the Magic City Enterprises program. The State Loan and Investment Board is considering spending $250,000 on the project, with funds earmarked for homes for individuals with developmental disabilities.
