YPSILANTI, Mich.—With an affordable housing crisis looming over the country, a California-based developer seems eager to exploit the situation in the Michigan city of Ypsilanti and gain generous tax breaks in the process. Lincoln Avenue Capital claims to be building “affordable housing” in Ypsilanti, but affordability advocates say the company is actually forcing out longtime residents in order to maximize profits.
The developments in question, known as Residences at Huron (a senior housing development) and Huron Vista (an affordable housing development) broke ground in May 2023—the same year Washtenaw County reported a 50% increase of its unhoused population.
LAC promised Huron Vista would help close the gap in affordable housing in Ypsi and pursued 30-year tax breaks from the city on those grounds. But when the development opened in 2024, residents realized that the promised housing was not so affordable after all.
What is affordable housing, anyway?
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) states that a person’s rent or mortgage is affordable when it totals less than 30% of their household’s monthly income. That means, in an ideal world, a government would ensure housing is provided at prices that allow people at all income levels to pay less than a third of their income for housing. However, the present-day picture is a lot more complicated.
HUD makes the calculations about what counts as “affordable” based on an area’s median income (AMI for short). HUD uses this AMI to set price limits for affordable housing projects.
Here’s the issue: HUD doesn’t calculate AMI from town to town. It draws from large regions that often have huge ranges in income. For Ypsilanti, AMI is determined by incomes across the entirety of Washtenaw County. Much wealthier towns like Ann Arbor, Dexter, and Saline are added to the equation, and the results are shocking:
An average Ypsi resident would need their rent to cost $807 per month at most, but one-bedroom units at the Huron Vista start at $1,323, which would only be affordable to someone who is making 164% of the town’s average income. That means that the vast majority of Ypsilanti residents could not afford the Vista’s cheapest available unit.
Two- and three-bedroom units go for $1,588 and $1,837, respectively, which restricts new rentals to individuals making 197% and 228% of Ypsi’s average income. This puts nearly all of Huron Vista’s units outside of the realm of affordability for all but a very small number of Ypsilanti locals, readily opening the door to gentrification from wealthier communities.
Community benefits – At what cost?
The Residences at Huron and Huron Vista were the subject of Ypsilanti’s first Community Benefits Ordinance (CBO) process, a process which allows community members to make direct requests of developers who want to receive benefits from the city, such as the ability to build on public land or tax breaks to incentivize development.
According to Tegwyn John, a community member appointed to this committee, the benefits that the developers were willing to grant in exchange for their tax breaks were minimal.
“The ultimate tax breaks were agreed to after the CBO process concluded, so I wasn’t privy to them,” said John. “Of course, we were told during this process that we NEEDED to make the deal with them, otherwise they wouldn’t build the housing.” According to John, the city agreed to give up $164,000 per year in tax revenue to the developer in exchange for these benefits.
So, what “benefits” did the community receive in exchange?
“We were able to push them to increase the proportion of 30% AMI units in the affordability mix, but they couldn’t lower that threshold for means testing,” said John. Meaning that while the committee was able to ask for a greater number of the most affordable units offered by Residences at Huron, they could not get them to change the bogus numbers they used to define their inflated rents as affordable.
“The committee was able to ask for more ‘soft power’ kinds of things, like space within the community center built out to serve as a food pantry, management support for residents organizing to advocate for their needs, and more.”
However, John added, the resident feedback received since then suggests the company’s efforts have been less than lackluster. In a final statement, John didn’t pull any punches: “LAC has not delivered the kinds of pro-social property management they promised to the city in exchange for tax-payer support for this project.”
The other side of the tracks
Across from the new development, residents of the now condemned Arbor One West were promised by Arbor One management that they would get housing within the new structure and financial help to secure it.
Miss Mcguire, a long-term resident of Ypsilanti and Arbor One West, spoke to People’s World:
“These dang’on places aren’t affordable at all, they lied when they told the city people that this was going to be affordable. When this place popped up and started building, we were told by them and our place [management] that we could move into the ‘affordable’ housing.”
Mcguire then went on to describe the horrific conditions to which residents were subjected:
“This place [Arbor One West] is being condemned, and they refuse to fix anything or make it right. Water is leaking through our walls and from the ceiling, we’re on the second floor.”
To further illustrate conditions, Mcguire pointed out a specific building on the Arbor One property. “Pipes are being taken out of the walls,” she said. “Squatters have been occupying the buildings, and we still have to pay.”
“We’ve been paying the courts; our rent money to go to escrow. Until they make it right, that’s all we can do.”
As of February 2025, Beal Properties (owned by Stewart Beal) has taken over management of the complex, with a budget of several million dollars to address violations and “make the apartments livable again,” says Beal. He also claims rent will not increase in 2025, although he “can’t predict” that will happen again in 2026.
Many residents of Ypsilanti already have strong criticisms of Beal Properties—including not fixing problems with heating in the winter, refusing to address mold and pest problems, and imposing fines on tenants to pay for repairs to problems that existed before those tenants even occupied the building.
LAC spreads to neighboring Ann Arbor
Unfortunately, this is not the last time Lincoln Avenue Capital (also known as Lincoln Avenue Communities) will be setting up “affordable” housing in Washtenaw County. On 350 South Fifth Avenue, in Ann Arbor, two towers are set to replace the housing formerly offered by the YMCA.
According to the City of Ann Arbor’s official “Development Summary,” LAC is slated to build “a 17-story West tower with 95 units to accommodate the affordable phase” and “an 18-story East Tower with 194 units to accommodate the Mixed-Income phase” within the near future. The project name within documentation is simply known as “Lakestone.” In this new development, LAC is only required to fill 40% of the “affordable” housing with those in low-income brackets.
With lukewarm affordable housing projects, homelessness on the rise, and the median income dropping, it seems affordability within Ypsilanti and the greater Washtenaw area is steadily becoming unattainable.
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