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HOUGHTON -- During her visit to Houghton Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, met with regional leaders at the MTEC SmartZone as part of a weeklong listening tour across the Upper Peninsula.
“I'm literally asking, 'What do we need to be doing better?'” Slotkin told the Daily Mining Gazette. “How do we get more federal grants and contracts into places like Houghton and the U.P. in general? What are we doing about rural housing? We hear about housing everywhere we go.”
The Senator highlighted the western Upper Peninsula’s recent success in securing high-level federal investments, noting that the region’s academic and industrial collaboration is outpacing expectations.
“Houghton in particular right now is just killing it on the defense contracts and the Department of Energy contracts and all the stuff that is happening around Michigan Tech and the businesses,” Slotkin said. “We love good-paying jobs in our rural communities that inspire young people to stay in Michigan and to move to Michigan.”
Slotkin's comments match recent, rapid expansion in local industrial growth. Since achieving a prestigious R1 top-tier research designation, Michigan Technological University has channeled millions of dollars in defense and energy research into the local economy and into Houghton County companies.
Earlier this year, the state celebrated major local defense expansions--including Franklin Township's Great Lakes Sound & Vibration (GLSV) expanding its facility to support military contracts, and Calumet-based Loukus Technologies scaling manufacturing for the national energy sector.
Furthermore, the MTEC SmartZone itself was recently awarded an $850,000 state grant designed to establish Houghton as a primary entrepreneurial anchor for small business incubation across the region. The Houghton Business and Creative Incubator is scheduled to open in 2028. The incubator's target audience includes entrepreneurs, artists, makers, small retail, creative operations, and low-tech or no-tech businesses.
While local communities look for ways to increase population as well as to expand and diversify their economies, they come with challenges. Local leaders reminded the senator that rapid commercial success brings its own structural constraints. The influx of technically trained people has sharply exacerbated the rural housing shortage, a crisis Slotkin acknowledged is the primary hurdle to long-term population retention.
Data from the Western Upper Peninsula Planning and Development Region (WUPPDR) underlines the severity of the local strain. According to WUPPDR county metrics, Houghton County’s housing stock faces critical age and availability deficits, with 37.6% of existing residential structures built in 1939 or earlier. Regional housing forecasts indicate Houghton County requires an immediate injection of 362 new housing units over the next five years to sustain current workforce growth.
To address the gap, WUPPDR recently partnered with economic groups like InvestUP to conduct a comprehensive regional rental market survey to better align future state and federal development dollars with actual local demands. The survey closed on Aug. 31. The analysis is only now being compiled.
“So just letting people talk and telling their senator exactly what they need to be working on, what they need me to be working on back in Washington,” Slotkin said. “The whole rest of the country is trying to find an affordable, beautiful place to live.”