About the Quality of Life Initiative

For most of our state’s history, members of the Wisconsin REALTORS® Association have helped the people of Wisconsin find the places that each of us calls home – the places where we raise our children, celebrate anniversaries, and make so many of our important memories. For most of us, our house is the heart of a larger “home” that includes our neighborhoods and the communities in which we live. We understand and appreciate that what breathes life and hope and happiness into our “homes” is the quality of our neighborhoods, jobs, schools, parks, services, medical care, and transportation.

In the summer of 2002, the Wisconsin REALTORS® Association (WRA) launched an unprecedented, long-term initiative dedicated to protecting and enhancing the quality of life for the more than three million Wisconsin homeowners the WRA and its members represent. The WRA’s Wisconsin Quality of Life initiative emerged from the association’s growing realization that every issue ultimately affects Wisconsin homeowners in one way or another, that ultimately what is at stake is not simply a question of homeownership, but a much broader range of issues related to homeowners’ quality of life.
 

Driven by this simple but powerful realization, the WRA is transforming itself from an organization that serves Wisconsin homeowners by protecting their ability to buy and sell their property into an organization committed to the broader responsibilities inherent in preserving, promoting, and protecting Wisconsin’s quality of life, one home at a time.

The new, broader mission has changed what the association does and how it does it. Dedicated for decades to keeping a lid on the costs of homeownership, for example, the WRA has expanded its mission to ensure that homeowners have the jobs and incomes they need to afford the homes they want. Similarly, the organization’s traditional focus on zoning and development issues (so that neighborhoods and homes are protected) has expanded to include making sure that homeowners feel secure in those homes and neighborhoods, that they have access to green space, that they have great schools for their children, and that they can get to the shops and services they need.

At the heart of the WRA’s new Wisconsin Quality of Life initiative is an effort to inject
a new vitality and synergy into the relationship between current and future homeowners,
the communities in which they live, and the elected officials and policymakers who affect their lives and futures.

The Quality of Life initiative is rooted in the belief that the best way to understand what is happening with the quality of life in Wisconsin is to listen to the people who live there. Part of the WRA’s new reality is a much greater awareness of the fact that the ultimate decisions about Wisconsin’s future and how its people will lead it there are going to be made at millions of kitchen tables all across Wisconsin. Realtors understand that people know what works for them and what doesn’t. Citizens may not always know how something got broken, but they certainly feel when it is broken. The Quality of Life initiative provides an opportunity to talk with people, to ask them how things are going, and to involve them in an ongoing effort to determine whether the actions policymakers and elected officials are pursuing are enhancing or diminishing Wisconsin’s quality of life.

This element of the WRA Quality of Life initiative began in August 2002 with a statewide survey measuring how people felt about their quality of life. More than 800 Wisconsin residents were given an opportunity to express levels of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their homes; their neighborhoods; their communities; their schools; their jobs; their elected officials; their health care; their access to transportation, shopping, and recreational opportunities; the taxes they pay and the services they get for the money they pay; and their future and the future in general. The survey revealed that despite Wisconsin’s economic problems, significant majorities of Wisconsin residents are satisfied with their quality of life.

Conversely, the survey revealed concerns about the future and flagged some troubling issues. Nearly 40 percent of residents were worried about the lack of good-paying jobs in their communities and one out of three were concerned about job opportunities in their area for their children. More than 60 percent of homeowners expressed dissatisfaction with the level of property taxes they were paying, and one fifth of those planning to move within the next two years report that they intend to do so because they cannot afford the property taxes on their current home.

The Wisconsin Quality of Life survey will now become a regular feature of this initiative, interviewing residents every four months. Each survey will focus on a specific area and will also pursue some of the original questions so that changes in satisfaction can be measured over time.

Data from the Wisconsin REALTORS® Association’s Quality of Life surveys will be used to build and maintain a Quality of Life Index as an ongoing measure of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with various elements of life in Wisconsin. The Quality of Life Index will, in turn, energize community-based discussions about issues among homeowners and REALTORS®, community leaders, educators, the media, business leaders, and public officials.

Data from the Quality of Life survey and information gleaned from the conversations generated by the Quality of Life Index will serve as the basis for the development of an annual initiative called the Wisconsin Quality of Life Agenda.

The Wisconsin REALTORS^® Association believes that the Quality of Life Agenda will help citizens and elected officials understand which programs and policies are needed to protect the quality of life of Wisconsin's future and current home owners.