Rising to Meet the Housing Crisis in Appalachia: A DreamBuild initiative takes shape A Continuing Series
Tom Manning-Beavin, President & CEO of Frontier Kentucky, is piloting a new way to build homes that holds much promise for people recovering from the historic 2022 floods in Eastern Kentucky and their neighbors in economically distressed counties.
Frontier Housing in Morehead, Kentucky is one of four housing organizations across the country launching local DreamBuild projects. Using the design and logistics expertise developed by two Texas-based nonprofits, cdcb and bc workshop, Frontier is putting the finishing touches on its first prototype home with funding from the James Graham Brown Foundation. Along with the opportunity to exponentially scale up home production capacity, DreamBuild has the potential to shift the affordable housing landscape in the 22-county region that Frontier serves and beyond.
With funding from the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge by Wells Fargo, cdcb & bc workshop had the resources to translate what was originally a model for disaster housing into a plan for affordable homes. The building blocks of this simple, elegant, high-quality modular solution are a selection of five boxes, each measuring 12 x 24 feet. A wet block, with kitchen, bathroom, and laundry, is the foundation of each home, to which clients can add additional space as needed. Within that framework, home buyers have choices in finishes, lighting and plumbing fixtures, flooring, and more. A one-bedroom unit made of two boxes measures a compact and affordable 576 square feet.
Fifty-year-old Frontier Housing, recently completed its 850th home. The organization is seeking ways to scale up the number of houses they can build in anticipation of receiving disaster recovery funds later this year. Appalachia has had an affordable housing shortage for decades, and the destructive 2022 Eastern Kentucky floods exacerbated the problem in many of the counties Frontier serves. Manning-Beavin noted that recovery experts estimate that impacted communities need at least 1500 units in the next couple of years to maintain current population levels; currently, most Fahe Members have an annual 40 home capacity.
cdcb’s DreamBuild project, based in the lower Rio Grande Valley, has two and a half years under its belt and has proven the ability to significantly reduce the construction timeline. The conventional process takes five to seven months; DreamBuild’s modular homes go from order to completion in 45 days. With the efficiencies of modular construction, the Texas group aims to reduce the cost per home by 20%. It is this cost savings that has the potential to eliminate a major structural challenge in Eastern Kentucky: the appraisal gap. Affordable home builders in the region rely on subsidies for every home because the construction cost is up to $40,000 more than the appraisal value. This limits who can purchase a home; a large swath of middle-income earners make too much for a subsidy but not enough to afford a home. Because of this conundrum, for-profit builders are not constructing modest homes in the region.
“DreamBuild has the potential to completely change the dynamics of housing development for these economically distressed communities,” says Manning-Beavin.
These homes are modular, but not manufactured. All are built to meet the requirements of Kentucky residential building codes, allowing homeowners to access conventional financing options like mortgages for their purchase. The DreamBuild model also creates local capacity. Each partner location has its own manufacturing facility. Frontier’s is currently in Morehead, but the next step is to rent a larger space in a flood impacted community in the coal fields, where local people will build quality homes for local recovery.
Manning-Beavin has worked on housing solutions across the country in various capacities for more than three decades and is thrilled to see Frontier’s prototype home moving towards completion. “Many people in the affordable housing world have thought about how to do work more efficiently for a long time,” he said. “By using quality standards that are responsive to the community while achieving efficiencies, DreamBuild is accomplishing what a lot of us have been dreaming about for years.”