Research

It is the goal of NeighborWorks America to make every place a community of opportunity. Unfortunately, some areas are being left behind more than others as our global and national economies continue to shift. Rural communities are among them. The people who have toiled in the coal mines of Kentucky and West Virginia, as well as in the paper and textile mills in Maine and western North Carolina, have not fared well in the changing economy. Likewise, the historically disenfranchised Native Americans in the Southwest, Latinos in the border colonias and the residents of the disaster-plagued Delta are struggling to survive. Our country needs to bring opportunity back to these regions and their people.

Although rural America accounts for less than 20 percent of the country's overall population, 85 percent of persistent-poverty counties are outside of metro areas. Yet at the same time, there are so many examples of people and organizations doing good work; they just need support and the resources to go to scale. Special attention clearly is required, and that's why we formed the Rural Initiative.

Over an 18-month period, NeighborWorks America ran a program through its Community Initiative Department called the Catalytic Grant Program (CGP).CGP was inspired by Community Initiatives' mission to support efforts to build vibrant local communities that provide equitable opportunities for people to thrive. Noting that even years after the Great Recession had officially ended, many communities across the United States were still suffering from housing disinvestment, foreclosures and concentrated poverty, NeighborWorks America set out to create a program that could build on the assets in these communities, strengthening the capacity of local organizations to tackle complex issues. The goal was to improve physical, social and economic conditions through collaborative approaches. The model builds on the rich history and experience of NeighborWorks America and its network, drawing on decades of experience with neighborhood-based initiatives.

Innovations in single-family home construction are badly needed. Studies show that every county in the U.S. is facing an affordable housing shortage. Homeownership is increasingly out of reach for many would-be first-time homebuyers, and if younger couples and families can afford to purchase their own home, they increasingly have to wait longer to buy or lower their expectations. Many homebuilders are emerging from the housing bust by building fewer but larger and more expensive houses for wealthier homebuyers, underscoring the lack of opportunities for low-income buyers. The excess of single-family homes built before the recession also gives pause to younger buyers that are wary of procuring a mortgage. For these reasons, community development corporations (CDCs) must explore a range of techniques to develop single-family housing that is affordable to first-time homebuyers. This paper examines current innovations in affordable single-family home construction and their associated opportunities and challenges. This paper includes lessons learned by CDCs that have experimented with these innovations and recommendations to CDCs that are interested in doing the same.

Recognizing the importance of rehab work for housing preservation, and the difficulty of running a sustainable rehab line of business, in 2015 the Rural Initiative prioritized an inquiry into the rural rehab line of business. A cross section of experts were gathered from the NeighborWorks network to form a year-long Rural Rehab Task Force to provide recommendations on how NeighborWorks can better support rehab in training, technical assistance, and resource allocation, and to share best practices by producing model business plans demonstrating different ways to structure sustainable rehab programs.

The Five Key Observations

• Observation#1: Rural rehab success emanated from positive thinking and persistent implementation
• Observation #2: Almost every RHRO would benefit from a substantial increase in the per unit funding available, especially in light of the forthcoming HUD HOME requirement to establish written rehab standards in ten subcategories.
• Observation #3: A smartphone and tablet with 20 to 40 apps is the rehab specialist's Swiss Army knife. They are our, GPS, calculator, spec writer, office lifeline in case of danger, camera, clock, cost estimator calendar and a hundred other single-purpose but very important uses.
• Observation #4: NeighborWorks® Rural Initiative could provide a clearinghouse for success techniques targeted to rural rehab. Each month it might focus on a specific aspect of rehab management; inspection checklists in January, green specs in February, feasibility checklist in March, contractor qualification questionnaires in April and so on.
• Observation #5: Even with most components of in-house contractor success formula in place, per the Statistic Research Institute 53% of construction firms go out of business with in the first 4 years. It remains a very risky model that requires significant; funding, staff experience, administrative support and risk tolerance.

Three Rehab Production Models And Their AlternativesThis middle section restates the introduction and methodology and offers a detailed review of the Traditional Rehab Specialist, Construction Management Of Subcontractor and the In-House General Contractor production models .for each model the article provides: definition and staffing pattern, design roles and tasks for each major player, benefits and challenges, alternative models and finally recommendations for successful implementation

Focus TopicsDuring our interview process, three ideas surfaced that were best served with a mini discussion of the topic rather than being embedded in the already large middle section.The three topics are; software and technology, management of community relations – marketing and quality control, and budget solutions