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Moab, Utah has seen its fair share of boom times. First it was the uranium boom in the 1960s and 70s, when prospectors flooded Moab to mine the nuclear fuel, and trailer camps dotted the desert landscape. Then it was the tourism boom of the 2010s, when the Mighty Five campaign drew visitors from near and far to Utah’s five stunning, red-rock national parks.
However, these boom times have only led to bust for affordable housing. Like many other gateway communities, which serve as entry to the great outdoors, Moab’s housing market continues to suffer in the shadows of its nearby natural beauty.
“What happens is the housing stock that should be there for the locals gets turned into nightly rentals for tourists, or second or third homes,” said Rikki Epperson, executive director of Community Rebuilds, a Moab-based affordable housing nonprofit. “There are so many homes that are vacant most of the year.” Layer on a pandemic and a major economic downturn, and the year-round residents of Moab — people like teachers, firefighters and healthcare workers — are left with minimal affordable housing options beyond the outdated uranium trailer homes.
Transforming those trailer homes into affordable, energy efficient housing is exactly how Community Rebuilds found its footing. Over the past two decades, the nonprofit has built 73 homes across five counties, housing 91 people and teaching hundreds more about renewable energy and sustainable construction.
“Community Rebuilds and the Mutual Self-Help Program we operate with is just the best thing Moab has to offer as far as buying a house that’s more than half the cost of any other homes on the market,” Epperson said in an interview on the Rural Business Show. On the podcast, Epperson discussed the rural housing crisis and the innovative model her organization is using to make homeownership attainable for residents in gateway communities like Moab; Bluff, Utah; and Crested Butte, Colorado.
How It Works
Community Rebuilds has developed an innovative, low-tech model to increase affordable housing stock that leverages streamlined architectural designs, natural and recycled materials, and volunteers who want to learn more about sustainable construction. The program helps established residents with low or very low incomes apply for subsidized loans through the USDA Rural Development. Many homeowners Community Rebuilds works with will qualify for 502 Direct Loans, which are low-interest, no down payment loans with optional subsidies. Then, qualified homeowners work with volunteers and instructors to build their own homes from the ground up.
“All of our homeowners are owner builders,” Epperson said. “We’re just giving them guidance and managing the participation around that so it’s fair, modest, affordable and successful.” However, homeowners don’t need to know how to frame a house or install plumbing. “We also run a building school to teach people who have maybe never even swung a hammer before,” Epperson said.
Homeowners are required to contribute an average of 100 hours per month of sweat equity, though they can recruit friends and family to help fulfill up to 50% of that requirement. The rest of the labor is provided pro bono by Community Rebuilds. The nonprofit passes on this equity to homeowners in the form of a second lien, which is distributed back to homeowners at a rate of 5% per year for 20 years. In combination with a restriction on nightly rentals and other income producing activities like farming, this serves to protect affordability and encourage long-term ownership.
“The biggest fatal flaw is that shelter is seen as asset,” Epperson said. “We all buy real estate, and if we’re in the position to, we’ll buy more real estate because it’s the best way to invest your money. If you can take that out of the equation, and shelter can be viewed as shelter, and it can be offered to everybody — that would be the dream.”
Affordability That Lasts
With an eye on long-term community investment, Community Rebuilds is also focused on using low-carbon, natural building materials like straw bale and blown cellulose, an insulation made from recycled newspapers.
“In the hot sun in the desert, if you put your hand under the sand, it’s cool. That’s the thermal mass factor,” Epperson said. “It’s the best way that we’ve found to have a home that works with the environment to keep the home comfortable on the inside.”
Community Rebuilds homes start with conventional framing techniques and typically feature at least one thermal mass wall to collect heat from the sun during the day and release it at night. “For the last few years, we’ve given homeowners the option for a straw bale wall on the south side, so they can get all the passive solar sun,” Epperson said. “They are just beautiful, but they actually do have other benefits besides just being pretty.”
In addition to passive solar energy, the homes are thickly insulated and equipped with active solar energy as well, allowing homeowners to keep utility bills and costs of living down. Epperson estimated that homeowners pay an average monthly fee of $9-15 for all utilities. The result is a home that is both financially sustainable and climate conscious.
“I became a homeowner with the program 11 years ago, and I’ve been a superfan ever since,” said Nancy Morlock, who now serves as program manager at Community Rebuilds. “I can tell that we help stabilize the community. We have built for teachers and all sorts of townspeople, and it warms my heart to see that happening.”
Learn More About Community Rebuilds
To learn more about the Community Rebuilds model for affordable housing or get involved, visit communityrebuilds.org.
Listen to the full interview here and connect with listeners of the Rural Business Show on X and Facebook.
The post Building Stability: This Nonprofit is Transforming Affordable Housing in Moab appeared first on Rural Business.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development Under Secretary Dr. Basil Gooden announced that USDA is inviting applications for grants to strengthen rural cooperatives that serve and are made up of people who are part of socially disadvantaged groups in rural areas.
USDA is making the $3 million in grants available under the Socially Disadvantaged Groups Grant program to help new and existing cooperatives strengthen their hands-on assistance, like leadership training and strategic planning, to small business owners and agricultural producers. This program is part of USDA’s commitment to ensuring that people of all backgrounds have the resources they need to thrive.
Rural cooperatives and Cooperative Development Centers are eligible to apply for grants to provide assistance to rural small business owners and agricultural producers from socially disadvantaged groups. The maximum award is $175,000.
USDA is particularly interested in applications that will advance the Biden Administration’s priorities to:
- Reduce climate pollution and increase resilience to the impacts of climate change through economic support to rural communities.
- Ensure all rural residents have equitable access to Rural Development (RD) programs and benefits from RD-funded projects; and
- Help rural communities recover economically through more and better market opportunities and through improved infrastructure.
Additional information on these key priorities is available at https://www.rd.usda.gov/priority-points.
Electronic applications must be submitted to grants.gov by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on June 3, 2024.
Interested applicants are encouraged to contact their local USDA Rural Development State Office well in advance of the application deadline to discuss their project and ask any questions about the program or the application process. Contact information for state offices can be found at http://www.rd.usda.gov/contact-us/state-offices.
Additional information on how to apply is available on page 22979 of the April 3, 2024, Federal Register.
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U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development Under Secretary Dr. Basil Gooden announced USDA is accepting applications until May 21, 2024, for funding under the ReConnect Program.
This is the fifth round of funding under the program, which provides loans and grants to bring high-speed internet to the most remote and difficult-to-serve rural and Tribal communities in America.
A total of $700 million is available under four funding categories:
- Up to $200 million is available for loans.
- Up to $200 million is available for loan/grant combinations.
- Up to $150 million is available for grants.
- Up to $150 million is available for grants serving Alaska Native corporations, Tribal governments, colonias, persistent poverty areas and socially vulnerable communities.
USDA is making several program improvements for this round of funding. For instance:
- USDA will award priority points to applications proposing to serve areas in states with
the highest concentrations of Unserved Broadband Serviceable Locations (UBSLs). - Organizations, including Tribes, that can meet robust financial tests will have increased
ability to streamline the required elements in a ReConnect application. - At least 90% of households within a proposed service area must lack sufficient access to high-speed internet, which is now defined as fixed, terrestrial high-speed internet speeds of 25 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload.
Applications must be submitted electronically through the application system at usda.gov/reconnect by 11:59 a.m. ET on May 21, 2024.
More information is available in the Federal Register and on Grants.gov.
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Through REAP Technical Assistance Grants, USDA Rural Development offers hands-on assistance to agricultural producers and small business owners applying for Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) funding, which aims to lower energy costs and make energy efficiency improvements in rural areas.
This assistance is made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Eligible recipients for these grants include state, Tribal or local governments; colleges and universities; electric cooperatives and utility companies; and nonprofit organizations.
Recipients may use the funds to:
- Help rural agricultural producers and small business owners apply for REAP funding.
- Provide information on how business owners and agricultural producers can improve the energy efficiency of their operations and use renewable energy technologies and resources.
- Conduct required energy assessments and audits.
- Help agricultural producers and small business owners with planning construction and development of renewable energy or energy efficiency projects.
- Assist with the completion of environmental reports and/or documentation required for submittal of applications.
Contact Laura Chavez at [email protected] to learn more or ask further questions.
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