Since 2005, in addition to the traditional charity homes and community projects that the Rural Studio has designed and built, we have been ardently working to bridge the barriers between the income-earning poor and their accessibility to existing affordable federal housing programs. The goal of the $20k House project is relatively straightforward, yet has profound implications: provide a replicable housing model that is creative, affordable, durable, energy efficient, diverse in housing type, and that can be purchased by a prospective rural homeowner for $20,000, including all costs for materials, labor and contractor’s profit. Today I was in Birmingham where the current Outreach Team made one amazing presentation about the current state of the 20k House project to Regions Bank, one of Rural Studio’s major donors. All I can say is that led by instructor Danny Wicke, this year’s team (Clem Blakemore, Penny Hagbert and Will Holmanand) have significantly raised the bar on this important project.

The $20K House Project involves Rural Studio students in the development of a range of home plans and prototypes that can be built by local contractors under the USDA’s Rural Housing Service Section 502 Guaranteed Rural Housing Loan Program for construction and homeowner financing. This program serves rural residents who have a steady (albeit low) income, yet are still unable to obtain adequate housing through conventional financing. The Rural Studio $20K house project gets its name from the lowest realistic mortgage a person on social security and/or disability income could maintain. The $20k house is also clearly intended to offer up new job opportunities for emerging entrepreneurs in the local building industry while simultaneously stimulating the local economy. To date eight $20K homes have been built and occupied by clients. The current team has engaged a contractor to build the most recent prototype under real conditions, and are working with that same contractor to revise the prototype into a final model that is well-tested and proven suitable for public consumption. In today’s presentation, they presented their development of a wider array of prototypes that meet a broader variety of client, site, and contextual conditions.

Make sure to keep up with the 20k blog – this is one project well worth watching.