Dorchester Times: Great Idea Revisited: Housing Built By Students

Thursday, January 15, 2026

Great Idea Revisited: Housing Built By Students

Occasionally, Times readers send us some really great ideas via our inbox at Dorchester.Times@gmail.com.

A few years ago, one of the best ideas of all time landed in our mailbox.

We liked the idea so much that years later we are running it again. We think it's especially relevant considering that in the era of artificial intelligence, white-collar jobs and post-secondary education will need to become more specialized, while the trades should see a big boom. Housing supply is the number one issue driving affordability in our area and the nation.

Here is a reprint of our Feb. 1, 2017 article:

Today's idea centers around Dorchester's need for family housing.

The reader who proposed it called it his "gap housing plan" to fill in vacant lots in and around our community.

Here are the essentials of the "gap housing" proposal:

The plan would require school leaders and Dorchester's village board members to coordinate.

Using residential lots donated or purchased by the city -- preferably empty or neglected lots within town -- Dorchester students who enroll in industrial arts classes would build a home over the course of one or two school years.

Students working on the new house would specialize in areas such as interior design, construction, electrical, plumbing, roofing, etc.

Instruction would supervised or provided by Southeast Community College educators from Milford, as well as area contractors and home builders, contracted by DPS.

Profit from the sale of the home would be returned to DPS' industrial arts and vocational training programs to boost future efforts.

In an era of workforce shortages in the trades -- when educators and parents have awakened to the reality that young people need skills before they enter the real world -- this idea has merit.

We hope DPS and village leaders will give it some consideration.

4 comments:

AnonymousFebruary 1, 2017 at 9:25 AM
Nice! No robots will be taking home construction jobs anytime too soon.
ReplyDelete
Replies
AnonymousFebruary 4, 2017 at 5:15 PM
I really like this idea. It could get our school enrollment up, which we really need. The town also needs to get some of the vacant houses on the market and get families moving in.
ReplyDelete
Replies
AnonymousFebruary 5, 2017 at 11:54 AM
Marketing your community is so important.
ReplyDelete
Replies
AnonymousJanuary 25, 2019 at 2:28 PM
I also like this innovative concept; I wish this were taken seriously but I fear it will be overlooked by the powers that be.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment

Village Dweller checks all reader comments to determine if they are appropriate for print.

Dorchester: A Good Little Family Town

Dorchester, Nebraska (est. population 630) is located in northern Saline county. Close in proximity to Interstate 80, Dorchester is only 25 minutes from the state capital of Lincoln (est. population 250,000) and about 55 minutes from Omaha (metro population 725,000).

Dorchester's median resident age is 37 years. In 2005, Dorchester had a median family income of approximately $35,600. The median house value was about $63,000. About 95 percent of Dorchester residents commute to work via Interstate and highways.

The village has a quality public school, which received a $4.1 million expansion and modernization in 2008; it offers a small classrooms and individualized attention. Total enrollment of grades K-12 is around 230-250 students.

Ancestries of the Dorchester area are primarily German (42.4%), Czech (24.9%), Irish (12.5%), English (5.4%), and Dutch (4.9%).

Dorchester Historical Facts

* On July 4, 1871, the railroad reached Dorchester.
* Incorporated in 1881, Dorchester's population grew from 200 to 500 by 1882.
* In 1882, Dorchester had 90 buildings, 35 of which were businesses or public facilities. Brick buildings lined both sides of Washington Avenue for two blocks.
* Dorchester's longest-running newspaper was The Dorchester Star, which was published until the late 1940s.
* By 1889, Dorchester's population is said to have reached 800, while the town housed an opera house, a two-story brick schoolhouse with a bell tower, and four churches.
* By the 1910s, Dorchester had electricity, a water tower and a fire department.
* Dorchester's main arteries, Highways 6 and 33, were graveled in the 1940s.
* Dorchester's first irrigation well was drilled on Chris Weber's farm and rural electrification was finished following WWII.

A Village with History

Dorchester is one of the "alphabet towns" on the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad line built west from Lincoln. The town site was selected for its pleasant location in the northern part of Saline County, about eight miles west of Crete. This situation is an attractive one, being on the level prairie land, midway between the West Blue River and Turkey Creek. The first named stream is three miles north, and the latter about the same distance south from the town. Dorchester was platted in 1870 and incorporated in 1881. The name "Dorchester" came from either for a suburb of Boston by that name or a town in England. No one is sure. Two of the very first settlers were James Seely and Edward McIntyre, who both made Dorchester their permanent home.

Dorchester: In The Beginning

Here is a look at Dorchester around 1890, less than a decade after its official incorporation, as documented by Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska:
* POPULATION: "About 300, and is made up of a substantial and progressive class of citizens, who are moral and industrious. ... The town grew but very little until the year 1879, for the reason that Pleasant Hill, on Turkey Creek, a short distance south, was the county seat and naturally drew a trade for quite a large scope of country."
* BUSINESS: "The business and professional interests of the town are represented by three general merchandise stores, two drug, one grocery, one furniture, two hardware, and two millinery stores, one bank, two restaurants, two hotels, three livery stables, a post office, one newspaper office, two elevators, two lumber yards, two coal yards, two blacksmith shops, two lawyers and four physicians."
* SCHOOL: "The schoolhouse is a good one. The schoolhouse was built in 1872, since which time the public schools have been continually kept up. The present schoolhouse is 24' x 40' in size, two stories high. The school is graded and consists of three departments. The house is found too small, and arrangements will soon be made to increase its size."
* CHURCHES: "There are three substantial churches."
* HOMES: "The residence portion of the village is made up of neat houses of different styles of architecture, but none of them very large."
* NEWSPAPER: "The Dorchester Star, which was established August 21, 1881, by H. C. Bittenbender, who edited it until January 19, 1882, when he sold it to Ryerson & Bullock, the present proprietors. The Star is a bright weekly paper, five-column quarto, in size, and is Republican in politics."