When It Comes To Housing, Dorchester Could Learn From Stuart, Neb.

Stuart, Nebraska and Dorchester have a lot in common.

Both villages have around 600 residents. Both are in rural counties, with mostly an ag-based economy.

And both villages are struggling with finding sufficient housing.

According to an article in the Norfolk newspaper, community leaders in Stuart don’t want anyone interested in moving to town to walk away because there isn’t any decent housing. That’s why they’ve made affordable housing their mission.

The newspaper article details all the steps implemented by Stuart dating back to the 1970s, when the village government invested in Parkside Manor, a 42-bed nursing home and assisted living facility that was built to care for the elderly, as well as free up existing houses for new residents or people who wanted different homes.

The local bank was heavily involved in that effort, the story says.

Then in the 1990s, the Stuart Development Corporation was established to be a “conduit for development.”  

Today, the corporation partners with the Village of Stuart, which operates its own housing rehab program, and the Central Nebraska Housing and Economic Developers, which was formed in 2005 by the Central Nebraska Economic Development District (CNEDD), which operates in 17 counties with a goal of improving housing and encouraging home ownership.  Those organizations provide a variety of means by which property can be developed.  For instance, the development corporation buys dilapidated property, cleans it up and sells it to individuals or some other entity that will develop it. Or the corporation develops it themselves, according to experts.

One of its first projects involved a hog farm that was technically inside the village and next to the city park.  The corporation received a no-interest loan from the village’s housing rehab program, bought the property in question, cleaned it up using volunteer power and built two speculative homes. Four lots then were sold to private developers.

That scenario has been repeated numerous times with all of the profits from the sale of the spec homes recycled back into the program.

While most of the houses start out as modestly sized and modestly priced, the people buying the houses can opt to customize them if they are able to acquire the additional funding either through the local bank or some other source, the Stuart banker said.  So far, the houses have ranged in price from $56,000 to $145,000, and 36 new homes have been constructed in Stuart since 1995. Eleven of those were public projects and 25 were private.

Although the process of creating affordable housing may sound daunting, it’s not, the banker said. “It’s one house at a time, one rehab property at a time. The only way to do it is to get started.”

See the full article on Stuart, Nebraska's housing efforts by clicking here.