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Housing Resources of Western Colorado

Housing Project Highlight

Where: Western Colorado, Housing Resources of Western Colorado

Problem: Lack of affordable rural homeownership opportunities

Solution: RCAC supports Housing Resources in Western Colorado administer its Mutual Self-Help Housing Program

Demand in the traditional housing market may be sluggish, but the demand for affordably built self-help housing is still very much alive; and unlike other homeownership opportunities of the past decade, it has been largely unaffected by foreclosures.

In the USDA Rural Development Mutual Self-Help Housing Program, families receive mortgages for their self-help homes through the Section 502 direct loan program, and foreclosure rates among borrowers are extremely low. For example, in California last year with 10,000 plus active 502 direct loans, the federal government foreclosed on only 57 homes while the rate was nearly four times as great in the private market.

RCAC provides technical assistance and oversight to 55 of approximately 100 USDA grantees around the nation that collectively are producing 1,500 affordable houses a year for low- and very-low income rural families. One such grantee is Housing Resources of Western Colorado (HRWC). HRWC has been a USDA Rural Development Mutual Self Help Housing grantee since 1997 and has developed more than 100 self-help homes; another 71 homes are planned.

The self-help housing program is unique in that it provides an opportunity for low-income families to participate in homeownership while constructing their homes. Six to eight participating families work together under the supervision of an HRWC construction supervisor to contribute approximately 65 percent of the construction labor for their homes. This investment in time and labor is the family’s equity contribution, and in essence acts as their down payment.

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