Amidst a housing shortage in the Commonwealth, a Bath County woman recently moved into her new home with some help from a local organization.
Elda Bowen is the proud guardian of her three great-grandchildren. Last month she and her family stood on the front porch of their new home and cut a red ribbon, officially welcoming them home. Bowen said she had a positive experience working with Frontier Housing, based in Rowan County.
“I got to pick out what planters I wanted, what lighting I wanted, because if you notice I have black fans, my faucet and things are black. Got to pick out my colors that I wanted, I got to pick out the color outside my house. I got to pick out the color inside my house, so it was fantastic,” said Bowen.
More than that, Bowen said she’s glad her great-grandkids will have their own bedrooms, bathroom, and space of their own in her new home.
“It feels fantastic, knowing that my great-grandkids have safety and security,” said Bowen.
With help from Frontier Housing, Bowen was able to affordably purchase her home, but several realities in the Commonwealth mean many other Kentuckians are unable to become homeowners. First, officials said the state’s housing gap exceeds 200,000 units, split between for-sale and rental properties. The shortage was worsened by natural disasters in 2021 and 2022. Flooding and tornadoes severely damaged or destroyed over 5,000 properties, according to the Kentucky Housing Corporation.
Jessica Conn is the Senior Lending Manager of Frontier Housing. She said one of the biggest obstacles developers in the region face is high costs.
“Regardless of where you build, a lot of the times, if you build this house here or if you build it in Floyd County, the values in our area never catch up with the cost. And so that makes it very, very difficult, and many times, the homes may cost $30,000 to $40,000, over what they’re actually valued at. Which seems crazy, but that’s what we face every day,” said Conn.
The COVID-19 pandemic and following recession further impacted the housing market. Data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency shows the average cost of purchasing a home in Kentucky is nearly $280,000. The cost of building one is frequently over $300,000.
Conn said these high price tags are a real obstacle.
“The biggest issues with any housing project, especially single-family in eastern Kentucky, is always being able to put the resources together to make everything work,” said Conn.
Conn added that without financial backing and collaborators, projects like the home for Bowen and her great-grandkids wouldn’t be possible.
“With our partners that we have in USDA rural development, in Kentucky Housing Corporation, also Federal Home Loan Bank, they are able to offer the resources to bridge many of the gaps that we have within our project so that we can make days like this come to fruition,” said Conn.
Frontier Housing officials said their goal is to build affordable homes that stay affordable, generating utility bills under $100 a month. For Elda Bowen, she said the process was easy and she wishes she had done it a long time ago.
“I just want to thank everybody at Frontier Housing and Rural Development. They are a fantastic bunch of people to work for, and without them it this wouldn’t be possible for me,” said Bowen.
Frontier Housing, in collaboration with Fahe, and grants from the James Graham Brown Foundation, aims to build affordable housing in Rowan and nearby counties. One of their new programs involves modularly built homes. The Dream Build Initiative began in the aftermath of the severe flooding the state faced in 2022 and aims to create affordable housing for displaced Kentuckians.