Building homes, building a neighborhood

Kristina Aguilar's expertise was working on interior walls. DeJeaun Biggle liked the heavy lifting and tarring the foundation. But painting trim? "Tedious," he says. The neighbors worked together  to build their homes – and each other's – as a part of NeighborWorks Great Falls' Owner-Built Homes Program, which began in 2005  through USDA's Mutual Self-Help Program. Over 12 to 16 months, each family works on the homes for 30 hours a week, contributing "sweat equity." It's the key to a program that provides an affordable homeownership option for families of all sizes. 

"Each group consists of 10 neighbors building 10 homes together," explains Chelsey Hutmacher, resource and communications manager at NeighborWorks Great Falls. "No one moves in until all 10 homes are complete." One hundred fifty-five families own homes through the program.

USDA Rural Development Montana's Suzanne Kerver says USDA started working with NeighborWorks Great Falls even before the first build. Financial support has included technical assistance grants and obligating $1.9 million through Single Family Housing Direct Home Loan programs, giving home builders the buying power to secure their mortgages. 

Residents must qualify for the program and complete homebuyer education and financial coaching throughout construction. They choose from a group of floor plans and customize features, working on everything from walls to roof trusses. They finish the program with a new home and an affordable mortgage.

Aguilar remembers being nervous before the first build. "The last time I'd even held a power tool, I was a teenager helping my grandpa and stepdad build a shed," she says. She was nervous about meeting her future neighbors, too. "I didn't know any of them," she recalls. "But when we got to the first build, we started talking. It was so easy to relate to everybody. We were all in the same boat." Now that they've all moved in, she says, it's a tight community and she knows where to go if something goes wrong or if she needs help.

"When you buy a house these days, you don't necessarily know your neighbors – or it takes a long time to get to know them," Hutmacher says. "The beauty of this program is that as you build your home and your neighbor's home, you create a community of neighbors who know each other really well and look after each other for years to come." 

Biggle and his wife, Rachelle, were living in a small apartment when their bosses at the airport told them about the Owner Built program. They did the research and signed up. "We liked helping everybody else," Biggle says. "We were all learning entirely new things."

Families and individuals completing the program cover a range of ages and life experiences. Aguilar is  a single nursing student with two sons over 16, both of whom helped build the homes. The Biggles' 4-year-old son was too young to help, but appreciates benefits inside and outside his home. (The backyard meant the family could get a dog.) 

Building a home from foundation to roof also prepared residents for upkeep. When Aguilar's sink wasn't draining, she consulted an online video to figure out how to fix it. She wouldn't have tried if she hadn't been through the program doing more complex work.

NeighborWorks America's nearly 250 network organizations approach affordable housing in different ways. In Fiscal Year 2021, network organizations assisted 575 homeowners with self-help housing programs like NeighborWorks Great Falls' Owner-Built Program. Community Housing Improvement Program, for instance, recently completed its 2,000th self-help home, says CEO Seana O'Shaughnessy. "Our families are diverse and historically have struggled to gain equal access to homeownership opportunities," she says. "By building with us, our families create community with their neighbors, learn new skills, strengthen their independence, and immediately gain wealth as all the equity in their home belongs to them."

Sweat equity can be difficult, comments Hutmacher. But that doesn't deter the families who sign up. Most neighbors who participate have no prior experience in construction "so they see each other at their best and at their worst during 12-16 months of very hard but rewarding work." And they see the results of their labor every day in the homes – and in the neighborhood – they build together.