Marietta Rodriguez, president & CEO of NeighborWorks® America, joined a panel of housing leaders Wednesday to talk about the state of housing in the United States. The panel followed the release of the State of the Nation’s Housing 2026 report from the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, which sponsored the event and highlighted continued affordability challenges, subdued housing activity, rising economic uncertainty – and hope. 

In urban Minneapolis, Minnesota, a NeighborWorks network organization has started a new loan product to help families and individuals finance new manufactured homes. In Providence, Rhode Island, another network organization is focused on modular homes as an affordable housing solution. 

In other locations across the country, developers are just starting to learn how off-site built homes might work as an attainable housing solution in their communities, especially as the price of land, material and construction excludes more people from the dream of homeownership. 

NeighborWorks® America, Oweesta Corporation and National American Indian Housing Council to host Housing Our Relatives: Collaborative Solutions for Native Communities

For Immediate Release 

Contact: 
Arian L. Tyler  
Director, External Communications & Marketing 
NeighborWorks America | [email protected] | [email protected]

NeighborWorks® America convened a Housing Supply Solutions Lab last week to provide affordable housing and community development practitioners in the network a chance to dig deeply into innovative building techniques, zoning and land-use reform, and attainability and affordability. The lab format allowed the participants a chance not just to listen, but to speak, learn and solve challenges together. They left the eight-hour session with new connections and new ideas. 

Over the past 18 months, NeighborWorks® America has partnered with seven rural-serving organizations through the USDA-funded Rural Community Development Initiative (RCDI), building their capacity to tackle some of the most pressing housing and economic development challenges they identified in their communities. More than a grant program, the RCDI program offered tailored technical assistance and access to subject matter experts, helping these organizations secure critical funding, unlock new resources and implement innovative solutions with lasting impact. NeighborWorks America coordinated the program from start to finish: recruiting eligible organizations, assessing their needs, matching them with subject matter experts, managing the one-to-one dollar match and financial and narrative reporting to USDA, and providing individualized support to ensure each project advanced toward its locally determined goals.
Before she began working as deputy director of Lakota Funds, Ellen White Thunder had built a background in construction. She was certified as a residential building inspector. She was a certified pipelayer. She had her certification in plumbing inspection. “I love everything about construction,” she explains. And she knew that knowledge in construction would be needed on Pine Ridge and other reservations in South Dakota, where there was not just a shortage of homes, but a shortage of the people who could build them and make sure they were safe.
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