Affordable Housing

The goal of the affordable housing component of the University Neighbors project is to create 10 affordable housing units in the neighborhood over the three year life of the grant, involve hundreds of volunteers in this process, and create and distribute copies of a handbook detailing how other organizations can create affordable housing using the same approach. This part of the project is headed up by Project Neighbors, who by utilizing volunteers, has created over 30 quality, affordable housing units in Porter County. Most recently they have focused on the Hilltop Neighborhood and have been responsible for constructing 6 new housing units in the area as well as remodeling many others. They also were the originators of the Hilltop Neighborhood House and its Child Care Center and Free Medical Clinic. Additionally, they are responsible for creating Maria Elena's, a neighborhood restaurant, and are currently planning a grocery store along with several other affordable housing units.

Three Main Components

1.) The construction or rehabilitation of up to 10 houses in the Hilltop Neighborhood as well as continuing to "neighbor" to these families.

2.) The involvement of volunteer groups throughout the county in building and mentoring so that they can learn enough to build other homes and mentor other families in neighborhoods countywide.

3.) The development and distribution of guides to the volunteer building process in Porter County, informing other organizations of affordable housing.

Project Neighbors

Project Neighbors has worked extensively with nearly 300 volunteers in dozens of community-serving group like church social action committees, unions, and student groups and will work with an estimated 200 volunteers over the next three years. These volunteers are key to the group's success. Since low-income people, and especially families, often have unmet needs in addition to housing, Project Neighbors fosters connections between the low-income families needing homes and the middle class volunteers building them. Volunteers share their time, resources, and personal connections to help families in need find jobs, child care, education, transportation and counseling, as well as helping them learn to establish budgets, parent effectively, maintain their homes, and work with the larger community. As result, Project Neighbors volunteers know personally the value of establishing relationships across income, class, and ethnic lines. Volunteers often comment that they learned more from their experience than those that they helped. The formal partnership created through University Neighbors will be invaluable in recruiting volunteers, particularly from within the VU community.

Project Neighbors has developed many partners in these building projects including Trinity and Emmanuel Lutheran Churches, the First United Methodist Church, and the Mennonite Church, as well as many organizations and individuals in the community and at Valparaiso University. Currently they have developed a partnership with the Valparaiso Community Development Corporation to build one house and are discussion projects with both Design Construction and Harvest Homes to create other affordable housing units. In addition, Habitat for Humanity plans to build two housing units in the neighborhood. Anyone interested in helping on any of these projects is encouraged to contact The Community Outreach Partnership Center.

Building Affordable Housing: An Organizer's Guide

The following presents an outline of a successful model of how to produce quality, affordable housing. Constructing quality affordable housing is only part of what has been accomplished by Project Neighbors, but their knowledge and experience in building over thirty units of quality affordable housing with volunteers provides a useful model for others to follow. It should be clear from the outset that this is not a technical manual on how to construct a house. It is an outline of how to organize a group of dedicated people who have varying skills to produce quality and affordable housing with as little expense as possible. It is a manual showing how a community can utilize existing assets and come together to solve its own problems. It is based on years of experience working with and organizing volunteers to build quality affordable housing. It has evolved as a result of successes, challenges and failures. Over the years it has become clear that certain things work and others do not. Hopefully, this guide will help you avoid practices that do not work and will give you ideas for implementing a project that will be successful in your community.

The guide is available for download in PDF format. You must have Adobe Acrobat to view this file.

Download Building Affordable Housing: An Organizer's Guide