February 27, 2026
(Shenandoah) — Options for workforce housing were explored at a special event in Shenandoah earlier this week.
Vision Shenandoah hosted a housing roundtable at the Mill Wednesday, featuring a host of organizations and representatives of Shenandoah and KMAland communities interested in housing development. Speaking on KMA’s “Morning Line” program Friday morning, Vision Shenandoah Executive Director Margaret Brady says the roundtable coincided with the Charles E. Lakin Foundation’s housing component of its Revitalize Southwest Iowa Initiative.
“One of the things we realized when we started looking into it,” said Brady, “is that you have to be thinking about housing on all levels, and we specifically want to think about workforce housing for our average workers. We recognize the cost of building a new house is high. A traditional buildup is within the $300,000 range. And, we said, ‘that’s not good enough.’ We want to figure out ways to build more affordable housing.”
Among the speakers: Jim Thompson of the Iowa Economic Development Authority. Also on hand were representatives of Homes for Iowa, Origin Home, Alley Poyner Macchietto Architecture, The Southwest Iowa Planning Council, Iowa Western Community College and Tarkio Tech. Brady says one of the takeaways from the roundtable is the need to think outside the box on housing projects.
“Your traditional size of house,” he said, “the way we’ve been building houses, we’re going to have find ways to reduce that cost, because the costs of labor and the costs of materials is fairly high. Like the modular house, where it’s built with the prison system, so they don’t have to pay labor. So, that house runnnig down the road $108,000. Of course, you’ve got more costs when you come with flooring and the site. But, that still gets you in a more affordable house.”
Brady says another challenge is finding the right size of housing for Shenandoah and other area communities.
“We might have to think outside the box on some of the size of houses,” said Brady. “We might want to go a little smaller on houses. I know some of the old ones I work on, they’re not very big houses. But, they’ve been there for 100 years, and they’re really great houses. They easily sell when we get them fixed up.”
Officials from Clarinda, Red Oak, Sidney, Imogene and Northboro were among those on hand for the event.
Provided by KMA: https://www.kmaland.com/news/vision-shenandoah-hosts-housing-roundtable/article_58cc5b3f-352f-425d-ae8e-cd6570de4e2c.html
