Best practices for rural housing

Each town I visit that has had any success with housing has it’s own special way they did it. 

Some places have special resources. South Dakota has a governor’s houses program. Kansas just changed their state housing bond initiative to make second story lofts eligible. 

But that doesn’t help you if you’re not in those states. 

Tionesta, Pennsylvania, is hemmed in by the national forest, the river, and the foothills. So they’re considering adding housing on an island in the river. 

That probably doesn’t help you unless you have a forest, a river and an island, too. 

What I’m saying is there are no best practices to solving rural housing challenges. But there is a best mindset. 

Cultivate the mindset of being open to new ideas, of testing each idea rather than trusting expert guesses, of taking small steps rather than making big plans and copying what worked somewhere else. 

You don’t have the reinvent the wheel, or the house in this case. But you will have to find a special set of people, resources and places that work in your town. 

Keep shaping the future of your town, 
Becky

PS – Our video Improving Rural Housing is still available.