Leaders take action on housing obstacles

Huntington leaders are preparing to launch an effort to create workforce housing solutions for the community. The City of Huntington, Huntington County and the Huntington County Community Foundation recently engaged the Housing Resource Hub (the Hub) to develop and implement a dynamic Housing Strategy, tailored to the needs of the workforce.

“Now is the time to address housing needs in our community,” said Rob Miller, Huntington County Commissioner. “We continue to hear from employers, both large and small, that a lack of suitable housing is preventing them from attracting and retaining workers.”

The Housing Strategy will include measuring local market potential, prioritizing sites for catalyst housing developments and launching a community-wide housing initiative to address the needs of the local workforce through partnerships with local employers, banks, lenders, realtors, developers and builders.

“The City of Huntington recognizes the need to take action to ensure that our community continues to grow and thrive,” said Mayor Richard Strick. “We are looking forward to working with the Housing Resource Hub to lean on their expertise as we create our Housing Strategy.”

The Hub will facilitate the Housing Strategy using a proprietary methodology developed by the organization’s co-founder, Heather Presley-Cowen, shown in photo.

The Housing Optimization Market Empowerment (H.O.M.E.) Method is a framework for executing high performance housing strategies and focuses on the following:

• Engaging local leadership to direct the effort
• Measuring Huntington County’s housing market potential
• Identifying and overcoming barriers to development
• Prioritizing sites for catalyst development projects
• Designing workforce housing programs to address talent attraction and retention
• Building a pipeline of local buyers and renters

“This important work to grow our community aligns well with the purpose of the Huntington County Community Foundation,” said Matt Ditzler, executive director, “we are excited to be a leader of this effort and look forward to sharing the results.”

For more information on the housing solutions project, contact Terry Miller at terry.miller@huntington.in.us.