DENVER (AP) — As Americans struggle under backbreaking rental prices, builders are turning to innovative ways to churn out more housing, from 3D printing to assembling homes in an indoor factory to using hemp — yes, the marijuana cousin — to make building blocks for walls.

It’s a response to the country’s shortfall of millions of homes that has led to skyrocketing prices, plunging millions into poverty.

“There’s not enough homes to purchase and there’s not enough places to rent. Period,” said Adrianne Todman, the acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under former President Joe Biden.

One way to quickly build more is embrace these types of innovations, Todman said. “I can only imagine what our housing situation would be like now if we could have made a decision to be more aggressive in adopting this type of housing.”

So what are these new ways of building homes? And can they help reduce the cost of new housing, leading to lower rents?

Factory-built housing put together in a week

In a cavernous, metal hall, Eric Schaefer stood in front of a long row of modular homes that moved through the plant, similar to a car on an assembly line.

At a series of stations, workers lay flooring, erected framing, added roofs and screwed on drywall. Everything from electrical wiring to plumbing to kitchen countertops were in place before the homes were shrink-wrapped and ready to be shipped.

The business in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, , has pumped out more than 500 homes in its just over three years of operation, each taking just five to seven days to build, even in the coldest winter months, Schaefer said.

Once assembled in the plant, the narrow townhouse-style homes with white trim, balconies and front porches, are about 90 percent done. At their final destination they are move-in ready within six weeks, Schaefer said.

The company works with towns, counties and housing nonprofits to help address the shortage of affordable homes, mostly for workers who’ve been squeezed out by sky-high prices in ritzy mountain towns.

That includes Eagle, Colorado, not far from the Vail ski resort, where Fading West worked with Habitat for Humanity to install modular homes at affordable rents for teachers and other school district employees. The homes tend to be on the smaller side, but can be multifamily or single family.

“You can build faster. The faster you build — even at a high quality — means the lower the price,” Schaefer said. “We see this as one of the pieces to the puzzle in helping solve the affordable housing crisis.”

There’s a hefty upfront cost to build the factory, and part of the challenge is a lack of state and federal investment, he said. A patchwork of building codes governing how a structure can be built also makes it difficult, requiring changes to the construction depending on the town or county it is being sent to.

Manufactured housing is similar to modular housing, but the units are constructed on a chassis — like a trailer — and they aren’t subject to the same local building codes. That’s part of the reason they are used more broadly across the U.S.

Roughly 100,000 manufactured homes were shipped to states in 2024, up from some 60,000 a decade earlier, according to Census Bureau data. Estimates of modular homes built annually often put them below 20,000.

3D printing is innovative but still ‘a long game’

Yes, there’s technology to 3D print homes.

A computer-controlled robotic arm equipped with a hose and nozzle moves back and forth, oozing lines of concrete, one on top of the other, as it builds up the wall of a home. It can go relatively quickly and form curved walls unlike concrete blocks.

Grant Hamel, CEO and co-founder of VeroTouch, stood inside one of the homes his company built, the wall behind him made out of rolling layers of concrete, distinct to a 3D printer. The technology could eventually reduce labor costs and the time it takes to build an abode, but is farther off than manufactured or modular methods from making a dent in the housing crisis.

It’s “a long game, to start chipping away at those prices at every step of the construction process,” Hamel said.

The 3D printers are expensive, and so are the engineers and other skilled employees needed to run them, said Ali Memari, director of the Pennsylvania Housing Research Center, whose work has partly focused on 3D printing. It’s also not recognized by international building codes, which puts up more red tape.

The technology is also generally restricted to single-story structures, unless traditional building methods are used as well, Memari said

It’s “a technology at its beginning, it has room to grow, especially when it is recognized in code,” Memari said. “The challenges that I mentioned exist, and they have to be addressed by the research community.”

A hemp-and-lime mixture called hempcrete has ‘a bright future’

Hemp — the plant related to marijuana — is being used more and more in the construction of walls.

The hemp is mixed with other materials, most importantly the mineral lime, forming “hempcrete,” a natural insulation that’s mold- and fire-resistant and can act as outer wall, insulation and inner wall.

Hempcrete still requires wood studs to frame the walls, but it replaces three wall-building components with just one, said Memari, also a professor at Penn State University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Memari is now helping oversee research into making hempcrete that doesn’t need the wood studs.

As much as a million hemp plants to be used for hempcrete can grow on one acre in a matter of months as opposed to trees, which can take years or decades to grow.

The plant is part of the cannabis family but has far less of the psychoactive component, THC, found in marijuana. In 2018, Congress legalized the production of certain types of hemp. Last year, the International Code Council, which develops international building codes used by all 50 states, adopted hempcrete as an insulation.

Confusion over the legality of growing hemp and the price tag of the machine required to process the plant, called a decorticator, are barriers to hempcrete becoming more widespread in housing construction, Memari said.

Still, he said, “hempcrete has a bright future.”

Associated Press video journalist Thomas Peipert also contributed to this report.

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Two Portland-area chapters of Habitat for Humanity have merged to create the Habitat for Humanity Portland Region.

The new organization combines Habitat for Humanity Portland/Metro East and Willamette West Habitat for Humanity.

Habitat Portland Region now serves Multnomah, East Washington and North Clackamas counties.

“As each organization has grown, it has become increasingly clear that we can have a greater impact in our region as a single organization that fully integrates our programs and staff,” CEO Steve Messinetti stated in a news release.

Habitat Portland Region will have more than 100 homes under construction during 2021, the organization said. The board of directors will begin a strategic planning process to scale up the pace of home building.

“I believe this stronger organization, coupled with the support of our generous and caring community, will reach more families than we ever imagined possible,” Messinetti stated. “And we are ready to get to work.”

The year 2021 marks the 40th anniversary of Habitat for Humanity Portland/Metro East’s work locally.

A nonprofit developer, Habitat works to build affordable homes and enable low-income individuals to own a home and begin building equity.

“We view this as an opportunity for us to leverage each other’s combined strengths and resources, ramp up home production on the West side and in the greater Portland region, while increasing home repairs,” stated Jim Woodruff, board vice chairman, who was formerly with Willamette West Habitat. “It is critical that we help more people realize the stabilizing impact that homeownership uniquely provides.”

The merger comes amid a growing crisis in affordable housing and increasing homelessness. The city of Portland and Metro each passed major affordable housing bonds and are embarking on a housing construction spree. The city’s 2017 bond is expected to create 1,490 affordable housing units leveraging $258.4 million, while Metro aims to create 3,900 affordable housing units with its $652.8 million bond from 2018.

For more information on Habitat for Humanity Portland Region, visit . The new website is still under construction.

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The Portland City Council on Wednesday passed three ordinances approving $17.45 million in spending to help pay for around 200 new affordable housing units in the city. The funding, mostly via tax increment financing (TIF) from two different urban renewal areas, will go toward land acquisition for future development and provide construction financing for two new projects.

The council approved a $6.8 million purchase of six parcels totaling 0.97 acres at the southwest corner of North Williams Avenue and Alberta Street for the creation of affordable housing. The Portland Housing Bureau will acquire the properties using TIF dollars from the Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area.

Development concepts have not been created for the property, but the Housing Bureau estimates it could accommodate between 100 and 150 new permanently affordable housing units. The land is being held for future development, which will be shaped by a community input process and could include either affordable rental housing or for-sale condominiums.

The acquisition aligns with the land banking goal set forth as part of the North/Northeast Neighborhood Housing Strategy, which the council adopted in 2015 to address the impacts of the city’s role in the gentrification of traditionally African-American neighborhoods and displacement of longtime residents.

The land is owned by members of the Strong family, longtime neighborhood residents who have been in active discussions with the Housing Bureau for nearly four years to ensure the property remains a community asset.

“We didn’t want to put the property in the hands of developers who have no heart or no kind of concern … for some of the longtime inhabitants of our community,” family member Mark Strong told the council. “Over the last several years the change in North and Northeast Portland has been kind of disheartening to watch. The fingerprints of the African-American community being etched away has just been very, very painful.”

In accordance with the housing strategy, preference for tenancy or ownership at the future development will be given to current and former longtime residents of North and Northeast Portland, and those who have been displaced by prior urban renewal practices in the Interstate Corridor area.

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty praised the Strong family for working with the city to ensure the site remains an asset to the community.

“In this time where land is being grabbed up all over the city of Portland, you could have chosen a different route,” she said. “I’m not a real estate person, but I suspect you could have also gotten more money if the goal was just about money.”

Echoing Hardesty’s statement, Commissioner Chloe Eudaly added, “I want to note how vital it is that we move as much property out of the private market as we can and turn it into permanently affordable housing. I think it’s the only way forward to preserving any kind of racial or economic diversity in the city.”

The council also approved an ordinance to provide up to $3.3 million of construction funding, using Interstate Corridor Urban Renewal Area TIF money, for a new 30-unit affordable condominium development in the Kenton neighborhood. The city funding leverages more than $7 million of additional financing from other sources, including donations and a loan from First Republic Bank.

The Kilpatrick townhouses are being constructed by Habitat for Humanity Portland/Metro East at the southeast corner of North Interstate Avenue and Kilpatrick Street. Foundation work is under way on the project’s first phase, which consists of a three-story, 12-unit building with single-level condominiums on the ground floor and two-level townhomes on the upper floors. A second phase will add another 18-unit building.

The project will ultimately contain 15 two-bedroom units and 15 three-bedroom units housing an estimated 113 residents. Homebuyers will be identified through the North/Northeast Neighborhood Housing Strategy’s preference policy. According to Dr. Steven Holt, a member of the housing strategy’s oversight committee, the policy is vital to providing ownership equity to the black community.

“Homeownership for African Americans in the city of Portland is now equaling 1965 numbers; we’ve gone backwards,” he told the council. “So opportunities like this cannot be overemphasized.”

A third ordinance will provide up to $7.35 million in construction financing for Halsey 106, a mixed-use building in the Gateway area being developed by Gerding Edlen and Human Solutions. The building will include 75 apartment units, including 52 affordable ones, as well as affordable retail space and office space for Human Solutions.

LMC Construction is expected to begin work in September on the Holst Architecture-designed project. Construction funding includes $6,602,738 in Gateway Urban Renewal Area TIF money and $747,262 in Community Housing Development Organization money.

All three ordinances passed via 4-0 votes, with Commissioner Amanda Fritz absent.

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Habitat for Humanity has applied to the Portland Bureau of Development Services for of plans for a 30-unit multifamily development on North Interstate Avenue.

According to a public notice published Nov. 1, the nonprofit is planning for construction in two phases. The first would include a three-story, 12-unit building on the property’s western half; the second phase would feature a three-story, 18-unit building on the eastern half.

The property is at the intersection of North Interstate Avenue and Kilpatrick Street. Because phase 1 building would be within 100 feet of Interstate Avenue, a street featuring transit use, at least 25 percent of the ground-floor use is required to feature an active use. Habitat for Humanity is requesting to reduce that required amount to zero.

The subject property consists of six formerly separate tax lots that have since been consolidated into a single parcel. Buildings on the consolidated parcel include a garage built in 1949, a duplex and a vacant single-family home. The latter residence over the years has elicited complaints to the city over issues such as overgrown grass, persons camping in tents in the backyard and existence of an open, unsecured shed.

Public comments are being received BDS staff through Nov. 26. Following consideration of those comments, staff will either approve the request, approve it with conditions or deny it.

R&B Design Studio is designing the project; William Wilson Architects carried out preliminary design work.

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Several efforts have garnered national attention for Oregon State University’s Associated General Contractors student chapter, including its outreach to young people and volunteerism to benefit communities both locally and overseas.

OSU’s student chapter recently received second place in AGC’s 2015 Outstanding Student Chapter contest for “its unique focus and fusion of workforce development programs and service,” AGC said in an announcement about the award and its accompanying $750 prize.

AGC specifically recognized OSU’s chapter for establishing the country’s first high school student chapter at Portland’s ACE Academy, and helping the students there develop a constitution and calendar of events and expand their membership. AGC highlighted the OSU chapter’s Winter Wonderings event, in which fifth graders in the Talented and Gifted program at local elementary schools visit the campus to learn more about construction engineering and management. Activities include a spaghetti noodle tower competition and concrete paperweight construction.

OSU’s AGC student chapter also was recognized for service projects, including donating food to a local youth homeless shelter, partnering with Habitat for Humanity on home-build and landscaping projects, and working with the AGC Oregon-Columbia chapter and design firms to help design and build a surgical center in Haiti.
OSU Chapter President Andrew Riley, a senior in the university’s Construction Engineering Management program, traveled to Haiti to work on the surgical center. He credited Project Manager Dale Campbell, past president of the AGC Foundation, and other AGC members for their mentorship on the project.
“On a personal level I think it’s been a very challenging project, but it’s been a lot of fun,” said Riley, who began working on the Haiti project following his sophomore year. “It’s been very rewarding to see other students get involved in something that we’re not seeing on a daily basis, but we’re able to monitor how it’s going and see the progress.”

Riley called the AGC national award “a very, very big honor for the chapter,” and said the chapter’s members will continue their commitment to projects, programs and volunteer efforts that help enhance the community and get younger generations excited about design, engineering and construction.

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After a nonprofit coalition bought the former Sugar Shack strip club in the Cully neighborhood last year, more than 1,000 residents showed up at a community meeting to discuss future plans for the property, which totals approximately two acres.

Anna Gordon, outreach coordinator for the Living Cully group, knew then that plans should be up to the residents, so she gathered neighborhood kids to participate in the design process.

Living Cully was formed in 2010 as a collaboration of four nonprofits: Habitat for Humanity Portland/Metro East, Hacienda Community Development Corp., Native American Youth and Family Center and Verde. Living Cully, according to its website, “reinterprets sustainability as an anti-poverty strategy by concentrating environmental investments at the neighborhood scale and braiding those investments with traditional community development resources.”

Gordon said no decision has been made about the existing building on the property, but plans were sought for 20,000 square feet of the site. She engaged Alex Salazar of Salazar Architects Studio to oversee the design – but with input from around 40 kids.

To begin the process, Gordon said, Living Cully held four planning workshops with students in neighborhood after-school programs.

“They had kind of a brainstorm and voted on top ideas and then came back and did design charettes,” she said. “We placed different elements on the site and then came back and modeled what the final design would look like.”

Portland Parks & Recreation also helped, Gordon said, by arranging a field trip for the students to five area parks.

“The director of parks (Mike Abbate) came with us and interacted with the kids,” she said. “It was a great opportunity to learn about landscape architecture, and Alex talked about being an architect, giving them exposure to career opportunities.”

Salazar, who has been in practice in Portland for about a year and a half, was point person working with the students, he said. He has taught architecture at schools including Portland State University and the University of California, Berkeley.

“My task was to determine what we could do with the site and involve the kids in the process,” he said.

Salazar also involved the Center for Public Interest Design at PSU. Its staff helped run the design charettes.

All students, including a group of skateboarders in the parking lot, were invited to participate. The students, mostly from middle schools and high schools, didn’t agree on everything at first, Gordon said, but they learned to compromise.

“A big group wanted a skate area and another group had wanted a basketball court for a long time, so there was a little bit of tension,” she said. “But we incorporated them in the design and they collaborated.”

Some of the girls in the design charette also wanted a garden area, and that was incorporated as well, Gordon said.

“I think it was a great community-building exercise for them, and they learned to respect each other,” she said.

Living Cully bought the Sugar Shack property at 6739 N.E. Killingsworth St. after a successful crowdfunding campaign last year that raised $54,000 and helped secure financing for the $2.75 million purchase.

No money is available for construction yet, Gordon said, but eventually plans will be finalized and work will take place in phases.

“We don’t have money to build this, and it will be baby steps at the beginning,” she said. “It’s not a done deal, but this has been a great project, a need in the community and it’s been great to have an opportunity to (involve youths in the) design.”

To help publicize the effort to design the small park, Gordon said the entire process involving Salazar and the students – including their tour of city parks – was recorded. The video will be shown to community groups and others who want to help the redevelopment project.

“It’s still tentative, what came out of the youth workshops, and (the final design) might not include all those things, but it’s been a great design process and we’ll be showing it to people who might be able to partner with us,” Gordon said.

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Four metro-area contractors and numerous subcontractors later this month will donate labor and materials for Habitat for Humanity‘s Home Builders Blitz in Southeast Portland.

The construction process – from framework to insulation to cabinets and countertops – for four homes will be accelerated from a couple of months to about a couple of weeks, according to Jeff Fish, owner of participating contractor Fish Construction NW. Neil Kelly, Noyes Development Co. and Schumacher Custom Homes also will construct homes as part of the event from May 28 to June 13.

Parr Lumber Co. is donating materials, according to Habitat for Humanity.

“The whole process should take about two weeks,” Fish said. “We’ll hand them the keys June 13.”

Two years ago, Fish worked during Home Builders Blitz on a home for a family of African refugees who had spent seven years in camps. They contributed up to 500 hours of “sweat equity” by sweeping around the jobsite and keeping it clean, he said. Habitat for Humanity families make monthly payments on the 0 percent mortgage, which includes taxes, insurance and principal.

“It’s a good project helping people trying to help themselves,” he said. “It’s not a giveaway. They end up buying the home.”

Each home, on Southeast 171st Avenue near Grant Street, will be built to Americans with Disabilities Act standards, said Sasha Davis, director of communications for Habitat for Humanity Portland/Metro East. One of the homes will be built to accommodate a disabled man who uses a wheelchair, she said.

Three of the homes will go to Burmese refugees and one will go to a low-income American family, Davis said.

“These are really busy builders taking out more than two weeks of their time, which is huge,” she said. “They are reaching out to all their contacts to get the homes built as well.”

More information is available at .

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A building in the Cully neighborhood of Northeast Portland is being deconstructed by Jim Paulson Excavating Inc. and Habitat for Humanity‘s Building Materials Recovery program to make way for a new park. The 5,000-square-foot maintenance building and an attached 900-square-foot office were formerly used by utilities contractor Werbin West Contracting Inc. The 2.4-acre property at Northeast 52nd Avenue and Alberta Street was purchased in 2009 by Portland Parks & Recreation.

Lumber taken from the 66-year-old maintenance building will be sold at the Habitat for Humanity Restore, while old growth structural beams will remain at the site and be incorporated into the park’s design.

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Teah Laurine is a single mother with two jobs and three children. She is spending her few spare hours building a house for herself and her family in Medford.

However, she is receiving a lot of help – from a group of about 10 women volunteering through . The program has two missions. The first is to help build houses for people who might not otherwise have a chance at homeownership. The second is to teach women construction skills.

The program started in 1991 when a group of women in Charlotte, N.C., completed the first women-built Habitat for Humanity house. Now, Habitat for Humanity International affiliates across the country have their own Women Build programs. They produce houses built almost entirely by women.

“Women can come to this great community of sharing,” said Tor Ostrom, the director of volunteer programs and corporate engagement for the Habitat affiliate in Portland. “When I first started, the thing I heard over and over again from women is that the program is both supporting and empowering at the same time.”

Laurine, 34, said building her own house with help from other women has been an amazing experience. She didn’t know the first thing about construction when she started, she said. Now she knows about almost every aspect of homebuilding.

“I’ve learned a lot,” she said. “Probably the biggest challenge has been finding time to work on the house. I’ve only been able to do construction on the weekends because I work and have three children. My youngest doesn’t really know what’s going on. He’s only 2. But the others are really excited.”

The Women Build program in Medford has operated for several years, springing out of an event that local volunteers used to gear around Mother’s Day.

“Several days prior to Mother’s Day, we bring in women to teach them the trades and have them help build a house,” said Denise James, the executive director of . “We had such a great response, we thought we could have a project completed entirely by women.”

Construction on Laurine’s house started in March, and she should be ready to move in by the end of the month.

“We tried to get this house 100 percent built by women. We have had women plumbers and women electricians,” James said.

There were times when men had to be brought in on the project, she added.

“Because we also wanted this to be a learning process, when there were certain trades where we couldn’t find men (consultants), we made sure it was a learning process for women.”

The process has been more than a bonding experience for the volunteers, James said.

“Through the process, we have women’s groups that have come and helped,” she said.

Laurine said the experience has changed her life.

“It’s been an amazing experience. Half the time, I am just overwhelmed by everyone and their generosity,” she said.

Ostrom said Portland volunteers are working on half of a duplex on the corner of 171st Avenue and Division Street. Volunteers so far have raised $68,000 for the $75,000 project.

The house should be finished by March 2013, Ostrom said. The project has drawn a wide variety of volunteers, he added.

“One of the great things about Women Build is that it engages people at every age, background and skill level,” he said.

Vickie Augustine is one of the volunteers in Medford. The 52-year-old Cave Junction resident comes to Medford to work on the house Wednesdays and Fridays.

“It’s been fantastic,” she said. “I’ve worked around tools, so I am not totally green, but I am still learning as I go along.”

A lot of the women who started as volunteers have gone on to construction careers, Augustine said.

Laurine isn’t looking for a construction career; she has enough jobs already. She is just looking for a home, she said.

Like all Habitat home recipients, she is required to do a lot of the construction herself. Laurine said she is fine with that. James added that Laurine, like the overwhelming majority of home recipients, is highly energetic and emotionally invested.

“She has to commit to 500 hours of sweat equity,” James said. “She’s way beyond that.”

More information about Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build program is available at 503-287-9529 or online at .

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