HomeStretch: Building and Selling, Affordably in Michigan

"For the past ten years HomeStretch, a non-profit organization based in this northern Michigan town, has been putting on something of a magic show—building modest houses and then selling them for about half the price that a typical Traverse City home goes for. It is easy to explain why HomeStretch does this: Many working families cannot afford the price of a decent home within the city, where most jobs are. High housing prices, combined with a preponderance of lower-wage service and highly seasonal hospitality jobs, are pushing many young families out into the countryside, where land and housing are relatively cheap. But that exodus harms Traverse City. It slows the growth of year-round local businesses; worsens commuter traffic and its accompanying air and water pollution; and cuts into public school enrollment in the central city. It also is hard on the workers themselves, who must spend much of their limited incomes on the rising cost of driving a car, and lots of their time commuting instead of being with their families. "