Expanding Our Impact

The housing study completed by czb was done through a partnership between Midland County Habitat for Humanity, the City of Midland, the United Way of Midland County and Home to Stay Housing Assistance Center (formerly Midland Area Homes).

A thorough analysis of the county’s housing market assessed the need for affordable housing. czb studied data from the U.S. Census, the American Community Survey and Midland County home sales. The czb team also visited Midland in 2017 and met with stakeholders, including developers, realtors, landlords, housing services providers and members of the philanthropic community.

The Midland County Housing Analysis primarily covers financial fluctuations, population changes and housing trends between 2000 and 2015. Also, within the study a deeper data dive reveals trends from decades earlier that influence the state of the Midland County housing market today.

Midland County Habitat for Humanity is building multifamily homes in response to urban planning group czb’s recommendation for a financially efficient solution to the affordable housing shortage within the city of Midland.

MCHFH will continue to build single-family homes and revitalize neighborhoods as part of our mission and long-term plan. In response to community need, our immediate focus will be on building multifamily housing – starting with duplex, triplex and fourplex units.

MCHFH will be building duplex, triplex, and fourplex homes. These are not apartment buildings. Habitat families living in multifamily units will not be renting, but rather they will be homeowners who pay mortgages.

Multifamily housing allows us to serve more residents per square foot of property and allows us to build housing at an overall lower cost per unit. These units have many benefits for homeowners, including less maintenance for homeowners and an improved sense of community for homeowners and neighbors.

Multifamily housing units are easy to blend into the existing architectural style of surrounding neighborhoods. Even more important, they provide increased tax revenue for community improvement and enable better use of land by allowing the construction of more units on the same property.

Research has shown that multifamily housing does not lower the value of single-family housing. Instead, multifamily housing provides a viable option for affordable home ownership and economical use of land for developers.

Multifamily housing makes homeownership more affordable due to a lower cost per unit. Multifamily units also require less maintenance for homeowners – which helps offset home ownership expenses.