Our Home Preservation program conducts repairs and accessibility modifications that help qualifying Orange County homeowners stay in the homes they already own. But what happens when a home needs such extensive repairs, it’s actually more cost effective to build a new one?

Such was the case when Habitat staff visited Kwame’s double-wide mobile home west of Carrboro. They found that a roof leak had compromised the structural framing and created a mold problem throughout the home. 

In essence, the home was “totaled” – for what it would cost to remediate and rebuild it, we could build an entirely new and higher quality home. In the past, that might have been the end of the road, but Kwame’s property presented a unique opportunity: he owned the land the house was on, there was enough space to build a new house, and all the infrastructure was in place. 

Habitat staff got in contact with Rural Studio, a design-build program within the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape Architecture at Auburn University in Alabama that focuses on innovative practices in home access, affordability, and sustainability.  

They provided the plans for a small, one-bedroom home designed to be bright, durable, functional, and energy-efficient for years to come, and thus began Orange Habitat’s first replacement project. 

This summer, contractors demolished the old home, and the Orange Habitat repairs team got to work building the new one. Now a couple of months in, they’re sheeting the roof and preparing to build the interior walls. 

This project is a pilot: to make replacement homes a regular part of our work, we’d need additional funding. But it’s good value for the money: “We’d often find ourselves in the position where we’d put in all that money [repairing a home], and it still wouldn’t be as good as a new house” in the sense of its structural soundness, safety, energy efficiency, air quality, and more, says Orange Habitat Vice President of Construction Richard Turlington.

“We see repairs as an important part of our mission,” he adds. There are only so many new homes we can build each year, but we can make existing homes in the county safer and more livable, which helps maintain local affordable housing stock. 

Our hope is that this pilot will shed light on new ways to build and preserve local affordable homes. Stay tuned as the project continues and learn more about our Home Preservation program at orangehabitat.org/repairs.