Come Dream Come Build Case Study
Building for Insurability, Resilience, Energy Efficiency, and Housing Affordability: Addressing the True Cost of Housing
Come Dream Come Build (CDCB) is a 50-year-old community development corporation and CDFI serving low-income communities in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas through rental assistance, housing counseling, new single family and multifamily development, rehabilitation of existing housing, disaster clean up and financing. After 40 years of stick-built single-family construction, rising costs prompted CDCB’s transition to modular construction to cut 20-25% from the cost of a house in order for someone making $35K a year to buy. In 2021, CDCB launched its first volumetric modular housing factory in a rural community outside of Brownsville, TX with support from Wells Fargo and Chase. Now employing 40 people, CDCB provides quality rural jobs and is currently building 15 homes for workers with a vision to expand.
CDCB homes distinguish themselves through affordability, construction speed, energy efficiency, and resilience. Built to the Enterprise Green Communities and FORTIFIED standards, these homes are low maintenance, highly energy efficient, and built to withstand winds of 145 miles per hour and flooding. The additional cost of more insulation and higher efficiency appliances and equipment is minimal — $3,000 to $4,000 per home — and quickly pays for itself from energy savings and incentives and grants through partners like Chase. CDCB works with partners such as the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas to provide funding for FORTIFED roofs. CDCB believes efficiency and resiliency is key to low-income families affording their house payments and utility payments in a region where air conditioning is a necessity seven months of the year and strong storms are increasingly common.
Actions state and local governments can take to accelerate similar housing projects include:
- Requiring building and energy codes;
- Requiring minimum flood elevation;
- Incentivizing developers and operators to achieve FORTIFIED or Enterprise Green Communities certifications; and
- Incentivizing new modular home factories.