The city of Elkhart on Thursday celebrated efforts to add affordable housing, but officials say more is still needed.
For Heather Clark, finding an affordable home for her and her three kids had been a challenge. "I was looking to purchase a home, and every home that I could afford was crap," Clark said. "The homes that I couldn’t afford, they were nice, but, do I live in struggle my whole life to be able to afford a nice home?"
In January, her sister talked her into joining the local Habitat for Humanity program. Now, she’s set to be one of the first homeowners in Habitat’s Legacy Park neighborhood. It’ll bring 22 homes to Elkhart’s north side, with the first expected to be ready by next summer.
“This project is actually the single biggest project and the largest investment that this Habitat has made in the shortest period of time,” Habitat for Humanity of Elkhart County CEO Greg Conrad said during a ribbon cutting event Thursday.
He said Legacy Park will have a mix of ranch and two-story homes, with most having three or four bedrooms. The project has been in the works since the land was donated in 2022.
Legacy Park is part of a larger regional effort. The Habitat organizations in Elkhart, St. Joseph and Marshall counties teamed up with the South Bend-Elkhart Regional Partnership, to get $4.1 million in state READI funding. That’ll ultimately help bring 126 new homes to the three counties.
"It was a unique proposition," Conrad said. "It’s certainly the biggest thing that we’ve ever tried as a group of Habitats up here in northern Indiana."
While Habitat for Humanity aims to provide owner-occupied homes, Elkhart welcomed new affordable rental units during a separate ribbon cutting Thursday. 515 East will bring 48 new income-qualified apartments to the city’s downtown.
But Mayor Rod Roberson says more work is needed. "If you go through the listing of available housing in the city, whether you’re talking about rental or whether you’re talking about home . . . ownership, it becomes a short list," Roberson said during the Legacy Park ribbon cutting. "We want to increase those opportunities, so that we can match the demand."
U.S. Representative Rudy Yakym (R-Granger) said the federal government is taking steps to make homes more affordable. He touted the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan bill that became law this summer, despite President Trump’s refusal to sign it.
"It gets the federal government out of the way," Yakym said. "It speeds up the permitting process. It rewards local communities who take a fast-track approach to speeding up that process."
He also noted that manufactured homes no longer have to have a permanent chassis. “It’s a 50-year-old rule, and, in this bill, we removed that requirement, so that we can get more homes to market at a cheaper level,” Yakym added.
Heather Clark says she and her kids are ready for their new home in Legacy Park. She says she wakes up every day thanking God for the opportunity. "Reality hit today," Clark said. "My kids are going to have a home. We’re going to be safe. I’ve worked my whole life for this. It’s really rewarding.”
