‘The need for new housing stock could not be greater and it is only hurting affordability.’
CLEVELAND — Cleveland is looking to attract a manufacturer of modular homes to the city in an effort to utilize numerous empty plots and tackle a serious shortage of housing.
There are around 25,000 empty residential lots scattered across Cleveland’s neighborhoods and building has almost come to a stop, according to Rick Barga, manager at the Site Readiness for Good Jobs Fund.
“We are really dealing with the effects of the foreclosure crisis,” Barga said. “The need for new housing stock could not be greater and it is only hurting affordability by not having more housing built and available for the market.”
That’s one reason why Site Readiness and the city of Cleveland are working to fill these lots with more than just traditionally built homes. This month they issued a request for proposal, or RFP, to modular home manufacturers across the county and internationally.
According to the RFP, the National Association of Realtors estimates a shortage of around 15,000 homes in the city “primarily due to the annual building rate being 30% below the historical average” and the fact that more than half of the city’s homes are over 80 years old.
The city’s goal is to build 5,000 homes in 10 years “to begin addressing this significant housing shortage.”
Standing inside a modular home in Cleveland, Greater Cleveland Habitat for Humanity CEO John Litten said, “I love to point out that the quality that you’re going to see in this house is as good or better than any traditionally built, onsite built home that you would see.”
For the first time, the organization began using modular homes to help meet the great need for housing in the area. But the closest manufacturer is 100 miles away.
“This home was brought in from an hour and a half away and we plan to work with companies out of Michigan and out of Pennsylvania and I would just love—it would be so much better if we could do that from a company building in Cleveland, Ohio,” Litten said.
Modular homes are built year-round in a factory offsite in a much shorter timeframe and then pieced together on the lot. This also makes them more affordable options. Unlike manufactured homes, they are permanent structures that follow the same coding as traditional homes built on the lot.
“There was a time in American history when we thought log cabins were the height of architectural design, right? And then 2 X 4’s were invented and we started building homes out of 2 X 4’s. This is the next evolution in home construction and what’s going to happen in a lot of neighborhoods in Cleveland is we can build entire streets,” said Councilman Kris Harsh, who serves Ward 13.
Harsh, whose background is in housing development, said Cleveland must do something to increase housing supply and curb the population decline.
“Cleveland cannot continue to manage decline. We have to have a growth mentality. We have the space. We have the room and we have the amenities to support thousands of more people in this city. We need to build housing for those people,” he said.
Barga said they’ve heard from around a dozen companies interested in coming to Cleveland so far. The deadline for companies to respond is in January. He said they hope to choose a manufacturer in 2025 and have a factory built and running by the end of 2026. The goal would be to produce at least 200 homes a year.
