New Prefabulous Affordable Homes In Canoga Park, California

With the cooperation of the US Modular and New Economics for Women Organization, (NEW) eight beautiful and efficient houses have been built in Canoga Park, CA.

Bill Cavanaught, one of the co-owners of US Modular told me that when he heard the stories of the women who needed housing and were unable to find adequate homes for themselves and their children, he went to work to try and build them the best houses possible. He says he needed to work very tightly on the budget, but wanted to include all of the amenities into these houses that he puts in all of his higher priced ones.

The motto of the NEW is “to transform the lives of the community, including Latinas and their families, with cutting edge and sustainable pathways to success.”

I had an opportunity to talk with Alicia Matricardi, Director of Real Estate and General Counsel for New Economics for Women Organization. 

How did you get involved in it? Can you tell me a little about you?

I started here as an intern in high school, and believed so much in the mission and the work of the organization that I conducted my senior thesis at UC Berkeley on affordable housing and utilized what New Economics for Women did in the thesis. I was invited to work here right after, and moved back to my hometown of Los Angeles for the position. I left that position to attend law school, and after law school began practicing in real estate. NEW needed the help of a practitioner who also knew a little something about the law, and a position was created here to bring out the best in me and I have been dedicated to doing so ever since.

How did you get US Modular involved?

We went to public bid by modular contractors about six years ago to help us with one of our single-family development projects and US Modular made for a great fit. They helped to introduce us to the world of modular construction with an understanding that we wanted to make sure that our product would fit well within a stick-built more traditional single-family community in a suburb of Los Angeles— the beautiful working-class neighborhood of Canoga Park in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.

How do you select the women to get these homes?

The purchasers were not exclusively women— though we perform outreach to make sure that women are included as potential buyers, we sell to anyone qualified! Please see the attached as an example of our soft-second program. Our grant funding enabled the sale of each of our 8 modular homes to families earning no higher than 120% Area Median Income. We attached soft-seconds to the house to reduce the cost of entry to each family, but to preserve comps in the neighborhood and not close any lower than market value for the area. We also require that the note we carry back on each home keep the home owner occupied for 20 years. Should someone want to sell, we get our soft-second back and a piece of their equity relative to the portion of the equity we carried back on the note— we want to create homeowners and not fund flippers with our precious federal funds for low- to moderate-income purchasers.

Bill Cavanaugh, co-owner of USModular Inc. says he was inspired to build these houses when he happened to meet some people involved with the New Economic for Women Organization. “At the 10 year anniversary party of the Tierra del Sol apartment project and Charter school built by New Economic for Women – I heard stories from children , young adults and mothers of the impact that having a clean, safe place to live and study made on the lives. The room was filled with cheers and tears and I knew that we had to get involved to help build homes for New Economic for Women – so they could continue on their mission to help families get into quality, affordable , housing”

Cavanaugh went on to say that in order to make this happen, “We reduced our standard fees ( OHP) by 23% to help New Economics for Women meet the requirements of the landers for the project.”

This post first appeared on Forbes.com. To see the original, click here.