Press Release: Rural Development, Inc. Home Ownership
Program
State boasts 1st
winner of “affordable green” housing award.
Rural Development Inc. earns national spotlight for low-cost
“ responsible” design and construction.
- See Home Depot Press
Release
ATLANTA 11/10/05 — A Massachusetts
affordable home ownership program has been singled out from
housing projects across the nation for its excellence in
environmentally sound design and construction. The Award
of Excellence for Affordable Housing Built Responsibly was
presented [Thursday, November 10] to Rural Development,
Inc., based in Turners Falls, Massachusetts. The presentation
took place at the Greenbuild International Conference and
Expo in Atlanta.
The competition was created by the Home Depot Foundation.
Its CEO, Kelly Caffarelli, says Rural Development’s
Home Ownership Program was chosen for demonstrating it is
possible to make design choices for single-family homes
that are both environment-friendly and affordable. “What’s
more, RDI demonstrated that the design applications can
work in virtually any housing environment. One of the ‘green’
homes they built was nestled in the middle of a busy, downtown
residential neighborhood, while others were sited in the
countryside. RDI was, in fact, the only rural program winning
an award, and all of their homeowners have low incomes.”
The Home Depot Foundation’s “Award of Excellence
for Affordable Housing Built Responsibly” was created
to identify, recognize and showcase the outstanding and
innovative work of nonprofit housing development corporations
engaged in green building construction and rehabilitation.
“Our hope is that this award — accompanied by
a $75,000 prize — will help support and draw attention
to the exemplary accomplishments of the nonprofit sector;
people already demonstrating it is possible to combine affordable
home building with the guiding principles of healthy home
building,” she noted.
Rural Development, Inc. is a non-profit created in 1991
to serve the housing needs of persons with low or moderate
incomes. It has been taking the “green building”
initiative to heart since the year 2000. All of its homes
now use a combination of passive solar heating, high-efficiency
boilers, water-conserving fixtures and landscaping, and
high quality insulation and ventilation. All are “Energy
Star Homes” and some have solar electric generating
systems (photovoltaics).
RDI’s Executive Director Paul Douglas says while he
is obviously honored to have been chosen, the honor must
be shared equally with the community partners who have helped
champion both the “green” building initiative
and shared a commitment to making home ownership a possibility
for low-to-moderate income families. Key players included:
• Western Massachusetts Electric Company
• Greenfield Cooperative Bank
• US Department of Agriculture/Rural Development
• Mass. Department of Housing & Community Dev.
• Massachusetts Technology Collaborative
• Housing Assistance Council
• The Life Initiative
• The Enterprise Foundation.
Douglas stressed that the care and effort shown by all who
actually designed and built the homes — making them
“desirable” as well as “do-able”
— made all the difference in the end, and perhaps
on into the future. “The fact that students from the
local technical school actually did a lot of the work on
one of the homes, means a whole new generation of ‘green
builders’ will now surely have an ongoing impact on
future construction throughout our region,” he concluded.
“So everybody won.”
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