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TAINA'S RESIDENT SUCCESS STORY Taina Curry devoted herself to raising three daughters as a single mother, doing whatever it took to provide for her family. It was a constant financial struggle. But even as her children reached adulthood, stability remained out of reach. In 2009, Taina followed her youngest daughter to Missoula. They rented a place together for a short period of time and attended the University of Montana, where Taina earned her degree in education. “I rented with my best friend for three years after that,” she said, “but then I had to go down to Texas to take care of my elderly parents.” After her parents passed away, Taina decided to return to Missoula. Her youngest daughter had settled on a small farm in Florence, her other two grown-up daughters were living in the San Francisco area and her former roommate had fallen ill and moved in with her sister in Spokane. With no close friends or family left in town to share housing costs, Taina was on her own. “When I came back in 2018 everything was really expensive,” Taina recalled, “so I had to rent rooms. That just didn’t work out. It was a long, hard road trying to move back here and not having a roommate to come back to.” Finding stable housing became a relentless challenge for Taina. Some landlords backed out of agreements, while others raised the rent beyond her means. The longest she managed to stay in one place was a [...]

NEW BILLINGS DEVELOPMENT TO LEVERAGE INNOVATIVE CONSTRUCTION METHOD Homeword, in collaboration with Homefront, is bringing much-needed affordable housing to Billings with its latest development, LB Lofts. This innovative multi-family rental community will provide 101 safe, healthy and affordable homes for local residents. Utilizing a hybrid modular construction approach—combining modular components with traditional stick-built framing—LB Lofts is designed to deliver high-quality housing efficiently and sustainably. A key feature of the project is its use of PODS (Premanufactured Overhauled Dwelling Solutions), an acronym created by the design team working on the development project. The PODS are modular units originally built as temporary housing for workers in the Bakken oil fields but have since become surplus inventory. Instead of being discarded, these one-bedroom, one-bathroom units have been transported to Billings, where they will be repurposed as building blocks for modern, permanent homes. “HomeFront had an opportunity to acquire these modular units, and we are thrilled to help convert them into homes our fellow Montanans can afford,” said Heather McMilin, Homeword’s project development director.  “We are prioritizing the valuable components of the units and working with High Plains Architects and their team to maximize their value. In these challenging economic times, this type of adaptive reuse for efficiency is critical.” The LB Lofts project emphasizes sustainability, aiming to divert raw materials from landfills by maximizing the reuse of materials from the PODS. The modular units will be integrated into newly constructed spaces that enhance their structural performance and energy efficiency. Additional construction will [...]

ALISSA'S HOMEBUYER SUCCESS STORY Alissa Anderson, a wildlife technician, spent years living a seasonal, transient lifestyle before buying a house in Columbia Falls. “I moved three times a year from friends' houses to bunkhouses for seven years,” said Alissa. “Then I did grad school and was able to find year-round employment.” After graduate school Alissa lived in Missoula. Paying more than 30% of her monthly income on rent, she found it hard to make ends meet. It made sense to Alissa to explore the option of buying a home so that she could begin investing the money she was paying in rent into a home instead. “It always seemed like this really daunting, big, scary thing. Personally, I liked taking the class in person. Having that community support is nice.” In 2023, Alissa registered for an in-person Get Ready for HomeOwnership class with Homeword, getting to know people in class with similar goals and reconnect with former classmates she hadn’t seen since she was an undergraduate student a decade earlier. The homebuyer class walked her through the steps of how to select a lender, how to determine home prices she could afford, the differences between loan products available, working with a real estate professional, understanding home inspections and insurance and more. “I’m single, so I was trying to figure all of it out on my own,” she said. “The class was super helpful for me, and I really appreciated that it was affordable. That definitely decreased the barrier for [...]

WHAT I LEARNED AS A HOMEWORD INTERN My name is Keira Skovlin, and this summer I had the honor of working as the fundraising and communications (FunCom) intern at Homeword. In just two short months, I learned about Homeword’s many functions as a nonprofit: rental homes for Montanans living on lower incomes, financial skill building courses, financial counseling, and homebuyer education. During the first few weeks of working at Homeword, I met with each staff member to learn about what they do in their positions and to gain an understanding of Homeword’s different moving parts. Prior to this internship, I knew about Homeword and its mission, but I did not know about the inner workings of Homeword or its challenges. Over the course of my internship, I learned important details about the organization and how it operates. Homeword is devoted to making homes not only Montanans can afford but also sustainable and energy-efficient. As the FunCom intern, I focused on working in Homeword’s database. I imported data and constituents from conferences, community events and past financial skill building and homebuyer education courses. I also spent a great deal of time working through duplicates in the database, clearing out faulty or unnecessary data. I appreciated gaining experience working with data at Homeword that I can apply to my future studies as an economics major and in my career after college. I also helped with communications projects, learning about Homeword’s branding guidelines and assisting with PowerPoint presentations. To promote Homeword’s event [...]

TRINITY APARTMENTS RESIDENT SUCCESS "Trinity Apartments has been home to my family for the last year and a half. My children and I needed a safe place to call home in Missoula. The housing crisis in Missoula put our family at risk of homelessness, leaving me feeling scared, alone and navigating a rental system on my own that is at odds with lower-income families. "When I found out about Trinity and put myself and my two children on the waitlist, I did so knowing that my chances of getting a home were probably low due to the sheer number of families in need of housing. After many late-night prayers, phone calls, paperwork and faith that something would work out for us, when our name came up and I signed the paperwork and got the keys to our new home, it felt too good to be true. I will never forget walking into our brand-new apartment for the first time and knowing that so many new happy memories were about to unfold in this new home that was now ours to call home. "For the last year and a half, Trinity Apartments has been the safe home we needed for so long. The security of the front door being a key fob system and the cameras around the property allow me to breathe a little easier, as safety was priority for my kids and me. We go to sleep at night knowing we are safe and secure. This has allowed [...]

HERE COMES THE SUN: SOLAR AT HOMEWORD'S PROPERTIES Summer is in full swing, and naturally our thoughts turn to all the ways we benefit from the season’s sunny days. Barbecues, playing on the river, camping and otherwise spending time outdoors come to mind—but, most importantly for our organization, so does solar energy. From Missoula to Malta, Billings to Butte, Homeword makes the most of Montana’s long summer days by harnessing clean, renewable energy with solar technology. Seventeen of Homeword’s 29 multi-family residential properties in Montana generate some of their own power with solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. These systems contain solar panels, inverters and other mechanical hardware to absorb sunlight, converting it directly into electricity. It does not produce harmful emissions or pollutants, so its use can significantly reduce carbon emissions that contribute to climate change. Altogether, Homeword’s solar arrays can produce up to 734 kilowatts in an hour at peak operating conditions, supporting 1,088 homes in 10 different Montana communities. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average U.S. household uses about 30kWh per day. That means our solar generating power could potentially provide all the electricity needed for more than 24 homes. The first solar array we included in a development project was at Gold Dust in Missoula in 2003.  At that time, the architects hadn’t yet embraced the good looks of a roof-mounted solar system, so the panels were installed flat on the roof so that they couldn’t be seen from the street.  Everyone quickly realized [...]