BOULDER, Colo. — The first few homes of the BoulderMOD program are getting their finishing touches in North Boulder's Ponderosa Mobile Home Park.
"We fired the first nails, the first week of February [2025], and those nails were fired by Boulder Valley School District, juniors and seniors," Dan McColley, Executive Director and CEO for Flatirons Habitat for Humanity, said as he stood in front of the first four homes being assembled.
He estimates that students in the district's building trades program "are responsible for 80% of the construction that is behind us."
Denver7 took you inside the BoulderMOD factory — where students were building modular homes inside the factory to then delivered to their location — last year to show you the beginning of a life-changing opportunity for the community.
The Follow Up
BVSD students earn school credit while building affordable housing
Mortgage payments for the homes are designed to be no more than 30% of the buyer's gross monthly income, McColley said.
"If they can afford a mortgage of $175,000, that's what they buy these homes for," he said. "The rest of those construction costs are covered through really generous families and foundations, money from the state, money from the city and money from the county to provide a home that is safe and stable and affordable for these families."
Once all the modular homes have been placed and are completed, there will be 70 in the Ponderosa neighborhood. The 35-40 families already living there will be offered the option to buy them first.
"If they want to buy one of these units, the resources are there to help them with that affordable mortgage," McColley said.
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The partnership between the school district, Habitat for Humanity and the City of Boulder has caught the eye of affordable housing advocates.
"Our focus is on finding and supporting the most promising solutions to housing affordability," Chad Reed, VP of programs and strategy at Ivory Innovations, said.
Ivory Innovations recently picked BoulderMOD as a finalist for their Ivory Prize.
"Early-adopters face challenges in financing and permitting and trade coordination," Reed said. "For the benefits of off-site construction, in terms of time and cost savings to materialize, someone has to go first, and so BoulderMOD is a model for how communities can do that intentionally."
McColley said it's humbling to be recognized, but the real prize will come once families can start moving in later this year.
"The community benefits are extraordinary," he said.
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