2015 Annual Report

Lee & Lucille Allen

When you walk through Lee and Lucille Allen’s front door, it feels like home.

Family photos stand on every shelf, a motif of red apples brightens every corner of the kitchen and a handmade quilt is draped over a chair.

Lee is a bluegrass musician who played with Ralph Stanley and The Clinch Mountain Boys, a retired police officer and a natural storyteller. Lucille is a hairdresser at a local funeral home, a volunteer at the nursing home and an avid quilter.

Lee and Lucille are also the very first Next Step homeowners. Longtime residents of Campton, Kentucky, they bought a new ENERGY STAR manufactured home from Frontier Housing in 2005. At the time, Next Step was still a concept that Frontier was testing regionally. As they began to see success in delivering quality factory-built housing, they established Next Step as a subsidiary to scale the program nationally. Homeowners like Lee and Lucille laid the foundation upon which the national program would be built.

Ten years later, Lee and Lucille know they made the right choice.

They recall previous homes that had such little insulation that you could see waves in the linoleum floor when the wind blew hard. In the winter, they would prop propane heaters on the walls to heat just one room.

“Frontier Housing just about saved our lives,” said Lucille. “I feel safer in this home. We’ve been here 10 years and we’ve had wind, hail, everything. And not one time have we felt this house shake.”

Their new home was built to specifications that exceeded ENERGY STAR standards. Extra insulation and energy efficient windows and appliances have increased the comfort and safety of their home while significantly cutting down on their utility costs.

“Compared to where we were, there is no comparison,” said Lee. “It’s been 10 years of good memories.”

Their home sits on a quiet street a few miles from the Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway. Their back yard slopes down to the edge of thick woods. Lucille picked out the color of the shutters, Kentucky Blue, for her basketball team, the U.K. Wildcats, which pops against the white siding. Lee and Lucille remember their excitement as they walked into their new home for the first time.

“It was like walking into heaven, I guess,” said Lucille. “I just couldn’t stay away from here when they were putting this together.”

“It was the grandest thing, it was like Santa Claus,” added Lee. “I’ve never been as happy in my life as I am now.”  

As for what’s next, Lee and Lucille plan to stay in their home, hosting family and friends until they leave for “the chili parlor in the sky” as Lee puts it.

“I’d recommend a home like this to anybody. It’s perfect to me,” said Lucille.

Community Ventures

Community Ventures is a NeighborWorks Organization based in Lexington, Kentucky with the mission to strengthen communities by helping people achieve their dreams of greater economic opportunity. They joined the Next Step Network in 2012 and have delivered 10 affordable, ENERGY STAR factory-built homes across Kentucky since joining.

Last year, an opportunity appeared for Community Ventures to collaborate with SSK Communities, a for-profit manufactured home community in Kentucky. The owner had some vacant lots and wanted to upgrade a few of his parks. The timing was perfect given that Next Step was about to roll out its new Retail Direct Program, and Myron Agnew, Director of Property Management at Community Ventures, was eager to jump on board after hearing about how the program works.

Community Ventures partnered with Clayton Homes of Georgetown, a Next Step vetted retailer, to order nine ENERGY STAR manufactured homes. After being built, these homes were installed in four SSK manufactured housing communities across Kentucky.

Throughout the project, Next Step worked with Community Ventures and Clayton Homes of Georgetown to price the homes and develop a plan for turn-key completion. When the costs came in higher than what Community Ventures’ customers could budget, Next Step worked with the retail center and its vendors to trim some off of the completion costs.

Ultimately, this program allowed Community Ventures to minimize their construction oversight and focus on what they do best: preparing and supporting homeownership-ready buyers.

“This has been a great learning experience for us, and Next Step has allowed our organization to receive an income of more than $4,000 per home to support our mission through the revenue sharing,” said Agnew. “We have sold four of the nine homes already and have several other prospects for the remaining units – and we are ready to get going on our next home orders.”

Larry Berg, Business Manager at Better Homes AHEAD: “Through our partnership with Next Step, Better Homes AHEAD has joined in the mission of ‘transforming the manufactured housing industry, one home at a time.’ Firsts this year include the delivery of new Next Step Energy Star Manufactured Homes in both Vermont and New Hampshire, a pre-1976 mobile home replacement, and our first home sited in a Resident Owned Community (ROC). The beautiful, high quality Next Step homes have exceeded our homebuyers’ expectations in quality and value. Our homebuyers can look forward to many years of reduced energy costs and low maintenance home ownership in their new Next Step homes. We’re excited for 2016 and expect our impact to grow exponentially as we continue to replace pre-1976 mobile homes, increase our impact in ROCs, and leverage our role as a Next Step Plus Network Member throughout northern New England with the installation of energy efficient Next Step Homes.

Peggy Hutchison, Executive Director at Primavera Foundation: “Our membership in the Next Step Network has had a tremendous impact on Primavera’s capacity to develop high-quality, affordable, accessible, sustainable homes for hard working families in our community. Next Step has provided us with top-notch technical assistance, training and brokering with the factory-built industry while also responding to the needs and assets of our regional market and local neighborhoods. Our partnership with Next Step has enabled Primavera to make a difference in the lives of families while adding value to neighborhoods.”

Sheila Rice, Former Executive Director at NeighborWorks® Montana: “Developing with manufactured housing is hard. Replacement of manufactured housing is even harder. Without the help of the Next Step Network, the nonprofit housing industry will never come to scale. Next Step shows us the way to do it right and saves so many hours in program development and learning the business. When it comes to manufactured housing…Next Step Matters!”

Derrick Griggs, Chief Operating Officer at Affordable Housing Alliance: “Previously AHA had taken up to 120 days to get certificate of occupancy for new homes delivered to Pine Tree. That timeline was unacceptable with so many people residing in motels or with family members…With Next Step’s input, we were able to get the CO for the first two pilot homes in less than 35 days.”

Al Gold, Executive Director at Community Resources and Housing Development Corporation: “CRHDC’s movement into factory-built homes required a support group with the expertise and knowledge to assist with the intricacies of this product. Next Step has been intimately involved in guiding us through each step of the process and they are phenomenal. Thank you for introducing CRHDC to an affordable product that we can now offer to our clients.”

• Program vs Fundraising
• Summary Statement of Activities (Revenue and Expenses)

Full audited financial statements available upon request.