Can These $20,000 Houses Save the American Dream?

Rural Studio, an undergraduate program of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture at Auburn University, has been working since 2005 to create affordable housing.

Their plan has been to design a house that could be purchased for $20,000. They found that housing currently at this price (think trailer park) depreciated and they wanted to create homes that would appreciate in value. They chose $20,000 because "it would be the most expensive mortgage a person receiving today's median Social Security check of $758 a month can realistically repay. A $108 monthly mortgage payment is doable if you consider other monthly expenditures."

The work has centered around Hale County, Alabama where 43 percent households living under the poverty line are made up of people living alone.

They are currently developing a two-bedroom 20K House, testing larger and expandable models.