The future of affordable housing includes origami and building block units

The annual housing expo on the National Mall was more relevant than ever this year, with the cost of housing skyrocketing

In just the last five years, the average home price has gone up 38 percent from $329,000 to $410,000

This year's expo included builders who are trying to create affordable workforce housing, or homes focused on the middle class

those who have jobs essential to keeping society running but can't necessarily afford to live where they work

like teachers, police officers, firefighters, and service workers. The displays include the eco-dwelling units from Evolve Green Solutions

What makes these units unique is their structural insulated panel construction. The prefabricated panels are made of magnesium ceramic sheathing that have insulation in between

Because they're structural, there's no framing and no sheetrock, the panels are joined together to form the unit

So what we try to do is whether it's us working directly with the cities, these churches, things that people who own land or have land

or sometimes we know that we have to provide it, we want to build developments

The units cost approximately per square foot with a base model designed for single occupants between 240 and 300 square feet They can build as big as needed and go up to four stories high

Well, we'd like to focus on homeless for our smaller units and then we have workforce housing

You know, there's such a crisis across the country for workforce housing and, you know

for years they've been building custom homes across the country and the common American

has been left out of the American dream of home ownership, and we'd like to make that affordable to them

Next is a home-style aptly named Origami. The house arrives packed and flat

They unfold the walls, slide the roof in, and then add the kitchen and bathroom, which are built in a factory

The interior walls are left open for the local building inspectors to view the plumbing and electric

Once it's approved, everything is finished off. The house on display at the National Mall was built by three people in three days

The builders are based in Asheville, North Carolina, and they were inspired by a desperate

need to get resident shelter after Hurricane Helene destroyed or damaged more than 100,000

homes in the area. And after the storm hit, Helene hit us. We had to kind of rethink how we build

housing And our whole goal was how do we how can we build a house in seven days So what we designed is a site built house that we can get a building permit and move someone in within seven days The turnkey house costs

It's $80,000 for a kit that can be shipped anywhere, plus about $25,000 for local labor to put it together

Fialik believes these are perfect as accessory dwelling units, which can be built in backyards or on private property with another structure already in place

but he hopes cities will take it a step further and allow them to be sold, not just rented

So we've pushed more for like the smaller lots for smaller houses motto

which allows rather than just like financing for an ADU, creating backyard lots that can be individual owned that are designed for smaller house product

Finally, there's the apartment units built by Connect Housing Blocks based in Columbus, Ohio

The company's name pretty much sums it up. The units are built in a 630,000 square foot factory

and then lifted on a crane and put together like blocks. What makes them unique is each section of the house

is a separate block. For instance, the one-bedroom apartment is two blocks

One is the living room, dining area, and kitchen. The other is the bedroom closet and bathroom They are perfectly aligned to come together and form doorways between the two So building all of this in a factory steel the drywall it leaves the factory just like this and

gets connected together. And then that door over there is where the hallway would be. So we can

connect all the utilities that way, build it up. This was done in about 10 months. Normally this

would take about two years to do with traditional construction methods. The unit costs about $138

per square foot. They range in size from studio to three bedrooms and are stackable up to 11

stories. The key to affordability is efficiency. They use robots to help with building, including

sanding, painting, and mudding. Their workers focus on specific tasks that they specialize in

So our people know exactly where they're drilling, how they're going to create the wall structure, the ceiling structure, the utility structure, and then things can get built. So we're

doing about almost four of these a day right now. The three companies we show today have one thing

in common. They're relatively new and want to scale up. To make that happen, there are roadblocks

that need to be addressed. Regulations, zoning, public utilities, and financing. Each will need

to be a collaborative effort between companies like these and local, state, and federal government

to make it happen. I'm Ray Bogan for Straight Arrow News. For more unbiased reporting

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