When it comes to community development, quality, safe and affordable housing in any size city or town is a must for:

• Attracting new businesses into a community

• Stimulating the local economy through construction, related jobs and new tax revenue

• Ensuring the quality of life for seniors

• Helping single parents improve their lives--and their children's future

Economic Development
Attracting new companies into a community is only one of the benefits of affordable housing. Just the process of creating more affordable housing via rehabbing existing homes or apartments or through new construction serves as an economic stimulus.

Dave Miller is the executive director of Hoosier Uplands Economic Development Corporation, a nonprofit developer of affordable housing. The 40-year-old agency is located in Mitchell, a small town in southern Indiana. Known as one of the most beautiful regions in the state, it's also one of the poorest, and is struggling to attract new businesses to bolster its economic growth.

Miller has spent nearly 20 years with the economic development organization, which has developed dozens of units of quality affordable housing in the five counties it serves. Miller says first impressions count -- especially when it comes to attracting newcomers to the community.

"For prospective employers coming into an area, one of the very first things they see is the housing," Miller says. "If you've got a bunch of dilapidated homes or apartments, it just doesn't look good."

The projects create construction jobs and often bring millions of dollars into the local economy, money that benefits many, especially in smaller communities. "I've always heard that any time a dollar comes into a community it goes around seven times," Miller says. The new developments also add to the community's tax base.

Senior Citizens
Besides economic development, Hoosier Uplands provides a range of health care and social service programs to seniors, families and individuals. Though many problems don't directly involve housing considerations, Miller says a quality, safe home -- whether it's an apartment or a house -- is always important to the men, women and children Uplands serves.

"A lot of the homes we rehab involve new roofs or furnaces for seniors," Miller says. "There's no reason a senior couple should live in a cold, leaky home after working hard all their lives." But according to Miller, many seniors are forced to choose between home repair and health care costs. "They don't have any other option."

Single Parents -- and Their Children
According to Miller, single mothers are forced into the same sort of no-win choice. "If she has one or two kids, and doesn't have an affordable place to live," Miller says, "she can't afford to work because of the daycare costs. Affordable housing lets her work." The income made from a job reduces the additional financial burden that these parents (and families) might have otherwise placed on the community's social services.

Miller insists affordable housing must be more than a low-rent house or apartment. "Think about the children living in those places," Miller says. "That's got to affect their self-esteem when the school bus pulls up. And that affects their education and everything that follows. Anything we can do to give children a nice, decent place to live in will have an impact we can't even begin to realize."