History of Housing Hub

Housing Hub began in 2022 to improve access to affordable and healthy housing, with the shared belief that access to safe, healthy, and affordable homes is necessary for communities to grow and flourish.

Housing Hub's founding partners gathered around the complex issue of developing solutions to address the lack of affordable housing in Grundy, Marion, and Franklin counties in Tennessee. These founding partners include Mountain T.O.P., BetterFi, Housing Sewanee, green|spaces, and the South Cumberland Learning and Development Center at the Little-Partin Center in Tracy City, TN.

Funded by a grant from the South Cumberland Community Fund, the original Housing Hub was conceived as a central repository, or hub, of housing-related resources. But what we learned is that a repository of information about sources of funding for repairs, lower cost-mortgages, or other housing affordability information is not enough.

The South Cumberland Community Fund’s Community Development Committee encouraged the development of a Housing Working Group to dive deeper into the housing needs on the Plateau and how to begin to meet those needs. Members of that original working group are listed below:

A Community Strengths and Needs Assessment commissioned by the community partners identified above, demonstrated the need for more than 650 homes in Grundy County alone; those responding to the surveys and focus groups emphasized their desire for single family homes in a setting where they could continue to rely on the friendship and support of their neighbors and community.

What evolved was a newly configured Housing Hub that includes, in addition to building affordable homes, mentored navigation of the path to mortgage eligibility and a commitment to workforce development so that the youth on the Plateau can continue to enjoy living in the beauty of the plateau while building a career and engaging in the community.

The newly configured Housing Hub is now a 501(c)3 with a mission to provide:

• Affordable homes

• Homeowner education, and

• Workforce development.

Housing Hub opened its offices in the Littell-Partin Center in Tracy City in June 2024. And, like the original Housing Hub, our organization remains committed to serving the community in the spirit of with us not to us.