South Bend – Elkhart Regional Housing Collaborative

Imagine the struggle of a family bouncing back and forth between temporary living arrangements. Children move schools. Commutes become unpredictable. Life becomes more difficult.

Now imagine driving through your neighborhood and passing a house with broken windows, overgrown weeds, and a roof caving in. Nobody lives there. Nobody has in years.

For too many families and in too many neighborhoods, those aren’t things that need to be imagined. They’re reality.

In 2025, we wanted to imagine something different: Houses fixed up, neighborhoods restored, and more families in more homes across Michiana. That’s why we partnered with the Community Foundations of Elkhart and Marshall Counties to start the South Bend – Elkhart Regional Housing Collaborative, and we’re excited to help make affordable housing more attainable for hundreds of families across the region.

A problem too big for one entity to solve alone

Across St. Joseph, Elkhart, and Marshall Counties, communities face a deficit of more than 15,000 attainable housing units: homes that working families, first-time buyers, and people with modest incomes can actually afford. At the same time, more 2,000 blighted properties are scattered across neighborhoods, draining public resources and dragging down the communities around them.

Thanks to a $20 million grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. and the cooperation of leaders from nonprofit and municipal bodies in all three counties, the Regional Housing Collaborative is creating sophisticated and sustainable tools to help spur new development, help families buy homes, and help keep homeowners in their homes longer.

This isn’t just about siding and windows. It’s about more kids growing up in stable environments, young families building long-term success, and more people laying their heads down in a place that feels like home… because that’s exactly what it is. The RHC exists because people  deserve safe, affordable places to call home and because the communities they live in are stronger when they do.

Learn more at macog.com/regional-housing-collaborative.html.