JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Mayor Donna Deegan and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development officials on Tuesday announced the Jacksonville Starter Home Initiative, a demonstration project that will use modern manufactured housing to expand affordable homeownership.
“We want to make sure the people who love this city can afford to live here,” Deegan said at a signing ceremony. “The Jacksonville Starter Home Initiative is about proving that manufactured housing is not a compromise. This is a smart, modern, dignified path to homeownership.”
The city plans to use about 5 of 17.5 acres set aside for the project, officials said.
“This project is scalable not only in Jacksonville but all around the country,” Councilwoman Ju’Coby Pittman said, “District 10 has been forgotten for a long time and I would say since, our mayor has been in office, those areas that have had disparities, are now getting attention.”
Tiffany Cobb, HUD deputy regional administrator for the Southeast, said the effort began as “a conversation last August” and praised Jacksonville’s readiness to pursue “innovative housing solutions.”
She said the letter of intent signed Tuesday “establishes a framework for HUD and the city to work together to increase the supply of manufactured housing and expand affordable homeownership opportunities.”
Assistant Deputy Secretary Joe De Felice, who oversees HUD’s field operations, called manufactured housing an important part of the solution.
“Today’s homes are built to rigorous federal standards,” he said. “Every home created through initiatives like this creates an opportunity for greater stability, self-sufficiency, and long-term wealth building.”
An acting deputy assistant secretary for HUD’s Office of Housing said modern manufactured homes are produced under the national Manufactured Housing construction and safety standards, commonly called the HUD code.
“Modern manufactured housing is a proven tool to create housing at scale, to close the supply gap and provide the affordable homes this country needs,” the official said. “They can be visually indistinguishable from conventional site-built homes.”
Officials said HUD will support the project with available federal tools and explore using Federal Housing Administration-insured financing. Cobb said the goal is to create a mixed-use community that could be “ideally supported by FHA financing for homeownership, if at all possible.”
The announcement included a homeownership forum immediately following the signing, intended to gather input from residents, builders and local stakeholders about barriers and opportunities.
“This is a pilot program,” Deegan said. “If we get this right in Jacksonville, we have a model that other cities across the nation can follow.”
HUD officials emphasized the broader objective of increasing housing supply.
“We cannot solve housing affordability challenges without increasing housing supply,” De Felice said. “Increasing supply is not only about building more homes, it’s about removing unnecessary barriers that create cost and slow development.”
City and federal leaders said they hope the demonstration will show how factory-built homes can deliver high-quality, lower-cost ownership options for first-time buyers, working families, veterans and seniors.
“Today is about more than a signature on a page,” Deegan said. “It is about a city saying clearly and publicly that we believe every person who calls Jacksonville home deserves a real shot at homeownership.”