{"id":23566,"date":"2025-02-13T17:14:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T00:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-based-higher-purpose-homes-awarded-590k-in-reimbursement-money\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:38:52","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:38:52","slug":"durango-based-higher-purpose-homes-awarded-590k-in-reimbursement-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-based-higher-purpose-homes-awarded-590k-in-reimbursement-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango-based Higher Purpose Homes awarded $590K in reimbursement money"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Higher
Higher Purpose Homes building a home. (Ethan Deffenbaugh\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A panelized housing construction company out of Durango called Higher Purpose Homes was awarded up to $590,000 in the form of reimbursements from the state to bolster its operations.<\/p>\n

The award came from Colorado\u2019s Innovative Housing Incentive Program on Feb. 6. \u201cto support the development of the off-site construction industry and create more housing at a lower cost,\u201d according to a press release<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Buena Vista-based VeroTouch Construction<\/a> was the other recipient and secured up to $618,000 in reimbursements.<\/p>\n

The money is to be spent over three years and will help Higher Purpose Homes construct 95 units. Already, it\u2019s constructed a handful of houses in La Plata and Montezuma counties.<\/p>\n

To be sure, the award isn\u2019t a grant, so it\u2019s not money \u201cthe state just hands over to us,\u201d said Ethan Deffenbaugh, cofounder of Higher Purpose Homes.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Workers
Workers at Higher Purpose Homes at the job site constructing an affordable, panelized home. (Ethan Deffenbaugh\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cJustifiably so, we have to prove that what we spent our money on \u2026 is dedicated to providing housing to the community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Higher Purpose Homes is dedicated to providing affordable housing in this corner of the state, according to its website. Deffenbaugh said the reimbursement award will curb their costs and ultimately support that initiative:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt makes our efforts to provide affordable housing solutions to our community more affordable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He specifically thanked the Region 9 Economic Development District<\/a> in helping secure the award.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially Shak Powers, who proves day in and day out that he cares about our community and is actively helping to make it a better, more affordable place to live,\u201d said Deffenbaugh.<\/p>\n

Powers, the regional projects manager at Region 9, said that from an economic development standpoint, manufactured housing \u201cmakes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

He equated the economy in this corner of the state to a three legged stool: One leg is agriculture, the second is oil and gas, and the third is tourism.<\/p>\n

Plus, we\u2019re in an \u201cideal location for manufactured housing\u201d because the area is natural disaster-free, as far as floods, hurricanes and tornadoes go.<\/p>\n

Simply put, the need for affordable housing is \u201cmassive\u201d \u2013 \u201cit\u2019s too difficult to stick build our way out of this\u201d \u2013 and<\/em> it\u2019s a way for the area to diversity its otherwise limiting three legged stool, said Powers.<\/p>\n

Therefore, Region 9 supported Higher Purpose Homes in the initial application for this money.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to know that our goal is \u2026 to provide our neighbors with a less expensive house, apartment, town home, commercial building, etc.,\u201d Deffenbaugh said. \u201cWe are part of this community and feel compelled to help reduce the cost of housing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

one of two recipients in the state <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,475,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78181,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23566\/revisions\/78181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23566"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}