The affordable housing need in Washington State is staggering and increasing every day. Recent estimates on the state’s housing shortfall from the Department of Commerce show that we will need 1 million more homes over the next 20 years. This has forced families to move further from employment and other opportunities which negatively impacts their health a wellbeing and increases carbon emissions which exacerbates climate change.
This sustained growth in housing need means we must double down on proven strategies and create new breakthroughs.
Grass roots advocates, city staff, and elected officials statewide are working to allow more housing to be built in more places; however, even if the challenges of land use policy and funding are addressed, the state lacks the capacity to construct housing at the pace and quantity the crisis demands.
A solution to this capacity shortfall is offsite, prefabricated modular construction which has the potential to decrease construction cost and time.
While modular prefab has existed for decades it has yet to be embraced at scale. There are currently no large-scale modular prefab plants in Washington State. The Offsite Construction Task Force (OCTF) seeks to support the development of a plant in Washington State and significantly expand the construction of prefabricated modular affordable housing, while concurrently providing construction job training and economic development in areas of the state that have yet to benefit from economic expansion.