Amid an affordable housing shortage on South Whidbey, social investors and community members have come up with a creative – and quick – solution for at least one family.

For the past six months, a dedicated group of volunteers have been hard at work, constructing a two-bedroom, one-bathroom home for a single mother and her 3-year-old son. The house will be priced below market value, allowing the homeowner to have a modest mortgage.

The new home is part of Upper Langley, a multigenerational cohousing community where the amount of value that houses can appreciate by is limited to 1.5% per year and deed restricted in order to remain permanently affordable.

The home-building effort is the project of nonprofit Whidbey Home-Raising, which is fiscally sponsored by the Whidbey Community Foundation. Whidbey Home-Raising was recently awarded the first-ever grant from the foundation’s Whidbey Affordable Housing Fund, which was established in 2024 by Dan Neumeyer, owner of JADE Craftsman Builders.

The grant award is $5,000. This funding will help offset increased construction costs associated with meeting the state’s new energy code, according to a press release.

Whidbey Home-Raising has been coordinating volunteers who have donated many hours to the construction, which includes retired carpenters and young carpenters looking to get more experience.

“On a given day we might have over 200 years of experience on the job,” Cary Peterson said with a laugh.

Peterson is the project lead and founder of Whidbey Home-Raising. A resident of Upper Langley, she purchased the lot for the new home with the help of an angel investor.

Peterson has meticulously tracked the progress of the home-raising on the website, cultivatingcommunitywhidbey.org. Recently, volunteers finished exterior work on the home, which has a welcoming front porch and a large, round window that makes it feel bigger than its 676 square feet.

“It’s like an old-fashioned barn-raising but now we’re building a house,” Peterson said.

Generous donations from the community and local businesses have helped financially support the project.

For Sierra Colby, who works at a Langley restaurant, homeownership is a dream come true.

“The market out here is tough, and for those of us in the working class, owning can feel like a pipe dream,” Colby said.

Colby currently lives in a one-bedroom apartment, and is looking forward to installing a climbing wall for her young son at their new home. The close-knit community that Upper Langley provides is also a bonus.

“I have a great deal of social support through friendships and connections here on the island, but I don’t have parental support,” Colby said. “My mother passed away seven years ago and my father hasn’t been in my life for quite some time. So to have these adults and elders who barely know me, literally building a house that my son and I will live in, has been profoundly healing for me.”

The pilot project aims to serve as a model for affordable housing solutions in the region. Peterson acknowledged that space is limited in Upper Langley, which is nearly fully built out.

“How do we go out beyond Upper Langley and find mechanisms to have deed restrictions on homes so that if they can be purchased or built below market, then they can stay below market?” Peterson wondered.

Next month, work will begin on a second affordable home in Upper Langley for another community member and his five kids.

To donate, visit cultivatingcommunitywhidbey.org/donate-2/.

(Photo by Kira Erickson/South Whidbey Record) Cary Peterson, project lead and founder of Whidbey Home-Raising, hammers a nail as she begins the blocking process for a recessed medicine cabinet.