Business View Magazine | March 2018

154 turned out.We have averyhealthyhousing market,yet it’s still averyaffordable one; themedian home value inMoorhead is $177,000.” “These are homes that will never be built again,”Mahli explains.“These investments are significant enough so that a lot of this affordable,pre-war housingwill last another 50 to 100years.It’s a great wayto preserve our older,affordable housing stock.” “We also have a strong partnershipwith our local chapter of Habitat for Humanity,” Bode says.“We workto donate or transfer at least one property lot a year to that organi- zation.And,oftentimes,these are blighted properties that the city clears tomake space for newfamilies that ultimatelyadd to the city’s taxbase.” In one recent case,however,Moorhead found itself in the position of not building, but actuallydeconstructing homes.That happened as a result of the record-breaking floods that submerged partsof Moorhead and Fargo in 2009,2010,and 2011,when the Red River significantlyoverran its banks. “After that time,the CityCouncil and the State of Minnesota invested a tremendous amount of resources in acquiring themost vulnerable homes and building flood in- frastructure that would help us keep our community in business when river flooding happens-as it inevitablydoes,”Bode re- MOORHEAD, MINNESOTA