‘We need housing’

Editor’s Note: This is the second story in a series examining the top stories from 2025 through a forward-thinking lens.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition has found that 25% of Iowa renter households are extremely low income and that the state faces a shortfall of more than 58,000 homes.

These are just some of the challenges facing Iowa households but for some time, Greenfield planners have identified a more immediate concern: a lack of places for residents to live.

Large employers have long noted that many of their employees commute from other communities. Planners have said that encouraging those commuters to live locally would provide a significant benefit to the community.

The May 2024 tornado further exacerbated the issue as hundreds of residential dwellings were destroyed.

Since the tornado, the disaster recovery team and many others continue to work to identify solutions to these challenges.

“We need housing,” local property owner Luke Daughenbaugh said. “I probably get between five and seven calls a week from people needing housing in this area.”

Daughenbaugh is one of several landlords who took a significant hit to their housing inventory as a result of the tornado, losing eight total units: a four-plex, a duplex and two single-family homes.

He rebuilt one home with the intention of using it as a rental; however, the realtor he was working with had a client who wanted to add a breezeway to the garage and Daughenbaugh ultimately sold the home to them.

In addition, Daughenbaugh has reinvested insurance proceeds on different occasions into other properties, rehabilitating dilapidated homes and creating additional housing.

Daughenbaugh was one of four property owners to qualify for an emergency catalyst grant which helped support the development of five new upper-story apartments on the square.

“There were several people who own buildings around the square who were selected to be part of this program and luckily I was one of them,” Daughenbaugh said. “While we were at it, I went ahead and added a two-bedroom apartment on the main floor as well so that’s three more apartments for Greenfield residents. I’m glad to be getting some of this back.”

Clay Winkelmann is another property owner whose company, CRWW Properties, was awarded a disaster recovery housing development grant that resulted in 19 new rental units in Greenfield.

Winkelmann and Daughenbaugh share another distinction: both were involved in relocating homes from outside of Greenfield into town.

Winkelmann’s project came first, moving a home from Highway 92 between Greenfield and Fontanelle along a six-mile route over country roads to a site on East Iowa Street Extension. Standing in the kitchen of one of those units last week, Winkelmann explained that he converted the home into a duplex. He hopes both units will be occupied within weeks.

Though he owned property prior to the tornado, Winkelmann — who also owns Wireman Electric and Wireman Services — said he was motivated to acquire additional properties after some of his employees were displaced by the storm.

“It’s my way of trying to help a little bit,” Winkelmann said. “I don’t know how many units were taken out but most of the rental houses that were destroyed haven’t been rebuilt. My intention was to have this done much sooner but that didn’t happen. I was hoping to have it ready about a year ago to really benefit people — but better late than never.”

Winkelmann recalled that while traveling down Highway 25, the house took up “every square inch of the road.” Once it arrived at its new location, the moving company transferred the home from dollies to its foundation and interior renovations began. The inside today appears vastly different than it did before.

Winkelmann also recently completed renovations on a home across from Greenfield Home Store on Highway 92, converting it into a four-plex.

“That one’s intended to be a little more of a luxury apartment,” Winkelmann said. “This one was intended to be fast, efficient and reasonably priced. I’m pretty proud of it for that reason — I just wish I could have finished it sooner.

“I have high hopes of being able to help,” he added. “It still doesn’t feel like it yet because I’m just now getting to the point where people can move in and enjoy it.”

Daughenbaugh’s father, Alan, also relocated a home, moving it from east of Greenfield on Stuart Road into town, using the same movers from Nebraska Winkelmann did, using the same process. He added a basement and is finishing two additional bedrooms, a bathroom and a laundry room below along with two bedrooms and a loft on the main floor.

“It’ll be a nice four-bedroom, two-bath house for someone,” Daughenbaugh said, clarifying that it will be a rental.

Greenfield Community Development Director Stacie Eshelman said the tornado qualifies Greenfield for additional scoring points under two housing tax credit programs available through the state’s ongoing disaster recovery effort. The first is the low-income housing tax credit program and the second is the workforce housing tax credit program.

The low-income housing tax credit program is designed to encourage the development of affordable rental housing for low-income families and individuals by offering tax credits to qualifying developers. The workforce housing tax credit program prioritizes projects that reinvest in communities by rehabilitating or redeveloping abandoned, vacant or dilapidated properties, providing incentives for revitalization.

These programs are in addition to efforts by Habitat for Humanity which partnered with two Greenfield families who are now living in newly built homes.

Many others have either moved back into their rebuilt homes or remain in the rebuilding process.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of progress continuing to unfold in the community.

The Greenfield Community Development Corporation has previously attempted, so far without success, to identify available land around Greenfield for a housing development and those efforts continue.

“Limited availability of developable land has historically been a challenge for housing development in our community,” Eshelman said. The community development office encourages individuals interested in development grants or in selling land for housing development to contact the office at 641-743-8444 or by email at director@greenfieldiowa.com.

Both Winkelmann and Daughenbaugh said housing must continue to be a priority for Greenfield.

“We’ve got to keep marching forward and try to create more housing,” Daughenbaugh said. “There are people looking to buy but what I’m seeing is that many people coming to work in this area need rentals so we need to focus on expanding rental properties.

“We have a lot of people coming from out of state — and even out of the country — to work at Cardinal Glass and they all need a place to stay. Those are some of my best tenants. They’re grateful to have a job, grateful to have a place to live and they’re good people to work with.”