To fuel local economic and residential growth, the City of Hopkinsville is on a mission to address the lack of affordable and available housing. Real Estate Researcher Patrick Bowen conducted a study exploring local housing trends and presented those findings on Friday.
Bowen is the founder of Bowen National Research, a real estate research and consulting agency. To start his presentation, Bowen shared that he expects the total number of households in Hopkinsville to increase by around 0.1% by 2029. The projected increase comes after Hopkinsville had a slight decrease in households since 2010.
According to Bowen, Hopkinsville had 13,086 households in 2010, and by 2024, that number decreased to 12,948.
As Hopkinsville’s workforce grows, Bowen says housing is not keeping up, resulting in many local workers commuting from outside the city. Around 67% of Hopkinsville’s workforce commutes from outside of city limits.
Then on a county scale, SWK EDC Director Carter Hendricks shared that around 13,000 local workers commute from outside of the county, while around 8,000 residents travel outside of the county for work. Bowen says there’s a chance that many of those local workers would move to Hopkinsville if more affordable housing was available.
If more workers moved to town, Bowen says that means more people would be shopping at local businesses and eating at local restaurants.
More affordable housing would also encourage job seekers to search for work in Hopkinsville and promote employee retention. Bowen says 20% of local employers that were surveyed for the study shared that they are having a hard time retaining employees because of housing issues. Some employers also shared that they would hire more staff if housing issues were addressed.
Bowen also shared that many local houses have substandard living conditions or are dilapidated. He says around 300 households lack essential amenities or are overcrowded. Then, 401 homes were found to have blight, which represents 2.8% of all housing units. Bowen says most markets they have studied have below a 1% blight rate.
Bowen also surveyed community members about housing, and their responses echoed the study’s findings.
To conclude the presentation, Bowen listed some recommendations. He encourages the city to make short-term housing goals, partner with housing developers and market Hopkinsville’s needs and opportunities.
Hopkinsville Mayor J.R. Knight says the study will be a key resource as the city works to improve housing accessibility and affordability. He says the city’s Growing Home Initiative is already working to address some of the issues the study spotlighted.
The full study is available at hoptown.org/housing.