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JUDY WOODRUFF: But
first: Discussions about
affordable housing often
focus on big, expensive

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cities, like San
Francisco and New York.

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But what about rural America,
home to about one-fifth
of the U.S. population?

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John Yang reports on a
program improving housing
in a remote town in Alabama.

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It's part of our ongoing
series on poverty and
opportunity, Chasing the Dream.

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MARGARET "REE" ZINNERMAN,
Rural Studio Client:
Welcome to my house.

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JOHN YANG: Ree Zinnerman was
born in this tiny West Alabama
town of Newbern, and, for

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her, it will always be home.

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MARGARET "REE" ZINNERMAN: It's
a peaceful place, and I just
like sitting here watching

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it and listening to the quiet.

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JOHN YANG: Soon, for the
first time, she will move
into a real house of her own.

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For more than 40 years,
she lived in a mobile home.

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MARGARET "REE" ZINNERMAN:
That's what I was living in.

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JOHN YANG: Zinnerman's house
comes courtesy of architecture
students in Auburn University's

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Rural Studio program.

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MARGARET "REE" ZINNERMAN:
Words can't describe it.

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I couldn't believe it.

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After all these years,
something I have always
wanted was a house.

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And I was going to be blessed
with the house of my own.

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JOHN YANG: Since 1993, Rural
Studio students and faculty
have been working, studying and

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living in Hale County, Alabama.

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Some call it a lesson in social
design, using architecture
to serve the greater good.

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Rural Studio's director
is Andrew Freear.

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ANDREW FREEAR, Director, Rural
Studio: There's this sort of
feeling that everybody deserves

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good design, and whether
they're rich, poor, black,
white, pink, or green.

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JOHN YANG: Zinnerman's house
is part of the studio's 20K
Project, launched in 2005, with

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the goal of producing
residences that would cost
$20,000 to build, 20K.

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More than two dozen
different homes have been
designed, constructed
and given to residents.

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Most are one-bedroom,
about 500 square feet.

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Each design is named
for the recipient.

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There's Johnnie Mae's House,
Buster's house, and next to
Ree's House, Geraldine's House.

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That's Zinnerman's younger
sister, Geraldine Braxton.

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GERALDINE BRAXTON, Rural Studio
Client: The day he gave me the
keys to the door, I couldn't

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even open the door,
I was shaking so.

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I was happy.

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JOHN YANG: Braxton has
lived here for two years.

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The retired school cafeteria
worker loves her kitchen

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GERALDINE BRAXTON: I
like everything about
it, the way it's set up.

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I like my island in the
center of the kitchen.

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JOHN YANG: Braxton's new
energy-efficient house puts
less strain on her wallet.

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Her previous home was poorly
insulated, it cost her hundreds
of dollars a month to keep

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cool in the summer and
warm in the winter.

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GERALDINE BRAXTON: I was
spending like about $350 on
gas in the winter every month.

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JOHN YANG: Three hundred
fifty dollars a month?

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GERALDINE BRAXTON:
Every month for gas.

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JOHN YANG: While Rural Studios
is helping improve the lives
of local residents, the

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main focus is on training a
new generation of architects
whose social consciences are

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as strong as their aesthetics.

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ANDREW FREEAR: What we're trying
to do is design a home that
is easily built, and, again,

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easily maintained.

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You know, our goal is to offer
it up at some scale down the
road, but we're determined

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to do it quietly and
slowly and carefully.

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JOHN YANG: The idea is to give
students a hands-on experience
working with an underserved

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community in the heart of
the South's Black Belt.

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Hale County is one of
the poorest in the state
- - 24 percent of all
residents live below

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the poverty line, compared with
about 13 percent nationwide.

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For African-Americans in
the county, the rate is even
higher, more than 35 percent.

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And in an area short on jobs,
the population is dwindling,
dropping 6 percent from 2010

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to 2017.

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Since the students live
full-time in Newbern,
some 140 miles from
Auburn's main campus,

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they're seen not as outsiders.

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They're seen as neighbors.

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MARGARET "REE" ZINNERMAN:
I think it makes a
difference by them being
part of the community,

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because they have
really improved it.

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JOHN YANG: And they ask
their neighbors to suggest
who could use a new house.

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GWEN MELTON, Mail Carrier: And
it was just sad for anybody to
be living in those conditions

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in these days and times.

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JOHN YANG: Who better to ask
than Gwen Melton, who delivers
mail to 483 homes in the Newbern

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area every day?

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For 10 years, she's
quietly suggested potential
clients to Rural Studio.

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And how does it make you feel
when you go deliver the mail
to that new house, knowing

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what they had lived before?

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GWEN MELTON: Makes
me feel great.

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JOHN YANG: The 20K Project
began with lofty goals.

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Rural Studio associate
director Rusty Smith
oversees the project.

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RUSTY SMITH, Rural Studio:
We thought we were going
to work for a year or
two or maybe three,

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and it would solve
all the problems of
housing affordability
in the United States.

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JOHN YANG: It didn't take them
long to realize the hurdles
to doing it on a bigger scale.

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RUSTY SMITH: We're in charge
of the financing, and we're in
this place where we live, and

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we have got student labor to do
it and the faculty oversight.

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The challenges to scale, to
kind of do this outside of our
kind of operational footprint,

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are many.

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JOHN YANG: Still, they want
the project to focus attention
on the issues facing rural

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areas, not just in America,
but around the world.

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ANDREW FREEAR: It's absolutely
a Trojan horse for a whole bunch
of issues about rural living

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that we're very interested
in challenging and
being a voice for.

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JOHN YANG: For instance,
cell service in Newbern
area is spotty.

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The town's new library, designed
by the Rural Studio, is the
only place high-speed Internet

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is available to the public.

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BARBARA WILLIAMS, Librarian:
It makes you feel real good
to be able to say that we have

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a library.

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JOHN YANG: Librarian Barbara
Williams says that when the
nearby high school closed five

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years ago, the town
lost a community hub.

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BARBARA WILLIAMS: What the
library is trying to do is to
try to meet some of the needs

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of the community that are being
left, I guess left unmet with
the closing of the high school.

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JOHN YANG: Across the street
is Newbern's fire station.

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Built by the Rural Studio in
2004, it was the first new
public building in the town

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in a century.

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Pat Braxton lost his job in
2013 when the factory where
he worked the next town over

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went out of business.

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Now he's a volunteer firefighter
and Newbern's handyman.

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Before, the nearest fire
station was 15 minutes away.

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PATRICK BRAXTON, Handyman: By
having this truck right here
in Newbern, we saved a lot

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of houses.

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We saved a lot of
people's lives.

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JOHN YANG: And saved Newbern
homeowners a lot of money,
reducing insurance premiums.

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Like all of Rural Studio's
projects, style also
has function: There
are no fire hydrants

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in Newbern, so the fire trucks
carry their own water, and
have to be kept from freezing

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in the winter.

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ANDREW FREEAR: It's not just it
looks funky and it look cool.

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It's very much about making
sure that those fire trucks
don't freeze and that that space

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is temperate
throughout the year.

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JOHN YANG: Ree Zinnerman gave
students free rein to design her
house, except for one detail.

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MARGARET "REE"
ZINNERMAN: A red door.

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And my momma always loved red.

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JOHN YANG: For Zinnerman, the
greatest relief is simply having
a well-designed, well-built

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house to live in.

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For Rural Studio, it's
about more than just
solving a housing problem.

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RUSTY SMITH: Solving problems
sort of imagines the future as
broken and it needs to be fixed.

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I don't think there's
anything broken here.

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But there's some really
significant purposes
that need to be served.

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JOHN YANG: A lesson for
students in helping an
underserved community
and helping the community

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learn how to better
serve itself.

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For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm
John Yang in Newbern, Alabama.