The Ecumenical Housing Development Group (EHDG) and Newbury Living were presented this month with the “Multi-Family Developer of the Year” award by the Iowa Finance Authority during its Housing Iowa Conference.
That honor was among several awards handed out Sept. 3 at the 2025 conference in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The IFA awards recognize programs, projects and professionals that are setting the standard for innovation and leadership in advancing housing opportunities for Iowans.
Categories included Single-Family Development, Multifamily Development, Innovation, Special Needs Development, the Mark Sertterh Friend of Housing Award and the Kay Anderson Friend of Iowa Award. Each year, nominations are accepted statewide and judged by an independent panel.
In its news release, the IFA said this about New Horizons, EHDG and its partner Newbury Living:
“This scattered-site rehabilitation project revived 21 deteriorated properties, including 12 duplexes, five single-family homes, two row houses and two small apartment buildings. 
Ecumenical Housing Development Group and Newbury Living transformed them into safe, modern homes, offering a replicable alternative to large-scale, centralized affordable housing.”
The award nomination application submitted by EHDG President Sam Moyer, called New Horizons a “a bold reinvention of affordable housing delivery: a scattered-site rehabilitation encompassing 21 properties across diverse neighborhoods in Davenport, Iowa.”
The joint project was “carefully integrated into existing residential blocks to preserve community character and avoid concentration of poverty,” the development group said.
It was innovative, EHDG added, because it took on “what many would avoid: challenging properties spread across multiple locations,” many of which were sold by the City of Davenport because of long-term maintenance issues.
Newbury Living, EHDG’s partner, manages more than 50 properties throughout Iowa and South Dakota. EHDG reported that all 45 New Horizons units were fully leased by Dec. 30, 2024. They have continued to operate with zero vacancy.
QC builders make it work
In its nomination, EHDG also credited a trio of Quad Cities general contractors who worked together to manage a construction timeline across the individual 21 properties and 45 units. Those contractors were: Precision Builders of Bettendorf, Wolfe Contracting of Muscatine and Mullanack Builders of Buffalo, Iowa.
The nonprofit low-income rental housing developer also said that in taking on the project, “EHDG and Newbury Living saw not a liability, but an opportunity to transform these sites into safe, efficient, modern homes – while embracing complexity that most developers would avoid.”
New Horizons’ success also required “extraordinary coordination and creativity.”
That included:
- Processing 38 separate change orders, including dealing with hidden sewer failures and structural issues across multiple sites.
- Managing logistics of a scattered-site project involving 21 separate ALTA (American Land Title Association) surveys, architectural plans, appraisals, site plans, camera systems, and more managed collaboratively by Newbury Living and EHDG.
- Weekly project team calls among 10 core contributors, and Newbury’s boots-on-the-ground maintenance team absorbed tasks beyond the construction scope to keep things moving and tenants supported.
The project itself addresses critical housing needs such as a shortage of four-bedroom units for large families. Filling that need also aligns with IFA’s strategic priorities, EHDG said. The project also created much-needed Americans with Disabilities Act-accessible housing and addressed a severe shortage of affordable housing in Davenport.
All 45 affordable units are rented to families earning at or below 60% the Area Median Income. And since opening, New Horizons has moved three families who had been experiencing homelessness into safe, stable homes. That includes two families that had been living in their vehicles, EHDG reported.
Importantly today, the EHDG nomination said, “residents report increased satisfaction, stability, and pride in their homes – demonstrating the transformational potential of affordable housing done right.”
