Building Homes, Building Workforces: Inside Wells Fargo’s $5M Tour Across Five States

By Sherrell McMillan, Corporate Communications

Key takeaways

• Economic growth depends on access to affordable housing.
• Housing shortages across the country are limiting workforce growth, employer recruitment and retention efforts, and long-term economic competitiveness.
• Wells Fargo and the Wells Fargo Foundation are investing in community-led solutions that expand housing supply and strengthen the skilled workforce needed to build homes.

Wells Fargo leaders traveled hundreds of miles across America this August, meeting the people, organizations, and nonprofits working to expand economic opportunity in their communities.

During the tour, one message emerged consistently: Economic growth is fundamentally linked to affordable housing and workforce development. Employers need skilled workers. Workers need affordable places to live. And communities need both to attract investment, create jobs, and sustain long-term economic growth.

Drawing on 174 years of supporting communities, Wells Fargo was ready to act on those needs. Over five days in five states, Wells Fargo announced $5 million in philanthropic investments to support community-led efforts to expand housing supply, strengthen skilled trades, and drive economic opportunity. The investments reflect the bank's commitment to helping communities across the country address interconnected challenges and build the foundation for long-term growth.

“Through the last five days, we have seen a coalition of the willing coming together — local universities, public officials, local and regional partners showing up for the importance of affordable housing and investing in the skilled workforce,” said Jason Rosenberg, head of Public Affairs at Wells Fargo, while at a tour stop in Minot, North Dakota.

Mike Rowe, founder of the mikeroweWORKS Foundation, joined Wells Fargo on two tour stops and saw the challenges firsthand. "Everybody is paying attention to this issue," Rowe said, "but nobody has done more than Wells Fargo."

The five-state tour builds on Wells Fargo's decades of work in housing affordability. From strengthening skilled trades in Alaska to a high school homebuilding program in Montana to supporting housing innovation, Wells Fargo continues to advance communities on their path to growth.

Here’s a look at how Wells Fargo’s most recent investments across the country are shaping housing infrastructure in cities, towns, and rural areas.

Opening doors across North Dakota

For more than 27 years, Beyond Shelter has worked to ensure older adults have affordable housing. According to the nonprofit, they’ve financed 57 housing developments, creating more than 1,800 affordable homes across North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota.

When Beyond Shelter opened its older adult housing community two years ago, every apartment was leased within two months. The need for affordable housing is real.

“Quality affordable housing provides stability, dignity, and peace of mind,” said Dan Madler, CEO of Beyond Shelter.” And too many people across North Dakota are still waiting for access to it.”

In August, Wells Fargo, which has served North Dakota communities since 1885, announced a combined $1.2 million investment from the company and the Wells Fargo Foundation in Beyond Shelter and Junior Achievement North, a Minnesota-based nonprofit focused on experiential learning that drives real economic mobility.

Through a newly branded Junior Achievement pop-up classroom, the next generation of homeowners will have access to financial education and information about the requirements of homeownership.

“Housing impacts a community because it impacts people,” said Madler. “When people have a safe, affordable place to live, they experience greater stability, less stress, and a stronger sense of security. Those individual benefits then ripple outward to families, employers, neighborhoods, and communities.”

Keeping Idaho talent at home 

For students and working adults in and around Jerome, Idaho, the distance to College of Southern Idaho’s (CSI) Twin Falls campus can create real financial and personal barriers to higher education and workforce training.

That’s changing with CSI’s new LeRoy Craig Jerome Center, a 20,000-square-foot facility offering hands-on training in construction, electrical, plumbing, welding, and manufacturing trades right where students live and work. A $500,000 grant from the Wells Fargo Foundation helped make it possible.

“Idaho is growing quickly,” said Brett Madron, CSI’s Senior Director of Workforce and Economic Development. “But for years, places like Twin Falls and Jerome were seen as exporters of talent, with young people feeling they had to leave to do something amazing. The reality is that amazing opportunities exist here, too.”

Madron sees workforce development and housing affordability as closely connected.

“Building the skilled workforce attracts employers, keeps talent, creates high-paying jobs, and turns workers into homeowners. It’s a virtuous cycle.”

A feeling of ‘This is mine’ in Iowa

For most of her adult life, Emily Van Dorin felt like she lived out of boxes.

A native of Indianola, Iowa, she spent years renting, moving, and raising her son while navigating life’s challenges. A conversation with her mother led her to apply for Habitat for Humanity’s homeownership program. After completing the required volunteer hours and financial education classes, she picked up the keys to her new home.

“I went downstairs, laid on the carpet, and just cried,” Van Dorin said of walking into her new home for the first time. “I kept thinking, ‘This is mine. This is mine.’”

Wells Fargo recently announced $1.5 million in funding for Habitat for Humanity, including support for a new $1 million Rural Housing Innovation Fund that uses modular construction to reduce build timelines and expand affordable housing in rural communities nationwide. The Greater Des Moines Habitat for Humanity affiliate received $500,000 from Wells Fargo to continue helping people like Van Dorin.

“This home has helped me spread my wings a little bit,” she said, “and find my own peace.”

A Cornhusker blueprint in Nebraska

At Metropolitan Community College (MCC) in Omaha, Nebraska, students are learning homebuilding skills in a full-sized house built at the school’s construction lab. Rashad Deal, a first-generation college student, can’t get enough of the lab because it’s a peek into his future.

He represents what the Wells Fargo Foundation’s $1.25 million grant in support of MCC and local nonprofit Homewoven is designed to produce: a workforce capable of building affordable homes and future homeowners prepared to purchase them. Homewoven helps connect those two needs by offering students on-the-job experience with construction of affordable homes in South Omaha.

“I don’t plan on leaving Omaha anytime soon,” Deal said. “I intend to have a management position in some kind of residential work and my own home in the next few years. I want to be able to give back and help create affordable housing for Omaha.”

Wyoming’s concrete answer 

Jason Mackie and Aaron Resnick have long believed that quality housing is a foundation for a good life. That’s why they co-founded InOurHands — to find innovative solutions to the housing crisis.

Their answer: High Performance Structural Cellular Concrete (HPSCC), a proprietary building material that’s fireproof, wind-resistant, energy-efficient, and cost-effective.

A $1 million Wells Fargo Foundation grant to Wyoming Housing Network (WHN) is helping InOurHands put the technology to work through Goodwill Landing, a 24-home development in Casper, Wyoming, that will allow Casper College students to train on-site through the build. Goodwill Landing is intended to serve as a replicable model for future affordable housing developments across the state.

“Our goal is to strengthen Wyoming communities by providing quality resources and opportunities for people to reach their housing goals,” said Melissa Noah, executive director of WHN.

The projects look different from state to state — a training center in Idaho, Habitat homes in Iowa towns, a housing development for seniors in North Dakota, innovative construction techniques in Wyoming, and workforce partnerships in Nebraska.

Together, however, they reflect a common belief that communities are strongest when people can afford to live, work, and build their futures close to home.

Since 2019, Wells Fargo & Company and the Wells Fargo Foundation have donated more than $2 billion to strengthen local communities.

Find out how we’re investing in communities throughout America.