HOUSING | Unsubsidized Solutions to Homelessness
Are carved-up Shotgun houses in Texas a solution to the South’s affordable housing problem?
Written By Kyle MacLellan
For the formerly incarcerated and homeless, there are few realistic options for housing. Monte Anderson’s shotgun-house model may help solve this problem—with no subsidies needed.
Monte Anderson is a townbuilder and development consultant operating in South Dallas. In 2017, he was acting as a consultant for a shotgun house renovation in Bonton, Texas. He heard personal stories of the local homeless population stuck alternating between spending a week in a hotel and a week living on the streets. Anderson was tasked with finding a solution that provided constant shelter for around $250 per month, the same amount the tenants exhausted on those intermittent hotel bookings.
Monte asked the team the simplest of questions: “How do we get them a place for $250 per month that’s nice?”
The result was the classic shotgun house, divided into mostly private spaces, and extended to allow for an additional two units to the rear of the home. Differing from the ordinary shared-housing layout (separate bedrooms with shared living space and amenities) Anderson’s design has outside access for each of the living spaces, and each has its own bathroom. Only the laundry is shared, and that requires keyed and scheduled access.

Anderson’s project was priced at $110 per square foot. Extending the roofline and adding the units to the rear of the structure proved more cost-effective than constructing detached ADUs.
In this case, the shotgun house was to be owned by one resident and rented to the other two. The monthly cost of ownership after completion was $928. After receiving income from two renters paying $250 per unit, the homeowner’s actual monthly costs decreased to a net of $428.
While it may have been otherwise impossible for an occupant with rent-worthy income to purchase the home, this model of passive post-renovation income makes that a viable possibility.
According to Monte, the model is better for use in the urban setting, but he and his team have developed a suburban model as well.
The structure is practical, making a singular space more functional and affordable for all who live there. So why isn’t this being done more?
Anderson’s model was created for a single owner and their occupants. Real estate investors who do not occupy the property alongside their tenants were not the targeted clientele. “There is very little margin to make money,” and where there is less profit, there is less interest.
But as stigmas continue to surround affordable housing and subsidized developments, privately renovated homes of this type serve as a necessary alternative.
The builders in South Dallas are currently working on three more residences using the shotgun model. Incrementally, they are changing the affordability, and accessibility, of constant shelter for the struggling population of the region.
Kyle MacLellan is Southern Urbanism’s Journalism Fellow for Summer 2023.