Herreid, a town of about 400 people on the South Dakota side of the North Dakota border, has pushed a housing-focused revitalization effort that local leaders say is now feeding broader growth in services and jobs. Dick Werner, a retired banking executive and president of the Herreid Area Housing Development (HAHD), said the work addresses a basic constraint for small communities: without places to live, new residents and workers have fewer reasons to arrive and stay.
Werner said his interest in housing development grew out of returning to his hometown in 2016 and finding changes that threatened the town’s stability. He described the closing of the local grocery store and noted that the school population had fallen to 109 students, just above the threshold where state law requires dissolution of the school and assimilation into a larger nearby district. “If you lose your school and your grocery store, your town is in trouble,” Werner said.
He also pointed to the long-term demographic decline that preceded those changes. Herreid’s population peaked in 1960 at 767 people and has fallen since, reaching 416 in 2020, according to the U.S. Census, with school enrollment dropping as the population grew older and fewer families with children made the community home.
Because private housing projects often struggle in remote areas, Werner said Herreid relied on grants and local donors rather than expecting developers to build for typical market returns. He said HAHD and related partners obtained $2.2 million in grants over the past decade to support land acquisition, materials and construction, as well as rehabilitation of existing homes and businesses. Werner said the funding also supported municipal amenities including a pool, playground and sports complex, with funders including the South Dakota Housing Authority; U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development; the Land, Water and Conservation Fund; Grow South Dakota; the South Dakota Community Foundation; Wellmark Foundation; WEB Water; CoBank; MDU Resources; Campbell County Bank; Federal Home Loan Banks; and Homes Are Possible Inc. in Aberdeen.
Werner said HAHD also created local financing capacity by soliciting loans from 30 residents who supported future growth, generating about $180,000. He added that the group raised more than $250,000 through fundraising events, including $200,000 from a Queen of Diamonds raffle program held in a local tavern. “You just have to know where to get the money,” Werner said. “You’ve got to have connections and partnerships, but it’s important to know that there are resources across the state to help your community.”
Werner said the housing projects HAHD advanced include five speculative homes that were sold before completion and brought 25 new residents to town. He said HAHD also helped new residents finance single-family and twin homes through the state Governor’s House program, in which houses are built by prison inmates. He said the organization acquired 16 apartment units that are fully occupied, and that its next planned project is construction of a new three-unit apartment building for which he said it landed $700,000 in grants. Werner added that HAHD helped pay for improvements to 18 existing homes and is trying to sell and support single-family homes on eight lots north of downtown that already have sewer and water lines, offering the full-size lots for $7,000 and offering buyer assistance to keep construction and mortgage costs low.
Melinda Neeley, president of the Herreid Economic Development Corp., said the town’s housing expansion helped stabilize the local economy and encouraged new residents and businesses. She told News Watch that Herreid now has a grocery store, medical clinic, pharmacy, bank, day care, livestock yard, diesel repair shop, and hardware and feed store, and she described tax money, grants and local donations as part of the funding for a $200,000 sports complex, a $145,000 upgrade to a downtown playground, and a $1.1 million municipal pool upgrade, as well as a $20,000 addition of local pickleball courts. Neeley said the local K-12 public school completed a $4 million addition and renovation project.
Neeley said the rebuilding also helped attract employers or strengthen existing ones, including Pig Improvement Co., Agtegra Cooperative, and area ranchers and farmers, plus agricultural supply and trucking companies. She said the volunteer development group owns land lots that it makes available for development at low cost and rents some downtown buildings at reasonable rates to lower business entry and operating costs. Neeley also said the group has taken steps to create succession plans for business owners who plan to retire or leave town, and that it tries to provide affordable rent and other assistance to improve viability for new businesses and for new ownership. “If they had to purchase the building, the cost would be much greater,” Neeley said. “The loss of a single business could make a huge impact on our sales tax collection and the housing progress we’ve made.”
Even with the improvements, Werner and other residents described remaining limits in who the town can attract and how quickly it can grow. Kayla and Preston Huber moved to Herreid seven years ago, and Kayla Huber said she opened a grocery store called Fresh Start Market after arriving when the town lacked a grocery store and had limited food options within driving distance. She said she and her husband downsized into a double-wide trailer house that they renovated because housing options were almost non-existent at the time. “We got lucky when we moved back because there weren’t many options (for housing),” she said, while Preston Huber said the housing efforts have been “definitely great to see” as a business owner.
Werner predicted that Herreid’s population will rise in the 2030 census, which would be the first increase in 70 years, and he said calculations suggest enrollment at the Herreid school could reach about 150 in the next four years. He said some of the population growth has come from about 40 Hispanic residents in the state on three-year federal work visas, some of whom have purchased homes in Herreid, and that the town has also attracted several Hutterite families that have moved to town in recent years. Werner said small rural communities need persistence and commitment to keep projects moving, saying housing development is “a marathon, not a sprint,” and arguing that once results become visible, critics lose momentum.