Build it and they will come.

The line from the movie Field of Dreams isn’t entirely the solution to the growing problem of the lack of workforce housing in the Huntsville metropolitan area.

But it is a start, according to city officials and business leaders who attended a meeting hosted about the issue by the Huntsville Committee of 100.

“Supply isn’t the only cure,” said Dennis Madsen, the city of Huntsville’s manager for urban and long-range planning. “But supply is part of it. We need to put units on the ground, plain and simple. To make sure you are getting folks at the lower end of the wage scale, in some cases you’ve got to be more creative about it. But step one is to get more housing on the ground because we have more people moving here.”

But that is easier said than done, as evident by what kind of construction is going in the Huntsville metro. The vast majority of construction of single-family homes, townhomes and apartments in Huntsville is likely more expensive than what nurses, teachers, autoworkers and law enforcement officers can afford, Madsen said.