TOP STORIES 

Shutdown ends, USDA gets funding for all of FY26

A compromise funding measure has ended the federal government shutdown after a record 43 days. Most agencies, including HUD, will continue to be funded at fiscal year 2025 levels through January 30, 2026, and then will need another continuing resolution or full-year appropriations. USDA (along with VA, military construction, and the legislative branch) receives appropriations for the entire fiscal year, through September 30. The bill provides full back pay for federal workers who were not paid during the shutdown. It also cancels layoffs the administration announced during the shutdown, including the RIFs of all CDFI Fund staff and over 400 HUD employees, and prohibits further RIFs until after January 30. In addition, it extends the Farm Bill through September 30 and the National Flood Insurance Program through January 30.

USDA’s final FY26 funding includes $1 billion for Section 502 direct homeownership loans, $25 million for Section 523 self-help grants, $50 million for Section 515 and $30 million for the Multifamily Preservation and Revitalization program, $1.715 billion for Section 521 Rental Assistance, and $48 million for Section 542 vouchers. Up to 5,000 RA units will be permitted to be decoupled from maturing mortgages. Details are posted on HAC’s website.

HUD offers homelessness funding with major changes

HUD’s funding notice for the Continuum of Care program, released on November 13 with a January 14 application deadline, limits each CoC to spending 30% of its award on permanent supportive housing, rather than the previous 90%. It emphasizes transitional housing and supportive services-only programs. It also adds new conditions, including recognition of strictly binary genders, and a ban on providing harm reduction programs such as needle exchanges. The revised conditions will apply to new awards and to renewal funding for existing grants, including those funded under the 2022-23 special NOFO for unsheltered and rural homelessness. Politico reports that internal HUD documents estimate the reduction in support to permanent housing will leave 170,000 currently housed people at risk of homelessness. In addition, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that one-third of CoCs will run out of funding between the January 14 deadline and the anticipated May or June award date.

Rural Voices discusses affordable housing development in rural America

Rural America needs – and deserves – more housing. In a new edition of HAC’s Rural Voices magazine, Time to Build: How Do We Develop More (Affordable) Rural Housing?, experts in the field articulate how access to resources and innovations can better enable solid decisions, strategies, and solutions for adding housing in rural communities across the nation. From the debate around using public lands to the evolving dynamics of factory-built housing, the authors share tools, processes, and advice about how to build in today’s housing landscape.

National Rural Housing Conference convenes stakeholders to “Build Rural”

Nearly 600 rural housing practitioners and policymakers came together in Washington, DC on November 4-7 for the 2025 National Rural Housing Conference. Recordings of the plenary sessions are available online, including a discussion with the CEOs of Enterprise Community Partners, Habitat for Humanity International, and NeighborWorks America. Anyone who registered for the conference can access workshop materials and other resources through the conference app or by logging into the Attendee Hub. HAC thanks our many sponsors, scholarship contributors, and partners for helping to make the event possible.

November honors veterans and military families, HAC updates Veterans Data Central

Marking National Veterans and Military Families Month, HAC’s Veterans Data Central website has been updated with the most recent information and data. Veterans Data Central is a simple, easy to use, on-line resource that provides essential information on the social, economic, and housing characteristics of veterans in the United States. This data and information can help support sound strategies and policies to help veterans.

November is National Native American Heritage Month

Information and resources are posted at https://nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov/.

RuralSTAT

Between 2013 and 2023, rural counties experienced an estimated 1% overall increase in their housing stock compared to a 10% increase for non-rural counties. HAC’s analysis reveals that rural counties experienced a relatively minor increase in new homes constructed over the 10-year period. Simultaneously, there was a substantial reduction in the existing rural housing stock. Homes built before 2013 declined by 6.5% in rural counties, compared to only a 1.6% decline for non-rural counties. This 1.62 million rural housing unit decline offset many of the 1.87 million new homes constructed or placed, resulting in an estimated 246,053 net increase in rural homes. Source: HAC tabulations of U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

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OPPORTUNITIES

Technical assistance offered to improve energy efficiency of affordable rental housing

The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy will provide free technical assistance to local governments and their community-based partners for programs that support rental efficiency upgrades while also preserving and/or expanding housing affordability. This TA can guide research, community engagement, program reviews, and development of implementation guidance, focused primarily on growing local governments’ and CBOs’ knowledge, resources, and information sharing. ACEEE will hold an informational webinar on November 18. Applications are due January 9.

REGULATIONS AND FEDERAL AGENCIES

Administration says CFPB will run out of funding in early 2026

The Justice Department has determined that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cannot draw more funds from the Federal Reserve – its usual method of obtaining operating resources – and will run out of funding within a few months unless Congress appropriates money for it. Courts have previously ruled against Justice’s interpretation of the governing statute, Politico reports, and a congressional appropriation seems unlikely.

Changes proposed to equal credit regulations

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed revisions to its regulations implementing the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which applies to mortgage lending as well as other types of lending. The changes would eliminate recognition of disparate impact claims, revise provisions related to discouraging applicants, and change standards for special purpose credit programs. Comments are due December 15.

HUD again delays compliance date for energy efficiency requirements

In April 2024, HUD and USDA adopted updated energy efficiency requirements for new construction under some of their programs. These standards have gone into effect for HUD’s HOME and Housing Trust Fund programs, but earlier this year both HUD and USDA delayed the effective dates for other programs. In July, the agencies requested comments on the standards, saying they were reviewing them again. Now HUD has extended the compliance date to May 28, 2026 for the Federal Housing Administration’s multifamily and single-family insurance programs, the Public Housing Capital Fund, and Section 8 project-based vouchers. The compliance dates for Choice Neighborhoods, Section 202, and Section 811 are extended until the FY26 funding notices for those programs are issued. HAC has supported adoption and implementation of these standards.

PUBLICATIONS AND MEDIA

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac met most 2024 housing goals

The Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, issued a report on their 2024 achievements related to housing goals, Duty to Serve goals, and funding allocations for the Housing Trust Fund and Capital Magnet Fund. Both met their single-family and multifamily housing goals, except for Fannie Mae’s single-family very low-income home purchase goal. Both also met their Duty to Serve goals, with both rated Low Satisfactory for rural housing activities.

Toolkit helps communities advocate around disasters

Resources for Disaster Response, Recovery, and Resilience: A Toolkit for Advocates and Community-Based Organizations offers communication tools that advocates can utilize before and after disasters. Published by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition, the toolkit is designed to arm organizations grappling with a disaster or preparing for a future disaster with information, enabling them to easily understand major issues that may arise during disaster recovery and respond effectively through advocacy.

Native CDFIs vary to meet their communities’ needs, survey finds

The Center for Indian Country Development at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis surveyed Native Community Development Financial Institutions nationwide. CICD reports that 94% are nonprofit organizations and 73% are independent entities rather than Tribally owned. More of them offer home improvement loans than home purchase loans (39% compared to 29%). When loans become delinquent, Native CDFIs tend to rely on nonpunitive measures such as working with borrowers to restructure their loans. More than half (52%) reported that scarcity of capital has been one of their biggest challenges. Other reported challenges include hiring staff, lack of donor awareness, lack of potential client awareness, infrastructure, geographic location, and funder requirements.

Migration offset rural population loss in many counties but is slowing

Counties outside metropolitan areas, as a whole, lost population for much of the 2010s, but from 2021 to 2024 their populations grew, according to Post-Pandemic Migration Has Reshaped Rural Population Change, a recent blog post from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The growth was driven by a sharp increase in domestic migration and a smaller increase in international migration, which together offset aggregate natural population loss (more deaths than births). Counties farther from metro areas saw smaller increases in migration than counties adjacent to metro areas. Now, the research indicates, migration is slowing while natural population loss is increasing, leaving non-adjacent counties at higher risk of near-term population loss.

HAC

HAC is hiring

HAC job listings and application links are available on our website.

• Housing Specialist | Community Builder
• Senior Asset Manager
• External Affairs Specialist
• Social Enterprise Manager
• Chief Financial Officer

Need capital for your affordable housing project?

HAC’s loan fund provides low interest rate loans to support single- and multifamily affordable housing projects for low-income rural residents throughout the U.S. and territories. Capital is available for all types of affordable and mixed-income housing projects, including preservation, new development, farmworker, senior and veteran housing. HAC loan funds can be used for pre-development, site acquisition, site development, construction/rehabilitation and permanent financing. Contact HAC’s loan fund staff at hacloanfund@ruralhome.org, 202-842-8600.

Please note: HAC is not able to offer loans to individuals or families. Borrowers must be nonprofit or for-profit organizations or government entities (including Tribes).

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