Contact: Leslie Strauss, leslie@ruralhome.org, 202-842-8600

USDA Closures Include Offices that Help Rural Americans Get Affordable Mortgages

Washington, DC, Jan. 12, 2012 – A plan announced this week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture will make it harder for rural Americans to buy homes, according to rural housing experts.

USDA’s new “Blueprint for Stronger Service” pledges to provide better results for the department’s customers, as well as saving federal funds, through a variety of changes including closure of 43 Rural Development field offices in 17 states. RD offers programs to improve housing conditions and utilities, and to strengthen local economies.

“USDA’s network of local offices has been crucial to its efforts to help low-income rural American families buy and rent quality homes,” explained Joe Belden, deputy executive director of the Housing Assistance Council. “People who may not have any way to get to a city office can go to their county seat where one of their neighbors can help them apply for a low-cost, safe, non-predatory loan to buy their first home. Local Rural Development staff understand communities that traditional lenders never see, and they share their communities’ development goals.”

Until the early 1990s the Farmers Home Administration had offices in almost every one of the 2,000 rural counties in the country to run the housing programs now overseen by Rural Development. By March 1998, after Farmers Home staff had been combined with business and utilities staff in a major reorganization, Rural Development had only 815 county offices. Now, USDA’s Blueprint states that after the additional 43 offices are closed, about 450 will remain.

While USDA relies increasingly on electronic communications, technology cannot replace people in much of rural America, Belden explained. Broadband internet service remains unavailable in many areas, and Rural Development’s low-income customers are not likely to have easy access to computers.

“USDA Rural Development has historically been ‘the lender of last resort,'” noted Belden. “People who don’t have access to traditional financing, because of their low incomes or their rural locations or both, have relied on the availability of this agency. We are dismayed to see it becoming ever less available.”

A national nonprofit corporation headquartered in Washington, D.C., and founded in 1971, the Housing Assistance Council helps local organizations build affordable homes in rural America by providing below-market financing, technical assistance, research, training, and information services. HAC’s programs focus on local solutions, empowerment, reduced dependency, and self-help strategies. HAC is an equal opportunity lender.

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A fact sheet from USDA lists the following 43 counties that will lose RD offices.

Alabama: Houston County
Arizona: Mohave County
Arkansas: Izard, Faulkner, Hot Spring, White, and Sevier Counties
Delaware: Kent and Sussex Counties
Hawaii: 1) (Kosrae, Chuuk, and Yap), and 2) Hawaii County
Indiana: Monroe, Tippecanoe, LaPorte, and Marshall Counties
Louisiana: Livingston County
Maryland: Calvert, Garrett, and Worcester Counties
Mississippi: DeSoto County
Missouri: Jasper, Jefferson, Cape Girardeau, and Cole Counties
North Carolina: Burke, Chowan, and Caswell Counties
Oklahoma: Pushmataha and Pittsburg Counties
Pennsylvania: Juniata County
South Carolina: Richland and Sumter Counties
Tennessee: Anderson, Bedford, Bledsoe, Cannon, Carter, Cocke, Humphreys, Sevier, and Trousdale Counties.
Virginia: Essex County
Wyoming: Park County