Helping Build Homes and Communities Across Rural America.

HAC’s 2023 Annual Report

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HAC would like to present its Annual Report for the year 2023.

Download the 2023 Annual Report

A Message from HAC President & CEO and Board Chair

The communities we serve are the heart of what we do.

In May 2023, staff and board members from the Housing Assistance Council (HAC) travelled to Ruskin, Florida, to forge a plan to expand our impact and improve our work over the next three years. In our three-day retreat, we toured homes under construction at Bayou Pass Village, a community of about 500 homes, all built by their homeowners with investments from HAC and the support of our local partner.

HACsters got to see firsthand the communities that our work helps build. Against this backdrop, we began to develop a strategic plan that is rooted in these communities. From improving our strategic partnerships with organizations working in historically disinvested regions to expanding our role as the “Voice of Rural America” and our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, this plan puts HAC on a trajectory to make an even more profound and lasting impact.

By all measures, 2023 was an incredibly successful year for HAC. We built the capacity of 144 rural housing organizations across 49 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. We published the fifth edition of Taking Stock, our flagship analysis of the state of Rural America and its housing. We invested more than $25 million to finance the construction, preservation, or rehab of 780 affordable homes. And, our policy advocacy helped drive new federal resources to rural communities across the country.

HAC is hard at work helping rural communities overcome their greatest housing challenges. Thank you for supporting our impact. We can’t wait to show you what we accomplish next.

Download 2023 Annual Report View on the Web

Reflections from long-time board members

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For over fifty years, the Housing Assistance Council has empowered rural communities with the resources they need to overcome their greatest housing challenges. That entire time, HAC’s Board of Directors has guided our approach and kept us true to our mission. Our board members have always represented the communities we work with across the country. The expertise they bring has proven invaluable time and time again.

At the National Rural Housing Conference in October 2023, we honored two long-time board members by presenting them with Rural Housing Service Awards as thanks for their combined 66 years of service to HAC. As they transitioned off the board, we asked Maria Luisa Mercado and Gideon Anders to reflect on the past, present, and future of HAC.

Maria Luisa Mercado, Lone Star Legal Aid

Galveston, Texas

Thirty-six years ago, when she was working as an assistant attorney general for consumer protection in Lubbock, Maria Luisa got a call from a colleague who said she’d be an ideal board member at HAC. For Maria Luisa, who grew up as a farmworker, “serving on a housing board, especially one with a rural focus, was really exciting.”

Housing is the core of what HAC does, but she explains that the real goal has always been to serve people and communities. After all, she says “if you can stabilize someone’s housing, you can change their life.” Staying true to this mission has been the core of HAC’s success, she argues. Over the last three decades, Maria Luisa has visited many of the communities with which HAC works, and the impact of our work is always clear. “You can concretely see the results: changing the life of someone,” she notes.

Looking to the future, Maria Luisa believes the defining challenge of the next few decades will be developing novel ways of encouraging the development of new affordable housing groups. As we expand the communities that we serve and develop new partners, building their capacity to make the most of the resources available to them will be crucial. She imagines a future in which HAC has expanded from a focus on housing to include community development and building the capacity of local communities and governments to access state and federal resources.

HAC has always been at the forefront of efforts to support rural communities’ housing and to bring attention to overlooked rural places. “It matters because rural America,” says Maria Luisa “if no one pays attention, is isolated from services.” And those services, like housing investment, are what any community needs to thrive. After more than five decades of serving rural America, Maria Luisa is proud to say that “HAC is still standing.”

Gideon Anders, Retired (formerly National Housing Law Project)

Oakland, California

Gideon Anders was hired by HAC in 1972—fewer than 8 months after we were founded. As Gideon explains, the HAC of 1972 was still figuring out how to operate: “we did a lot of things by the seat of our pants.” Quickly, though, we established the processes that HAC continues to build on to this day. “Our work is much more effective and reaches out to more organizations” than it once did, Gideon notes.

For the entirety of his time with HAC—both as a staff member and in his 30 years as a board member—something that hasn’t changed is that “there’s no one else providing the assistance that HAC is.” For example, we were one of the first organizations to offer predevelopment lending in rural communities, and our research—especially our flagship publication Taking Stock—fills a void in data and analysis about rural housing.

HAC is still providing resources to rural communities that few others do. To Gideon, HAC’s focus on the preservation of multifamily rental homes in the USDA’s Section 515 program is a key example of the “critical services which no one else is providing on the scale HAC is.” In 2022, for example, HAC closed a $7.8 million loan to Northwest Coastal Housing so they could purchase and preserve Golden Eagle II, a 33-unit USDA Section 515 property. Without our financing, the original property owner would have prepaid his USDA mortgage, making his tenants ineligible for the rental assistance they’d received for decades. But, thanks to this loan, Golden Eagle is staying in the program and the tenants will retain their affordability protections for decades.

Looking to the future, Gideon imagines a HAC that is bringing together organizations of all kinds to collectively make the argument that housing is central to individual and national prosperity. Our homes touch every other part of our lives, which is why Gideon wants to see these coalitions include community service providers of all stripes, including those focused on health. After all, when it comes to the impact on someone’s health, Gideon believes “quality housing comes next to healthcare.”

A lot has changed at HAC over the last 50 years. However, Gideon notes that, “fundamentally, the services HAC was providing in 1971 are still what we’re doing today. But the scope has grown tremendously.”

 

Empowering Veterans Through Collaborative Housing Initiatives: Insights from the 2023 National Rural Housing Conference

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The Housing Assistance Council (HAC) is dedicated to supporting those who have answered the highest call of service to our nation. Our Affordable Housing for Rural Veterans (AHRV) Initiative aids local nonprofit housing organizations in improving housing conditions for veterans in their communities with support from The Home Depot Foundation. The brick-and-mortar projects that AHRV funds provide critical home repair, rehab, and construction for low-income, elderly, homeless, and/or disabled veterans. All this support is tailored to meet the specific needs of veterans in each community.

At HAC’s 2023 National Rural Housing Conference, the Veterans Stakeholder Meeting convened practitioners from around the country to share ideas and best practices. The centerpiece of the meeting was a series of presentations from a panel that included:

  • Karen Boyce, Managing Director of The Veterans’ Place, Inc. (TVPI), a transitional home for homeless veterans in Northfield, Vermont;
  • AB Bustos and Amber Morson, Homeless Veteran Program Managers at the Texas Veterans Commission (TVC), an organization that advocates for and provides services that will improve the lives of Texas veterans and their families; and
  • Miguel Chacon, Executive Director of A.Y.U.D.A. INC, an organization that provides assistance programs to low-income individuals and families in El Paso County, Texas, including affordable housing, rental assistance, and community health worker training.

Housing organizations from across the country benefited from hearing detailed presentations on housing efforts and gained insights on how organizations can work to better support veterans. Here are four key takeaways from the meeting:


  • 1. Incremental changes in language can make veterans more responsive to community partnerships.

    When asked “are you a veteran?” many former servicemembers, especially women and people who were discharged under other than honorable conditions, tend to answer “no.” Others may not consider themselves veterans because they never saw combat. The Homeless Veteran Program of the Texas Veterans Commission (TVC) found that a small change—asking “did you serve?”—has helped them identify more veterans who qualify for programs, some of which are open to all veterans, regardless of their type of discharge.

    This small change has generated such an increase in response that TVC has begun a statewide awareness campaign to encourage other local and nonprofit support programs to make the same phrasing change in an effort to identify more eligible veterans. Because TVC works with a wide range of supportive programs—education, employment, mental health, homelessness, and more—it emphasizes the connectedness of housing to the broader ecosystem of community support. A simple change in the language used to identify veterans can help housing organizations—and supportive programs of all stripes—across the country reach a wider net of people who need support after answering the highest call of service to our nation.

  • 2. Housing is part of a broader ecosystem of support.

    Organizations that open doors to collaboration can provide better support for the veterans they serve. In the Veterans Stakeholder Meeting, the team from the Veterans’ Place explained that they had noted an increase in the average age of veterans looking for housing. So, TVPI adapted their approach by reaching out to supportive housing organizations, like those providing assisted living, to find resources within their area for senior veterans.

    When organizations work with other groups and community programs, they often find partnerships they did not know were available to them. That’s why it’s important that the National Rural Housing Conference brings together practitioners from across the country, including many who work in housing-adjacent fields, like community health. The network of peers for housing organizations includes other organizations and local services. For example, healthcare institutions can play an important role in the support that housing organizations provide and vice versa. Housing is deeply connected to health, which becomes especially apparent when a veteran is living with mold, when a home that isn’t accessible for their disability, or when they’re recovering from challenges like PTSD or substance use disorder. The support that housing organizations goes further when it works in concert with other community services.

  • 3. It is crucial for housers to learn from a network of peers.

    In the Veterans Stakeholder Meeting, the panel was asked, “how do you start from ground zero?” Some of the meeting’s participants wanted to know how their housing organizations could expand into supporting veterans but didn’t know how to take the first step in building a network of support. One answer was for organizations to look for assistance within their community. The Veterans’ Place emphasized the importance of being willing to ask for help and of networking with other organizations, including housers in nearby areas. Groups like HAC and the Texas Veterans Commission that bring peer organizations together and connect them with resources act as force multipliers. By building connections among practitioners—both those with established veterans programs and those without—HAC provides a crucial service to the ecosystem of veterans housing.

  • 4. One size does not fit all for veteran housing assistance.

    Every veteran has their own unique story and lived experience. Placing all who served into the same category and assuming they face the exact same challenges is an ineffective approach to housing assistance. Recognizing this, the Veterans’ Place tailors its services to the needs of the individual. With open door policies and peer support, the Veterans’ Place emphasizes establishing boundaries and individual-specific systems when it comes to veteran housing. The Veterans Stakeholder Meeting proved the importance of this individualized approach across all housing programs, as organizations understand the unique needs of every veteran and continue to implement services that work for them.


The National Rural Housing Conference brought together practitioners from across the country. By sharing ideas as broad as the importance of partnership and as specific as the nitty-gritty of how a question is asked, these leaders learned lessons they can put into practice in their communities. As each community tailors these best practices to meet the specific needs of their veterans, HAC and The Home Depot Foundation will be there, supporting the local initiatives that bring us one step closer to a nation in which all veterans can have a healthy, accessible, and affordable place to call home.

HAC Loan Fund Impact Report for FY 2023

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HAC is proud to present our 2023 Loan Fund Impact Report. In fiscal year 2023 (October 2022-September 2023), our Loan Fund provided $31.4 million in financing through 34 loans—including 13 (37%) made to minority-led borrowers—to build, rehabilitate, or preserve 900 affordable homes.

2023 Loan Fund Impact Report

HAC 2022 Annual Report Featured Image

HAC’s 2022 Annual Report

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HAC would like to present its Annual Report for the year 2022.

2022 Annual Report

A Message from HAC President & CEO and Board Chair

The Housing Assistance Council (HAC) is soaring to new heights. For our 50th anniversary last year, we turned our attention to building a launch pad for rural prosperity over the next 50 years. We are proud to report that in 2022 HAC blasted off from that launch pad, broadening the ways we help rural communities build a better future.

In 2022, HAC lending and technical assistance built the capacity of 166 rural housing organizations across 43 states. We published 24 editions of HAC News and 13 new research products, including 3 guides to resources needed to recover from a natural disasters. We invested more than we ever have before: $22.2 million to finance the construction, preservation, or rehab of 787 affordable homes. Plus, more than 37% of our loans were made in counties that have had a poverty rate of at least 20% for the last three decades. At the same time, we increased our staff by 21%, expanding the footprint of our work.

Last year, HAC enhanced our position as the Nation’s source for independent, non-partisan policy solutions for rural housing and community development. With the help of our first-ever Director of Policy, HAC led the effort to secure historic federal investment in manufactured housing communities. We met with House and Senate leadership, testified before Committees, worked with the White House and continued to be the go-to source for research and analysis on rural housing markets and living conditions in small towns.

2022 was also a big year for HAC’s “housing-adjacent” work on community facilities and placemaking. We’ve always known that community is more than a collection of houses. By finding new ways to engage small towns as they develop community facilities—such as parks, libraries, and childcare centers—HAC has helped them cultivate a feeling of belonging while providing tangible benefits for every resident. Also in 2022, we more than doubled our work in placemaking, which uses design and the arts to bring communities together, as a catalyst toward sustained community betterment and economic growth.

Additionally, we spent 2022 deepening our impact on affordable housing development. Combining both financing and technical assistance, HAC opened new avenues of work supporting rural rental preservation, ensuring that more existing affordable homes remain high-quality and rent assisted for years to come. Plus, we redoubled our efforts to better understand our impact and identify areas of growth through data and metrics.

HAC has been hard at work increasing the depth and breadth of our impact across rural America. As we reach greater heights and do more, we thank you for boosting our work. We’re excited to show you what this momentum will help all of us achieve.

Download 2022 Annual Report View on the Web
HAC Loan Office Alison Duncan (center) breaks ground for Carnation Village.
Photo by Adam Robison, the Daily Journal.
Photo by Adam Robison, the Daily Journal.

Old Historic Carnation, LP: A HAC Success Story

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HAC’s patience and flexibility help convert a vacant Carnation milk plant into homes for seniors in Tupelo, MS

Rendering of carnation plant developmentThe Carnation Milk plant in Tupelo, Mississippi, has sat vacant since 1972. In about a year, that will change when 33 low-income senior households move into new affordable homes in this old factory. This May, Old Historic Carnation, LP broke ground on Carnation Village, a $16.8 million adaptive reuse project to convert the abandoned factory into 33 units of affordable senior housing. These units are sorely needed in Tupelo, a high-poverty community which needs over 1,500 additional senior affordable housing units. With a $325,000 loan from The Housing Assistance Council (HAC)—and two sixth-month extensions to that loan—the developer successfully navigated a predevelopment process mired in construction cost increases and unexpected funding gaps. Here’s how:

Photo of vacant Carnation plantThe original project scope called for 50 units: 25 from an adaptive re-use of the plant itself and another 25 in a second building to be constructed next door. When our loan closed in July 2021, the project budget totaled about $12.7 million, to be funded by Low Income Housing Tax Credits, Historic Tax Credits, and a $1.6 million equity investment. Our financing covered the predevelopment costs of the work required to get to construction financing closing including environmental testing, historic preservation approvals, tax credit application and reservation fees, a market study, and an appraisal.

In the fall of 2021, increases in construction costs left Old Historic Carnation with a $3.8 million funding gap. By the time they applied for and received more tax credits from the Mississippi Housing Corporation (MHC), added a $1 million mortgage, received approval from the National Park Service, and updated the construction bids, costs had increased by a further $4.5 million. In the space of less than a year, the construction cost for the project nearly doubled.

Because HAC can be a patient lender, we extended our loan by six months to give the developer time to solve the problem. Old Historic Carnation applied for and received another tax credit increase from the state, reduced costs with value engineering measures, and increased the deferred developer fee by almost $2 million.

Construction costs increased again in the summer of 2022, causing the equity investor to back out of the project. The developer went back to the drawing board once again and reduced the project’s scope to 33 units, all affordable to households making less than 80% of the area median income (AMI). Plus, 26 would also be affordable to households under 60% AMI. With an additional loan extension from HAC, Old Historic Carnation secured approval of the new scope by MHC, obtained the necessary building permits, and have now begun demolition.

HAC Loan Office Alison Duncan (center) breaks ground for Carnation Village.

HAC Loan Office Alison Duncan (center) breaks ground for Carnation Village. Photo by Adam Robison, the Daily Journal.

On March 21st, Old Historic Carnation, LP closed on construction financing and repaid our predevelopment loan in full. And on May 31st, the project broke ground. Old Historic Carnation’s persistence and creativity made this project a success. But it was HAC’s flexibility that supported them as they went through the process of raising additional funds three times to make the project work. The Carnation Village project showcases how the ingenuity of a local housing developer, solid working relationships with private, state and federal funders, and flexible and patient HAC financing all add up to bring difficult and important projects to fruition. Fifty-one years ago, Carnation Milk closed its factory in Tupelo, Mississippi. Soon, thirty-three low-income, senior households will be able to call it home.

HAC is proud to be a critical part of this project and we look forward to watching it develop.

Rural Recap – Promoting Prosperity

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Rural communities need—and deserve—a coherent, national policy strategy that promotes prosperity. For such a strategy to move the needle, it must end the housing affordability crisis and build the capacity of rural communities to make the most of every opportunity.

Our homes are part of the foundation of thriving families and communities—they are pathways to realizing America’s full potential. With decent, healthy, and affordable homes, kids can succeed at school, seniors can age in place, and families can build wealth. Economics, health, education, and many more components of prosperous communities are all intimately tied to our homes.

The capital needed for a housing market to function is a lot like water: it flows down the path of least resistance, and it pools. For over 50 years—whether intentionally or not—public policy has channeled capital’s flow into sprawling metropolitan regions and allowed it to pool in suburbs and downtown commercial centers. This has deepened inequality and stifled opportunity in the communities that have been left out.

Building rural prosperity will happen one nail and one funding application at a time. Turning those into a national renaissance for rural America will take strategy. If we want investment to flow to a broader set of places and especially to the people and places which need it most, then we need public policy specifically designed to drive resources in their direction. To make the most of that capital, we must also build the capacity of those communities.

HAC builds the capacity of small towns and rural places to create thriving, prosperous communities. If you share our mission, please advocate on behalf of public funds for capacity building programs. We also hope you will consider making a gift to HAC to help us do more in rural America.

Get the Rural Recap in Your Inbox Donate to HAC

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO 1/18: HAC is Seeking a Consulting Partner to Assist with Our Strategic Plan

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Are you an emerging consulting firm passionate about working with CDFIs, Non-Profits, and/or Rural Communities? We invite you to submit a proposal for HAC’s strategic planning process!

The Housing Assistance Council (HAC) seeks a consultant to support the organization and our stakeholders in the creation of a three-to-five-year strategic plan. Through the strategic planning process, we hope to:

  • Build on HAC’s current momentum and growth.
  • Re-affirm and/or refine the organization’s values.
  • Inclusively engage with staff, Board, and external stakeholders.
  • Identify measurable goals for HAC’s key community development and housing programs.
  • Explore new approaches to address historic housing challenges in rural community development.

If you are interested, please review the attached RFP for greater detail on aims, scopes, deliverables, and proposal layout.

HAC reviews proposals, hires consultants, and employs staff with a deep commitment to diversity, equity, and providing the opportunity for those of us from communities that have been underserved based on race, color, ethnicity, gender, national origin, age, religion, sexual orientation, disability, marital or familial status, ancestry, or status as a veteran. Businesses owned and run by people of those communities are strongly encouraged to apply.

For any questions about this RFP, contact strategic@ruralhome.org.

All Applications are Due by Thursday, 1/18/2023 *DEADLINE EXTENDED*

Download the RFP

Building on Two Decades of Partnership: HAC & the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority

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In the summer of 2022, the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority (MFA) faced a difficult challenge. Several state legislators and farmworker groups asked the organization to help meet the housing needs of migrant and seasonal farmworkers. Since farms employ farmworkers with the shifting seasons, many farmworkers only stay in a community for a few months before needing to move elsewhere in search of work. Affordable housing development is complex in the best of cases. Underwriting a project that would have a near complete turnover of residents every four or five months seemed almost impossible.

So, MFA called the Housing Assistance Council (HAC). This wasn’t the first or second time that HAC helped MFA address challenges in its programs. In fact, HAC and MFA have a working relationship well over two decades old. Because of this extensive engagement, MFA Executive Director and CEO Izzy Hernandez knew he could rely on HAC Housing Consultant Eugene (Gene) Gonzalez to help find a solution to this challenge.

Gene connected MFA with groups across the southwest working on similar projects housing migrant farmworkers. With HAC’s help and advice from peers, MFA was able to identify a developer and line up alternate financing options for a project that meets this critical housing need. The development is in its initial phase, but for Hernandez, this is just the latest example of HAC’s reliable, ongoing partnership.

HAC began working with MFA in the early 2000s. A few years earlier, MFA was selected to administer all of New Mexico’s housing programs. Many of the on-the-ground housing organizations who needed MFA funding the most were struggling to obtain designation as community housing development organizations (CHDOs). CHDO designation is a prerequisite to accessing the federal and state programs MFA administered. So, HAC helped eight organizations identify their capacity needs, provided technical assistance to meet those needs, and guided them through the process to obtain CHDO designation.  As a result, each of the eight organizations was able to access MFA funds, which allowed MFA to turn those program dollars into homes in communities that desperately needed them.

While the specifics of HAC and MFA’s collaboration has evolved over time to meet the unique needs of each project, the core challenge HAC helps MFA address remains the same. Like all state housing authorities, MFA relies on the success of its client housing organizations. If they do not succeed, MFA cannot make the most of federal and state programs and cannot meet, as Hernandez puts it, “the extraordinary need for affordable housing.” HAC has long helped and continues to help build the capacity of MFA clients. This not only helps to build more affordable homes in rural New Mexico; according to Hernandez, HAC’s work helps MFA “reach communities we couldn’t reach before.”

When HAC began working with Tierra Del Sol Housing Corporation, one of MFA’s clients, the organization was rehabbing nearly 100 homes per year and building only about nine units per year. HAC provided training and technical assistance to help Tierra Del Sol with land acquisition, green building, energy efficiency, and more. With HAC’s help, the nonprofit expanded its self-help program, began building entire neighborhoods of farmworker housing, and grew to become the largest housing rehabber in the state of New Mexico. In addition, TDS accomplished all this development while focusing work in colonias, communities near the U.S.-Mexico border characterized by high poverty rates and substandard living conditions. Looking back on this incredible success, Hernandez is quick to say that “HAC has played a big role in that.”

Nowadays, MFA frequently refers struggling clients to HAC. Once referred, HAC often includes these organizations in our capacity building and technical assistance cohorts, where they receive one-on-one technical guidance and capacity building assistance. According to Hernandez, whenever HAC receives a new round of funding for technical assistance, he receives a call from Gene asking which groups in New Mexico need help. “We have some groups that were on the bubble of surviving or not,” says Hernandez, “but we have never had one group go out of business. HAC kept them in the game.”

The three hundred plus housing organizations in New Mexico all play an important role in meeting the state’s housing needs. In 2021, they collectively assisted more than 25,000 families in finding quality affordable housing. HAC capacity building assistance helps to ensure that these groups can build homes, effectively implement housing assistance programs, and remain in compliance.

Click here to learn more about HAC’s training and technical assistance. 

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50 Years for Rural America

Over 50 years HAC has worked in every U.S. state and the territories. Learn more about what our work means for rural communities.

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Housing Assistance Council   |  1828 L Street. N.W., Suite 505, Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 842-8600  |  (202) 347-3441  |  hac@ruralhome.org

HAC is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.