rural economy Archives

HAC CEO Responds to Executive Order Impacting Rural CDFIs

March 18, 2025/in Advocacy, Federal Funding Updates, News, Policy, Rural News CDFI, Federal Funding

I’ve worked in enough small towns across America to know this: rural communities prosper when they have financial partners ready to invest in homeownership dreams and small business start-ups. A recent Executive Order targeting Community Development Financial Institutions has me concerned that rural America could lose access to the $6 billion in business CDFIs generate in their local economies.

For years, rural areas faced dwindling access to financial services. The number of rural headquartered banks fell by over 3,600 since 1995, an astounding 57% decline. Thankfully over that same 30-year period over 500 rural CDFIs have been created, filling gaps in the banking landscape of every State. And they do it effectively, leveraging $8 in private investment for every $1 in federal support. This has been especially helpful for local organizations with projects that are too small or specialized for the remaining banks or distant commercial lenders to finance.

HAC is one of those rural-serving CDFIs. Our work is supported by the resources the recent Executive Order is trying to undermine. We want to continue delivering real results for real people.

In Clearfield County, PA, where 45% of grandparents are raising grandchildren due to the opioid epidemic, HAC’s financing helped build the Village of Hope, a multigenerational affordable housing development designed for seniors and youth to live together.
In Pahokee, FL, our loan helped Diverse Housing Services breathe new life into Amaryllis Gardens, 44-units of workforce housing for employees of the surrounding farms.
In Visalia, CA, HAC’s $12 million in financing to Self-Help Enterprises has enabled over 300 low-income families to help construct their own homes as “sweat equity” downpayments.

The good news here is that the Executive Order is to be “implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.” The CDFI Fund is not a discretionary policy—it’s embedded in federal statutes such as the Riegle Act, the Community Renewal Tax Relief Act, the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, and the Small Business Jobs Act. And funds for CDFI’s were included in this year’s appropriations and continuing resolutions.

It also helps that the CDFI Fund programs were created and supported by bipartisan consensus. Leaders across political lines and branches of government understand that rural America’s need for economic opportunity and stable housing is a shared national priority. We are encouraged by Treasury Secretary Bessent’s recent statement recognizing “the important role that the CDFI Fund and CDFIs play in expanding access to capital” and affirming that “CDFIs are a key component of President Trump’s commitment to supporting Main Street America.” For over 50 years, HAC has worked directly with rural policy-makers — Republican, Democrat, and Independent alike — to make affordable housing a reality. We hope that under the current Administration, the CDFI Fund will continue to be staffed and funded as Congress has legislated.

HAC stands ready to continue serving the millions of Americans who depend on the stability and opportunity CDFIs’ investments create. The path forward must strengthen, not undermine, our ability to serve hardworking rural families. They deserve nothing less.

Taking Stock of Rural America

October 26, 2023/in Information Products, News, Research and Information, Rural Research Briefs, Rural Research Reports Economic Development, High Need Regions, Rural Data, Rural Demographics, Vulnerable Populations, What is Rural

5 DECADES OF TAKING STOCK IN RURAL AMERICA

RURAL PEOPLE, RURAL PLACES, RURAL HOUSING

First published in 1984, Taking Stock is a decennial research publication of the Housing Assistance Council. The 2023 edition of Taking Stock continues this legacy of presenting social, economic, and housing trends for rural places and rural people.

Visit TakingStockRural.org

In the early 1980s, the Housing Assistance Council (HAC) published its initial Taking Stock report. This seminal work was one of the first comprehensive assessments of rural housing and rural poverty conditions in the United States. The first Taking Stock also exposed the plight and housing need of the nation’s high poverty rural areas. HAC’s decennial Taking Stock analysis continued in 1990, 2000, and 2010 and has increasingly expanded to cover a broader scope of social, economic, and housing trends in rural areas. The 2023 edition of Taking Stock continues its legacy of presenting a composite picture of trends and issues important to rural people, places, and housing.

It is past time to end this shutdown

January 22, 2019/in Policy

Housing Assistance Council Statement on Federal Government Shutdown

by David Lipsetz, CEO, Peter Carey, Chair, Peggy Wright, President

It is past time to end the government shutdown. As the budget stalemate continues, the impact on small towns and rural families grows more severe. Every day Americans are losing out on billions of dollars’ worth of affordable housing, clean drinking water, and community facilities, like town halls, fire stations and hospitals. Like it or not, the federal government does important work, and must be reopened now.

The shutdown has thrown countless rural home sales into limbo. U.S. Department of Agriculture offices are closed, so the department’s Rural Housing Service is not making mortgages, guaranteeing mortgages made by banks, or processing requests for new mortgages.

The homebuying industry is central to the entire U.S. economy. Because USDA is closed, rural residents and businesses have lost the annual equivalent of more than $25 billion of business. Some of that activity will go forward when the government reopens, but some will not. Sellers have found other buyers. Buyers are losing out on the stability and wealth-building of home ownership. Businesses are not selling furniture and other goods and services to new home buyers. Realtors and local banks are losing time, money and, potentially even worse for the long-term health of the housing market, their customers’ confidence in publicly-backed privately-managed mortgages. Ripples from these, and all the other shutdown-related missed opportunities, will extend to the national economy, and will get bigger as the shutdown continues.

The Housing Assistance Council has been hearing about these ripple effects from rural community organizations we work with around the country. A group in Utah has to find $1.3 million to reimburse electricians, plumbers and others for work they have already done on USDA-financed houses under construction. A realtor in a small town in Tennessee has lost 90 percent of their business without USDA mortgages. In Alaska and elsewhere, families are hearing from their insurance companies that USDA has not made their homeowners’ insurance payments – the money is there, escrowed from the residents’ monthly mortgage payments to USDA, but there are no staff at USDA to send out the funds.

HAC is also keeping in close contact with rural tenants and landlords who rely on USDA. More than 268,000 tenant families receive USDA rental assistance. Their annual incomes average less than $11,000 and two-thirds of them are elderly or disabled. If the shutdown continues into February, USDA will run out of money to help thousands of those tenants pay their rent. This is putting renters and their landlords into an impossible situation. Renters will have to decide whether to divert their grocery money to cover the gap in rent or to risk eviction. Landlords will have to decide whether to punish renters for non-payment or stop paying for other things like insurance, taxes and property management staff.

At the same time, USDA’s multi-billion dollar loan programs for water systems, rural health clinics, schools and fire halls are shut down; tens of thousands of low-income tenants who rely on the Department of Housing and Urban Development for similar programs are losing their rent support; and countless other Americans are suffering in myriad ways.

This is no way to manage the public’s programs. End this shutdown now!

About the Housing Assistance Council

The Housing Assistance Council helps build homes and communities across rural America. Founded in 1971 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., HAC is a national nonprofit and a certified community development financial institution dedicated to helping local rural organizations build affordable homes by providing below-market financing, technical assistance, training, research, and information services. To learn more, visit www.ruralhome.org.

Fed Chair talks strong economy and rural poverty at HAC Conference

December 11, 2018/in National Rural Housing Conference

Federal Reserve Board of Governors chairman Jerome Powell addressed the HAC Rural Housing Conference on December 6, 2018. Chairman Powell discussed the strength of the economy while acknowledging that not everyone has enjoyed the benefits of the strong economy equally.

conf-2018-powell “While the economy is strong overall, we recognize that some communities have yet to feel the full benefits of the ongoing expansion,” Powell said.

During his speech, Chairman Powell praised the work of the community development functions in each of the 12 Federal Reserve banks and what their work means for local communities. He stressed the importance of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and praised HAC’s research on the subject as beneficial to the Fed’s plans around potential CRA reform.

He closed his remarks by acknowledging the work of community development organizations like HAC’s partners in improving rural communities across the country. He stressed that their work is critical to expand the benefits of the strong economy into more rural areas.

Press Coverage:

Fed Chairman Says Central Bank Concerned About Rural Poverty – The Associated Press
Fed’s Powell: U.S. economy performing ‘very well’ though benefits uneven – Reuters

Rural Poverty Remains Unchanged: Incomes Also Stagnant in Rural Areas

September 16, 2015/in Rural Research Notes High Need Regions, Persistent Poverty, Persistent Poverty Counties

The number of rural Americans living in poverty has remained relatively unchanged, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. Overall, the official poverty rate for the United States was 14.8 percent in 2014 – the same as in 2013. Released today, the U.S. Census Bureau’s annual report, Income and Poverty in the United States: 2014, estimates that 46.7 million people had incomes below the poverty line in 2014, making this the fourth year without a statistically significant change in the number of people in poverty at the national level.

HAC CEO Responds to Executive Order Impacting Rural CDFIs

March 18, 2025/in Advocacy, Federal Funding Updates, News, Policy, Rural News CDFI, Federal Funding

I’ve worked in enough small towns across America to know this: rural communities prosper when they have financial partners ready to invest in homeownership dreams and small business start-ups. A recent Executive Order targeting Community Development Financial Institutions has me concerned that rural America could lose access to the $6 billion in business CDFIs generate in their local economies.

For years, rural areas faced dwindling access to financial services. The number of rural headquartered banks fell by over 3,600 since 1995, an astounding 57% decline. Thankfully over that same 30-year period over 500 rural CDFIs have been created, filling gaps in the banking landscape of every State. And they do it effectively, leveraging $8 in private investment for every $1 in federal support. This has been especially helpful for local organizations with projects that are too small or specialized for the remaining banks or distant commercial lenders to finance.

HAC is one of those rural-serving CDFIs. Our work is supported by the resources the recent Executive Order is trying to undermine. We want to continue delivering real results for real people.

In Clearfield County, PA, where 45% of grandparents are raising grandchildren due to the opioid epidemic, HAC’s financing helped build the Village of Hope, a multigenerational affordable housing development designed for seniors and youth to live together.
In Pahokee, FL, our loan helped Diverse Housing Services breathe new life into Amaryllis Gardens, 44-units of workforce housing for employees of the surrounding farms.
In Visalia, CA, HAC’s $12 million in financing to Self-Help Enterprises has enabled over 300 low-income families to help construct their own homes as “sweat equity” downpayments.