NLIHC joined a letter from the Rural Preservation Working Group (RPWG) – a group of local and national organizations led by the Housing Assistance Council (HAC) – to Joel Baxley, administrator of the Rural Housing Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The letter supports recommendations made in a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released in May and suggests specific actions USDA Rural Development (RD) and Rural Housing Service (RHS) should take to implement the GAO’s recommendations to preserve affordable homes in rural communities.
USDA provides crucial affordable housing resources to rural communities, particularly through the Section 515 direct loan program. Rental assistance is tied to Section 515 loans, so when loans matures or are prepaid, the affordability protections are lost. A recent HAC report suggests that rural communities will lose more than 21,000 homes in the next ten years if USDA does not take action to preserve their affordability. The RPWG’s letter recommends using available rental assistance (RA) funding to preserve and service properties vulnerable to mortgage maturity. Other suggestions include developing a preservation plan, leveraging Low Income Housing Tax Credits and other state housing resources for preservation, using voucher options for tenants losing their affordable unit, and considering the use of local public housing agencies to administer the rural voucher program.
Read the RPWG letter at: http://bit.ly/2ANY07S