USDA GETS HIGH MARKS ON "RURAL REPORT CARD"
Programs Create 215,000 Jobs, 68,000 New Homeowners In 1998
WASHINGTON, Nov. 3, 1998 -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture helped 68,000 rural Americans buy homes and created or saved 215,000 rural jobs in 1998, according to the annual "rural report card" issued today by USDA Rural Development. Both figures represent major increases over 1997, when USDA programs helped about 40,000 people buy homes and created or saved 150,000 rural jobs.
In all, USDA invested more than $9 billion in rural development projects during 1998.
"USDA Rural Development programs are having a significant impact on the economy and quality of life in rural America," said Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman. "In addition to new jobs and homeowners, millions of rural Americans are benefitting from new or improved water and sewer systems or are being served by new telecommunications and electrical services. Millions of other rural residents have had their lives improved by the construction of new schools, medical facilities and daycare centers financed by USDA Rural Development."
USDA invested $4 billion in fiscal 1998 to help rural people buy or build single-family houses, fulfilling the American dream of homeownership for 68,000 households. This includes $110 million USDA used to finance the construction of 1,520 new homes under the Self-Help Housing program, in which low-income people invest sweat equity to become homeowners.
Jill Long Thompson, USDA under secretary for rural development, said USDA housing programs and low interest rates are helping to support the President's National Partnership for Homeownership, which reports that 66.8 percent of all U.S. households now own homes, a new record.
Renters were also helped by USDA, which spent $224 million for loans and grants to pay for the construction of 2,763 affordable apartment units and to repair or upgrade 1,179 apartments. USDA provided $541 million under its Rural Rental Assistance program to help low-income people rent decent housing.
USDA provided $285 million in loans and grants in 1998 to build or expand community facilities which are providing services to more than 2.7 million rural people. These investments include more than $110 million for 137 rural health care facilities, $13 million for 45 child care centers and $36 million for 262 fire and rescue facilities. Another $54 million was invested for education and job training facilities, libraries, social services offices, courthouses and other town government offices.
Rural businesses and cooperatives were also major beneficiaries of USDA spending in 1998, Long Thompson said. USDA provided more than $1.3 billion in loans and grants to help start or expand 1,418 rural businesses and cooperatives last year. These businesses created or saved 70,000 rural jobs -- many of them in areas where unemployment rates are much higher than national averages.
"Despite this considerable financial support for rural business, we still would have needed an additional $1.1 billion in program funding to meet all the loan and grant requests pending from rural businesses at the end of the last fiscal year," Long Thompson said.
In a major effort to increase USDA support for cooperatives, USDA about doubled, to $60 million, the amount loaned to rural cooperatives last year. USDA has earmarked $200 million for funding co-ops in 1999.
"We are convinced that producer- and consumer-owned cooperatives can provide a powerful economic vehicle to help rural people meet the challenges they will face in the 21st Century, such as the shift from being producers of raw commodities to processors of value-added goods," Long Thompson said.
USDA spent $2.8 billion to provide new or improved utility services in rural America last year. This includes $565 million for development of rural telecommunications systems which are bringing telephone and Information Superhighway services to 75,000 new subscribers. Likewise, the $1.3 billion USDA provided as loans or grants to build or improve 1,021 drinking water and sewer systems will provide life- and health-enhancing service to more than 2 million rural Americans.
USDA also loaned $925 million to rural electric cooperatives to pay for 12,342 miles of new electrical distribution lines and 211 miles of transmission lines, which will provide service to 197,000 new customers.
In its ongoing effort to fight chronic poverty in some of the nation's poorest rural areas, USDA last year invested $113 million in three rural Empowerment Zones (EZ) and 30 Rural Enterprise Communities (EC). USDA estimates these investments helped to create 10,000 new jobs and built or repaired 2,140 houses in the rural EZs and ECs. USDA also financed 29 new or upgraded health care facilities, 110 water or sewer projects, and 61 new job-training facilities in the EZs and ECs.
"Whether it's safe drinking water flowing into a rural home where the residents in the past had to boil water, a tiny rural school that now beams-in upper level math and science courses from a college 100 miles away, or a rural family moving into its first home thanks to a USDA loan, we are striving to ensure that USDA Rural Development programs make a huge difference in how people live in rural America," Long Thompson said.
Media Contact: Jim Brownlee, (202) 720-2091
jim.brownlee@usda.gov
Public Contact: Dan Campbell, (202) 720-6483
dcampbel@rurdev.usda.gov
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