USDA BACKS RURAL HOUSING PARTNERSHIP WITH $22 MILLION
WASHINGTON, Dec. 11, 1998 -- Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman today announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture will allocate $22 million in 1999 for the Rural Home Loan Partnership, a public-private initiative that helps low-income rural residents buy single-family homes. This represents a funding increase of 69 percent from the $13 million allocated last year for the initiative by USDA.
"Through the Rural Home Loan Partnership, USDA is working with national and local nonprofit housing associations, regulatory agencies and private lenders to create homeownership opportunities for rural people who, in all likelihood, would otherwise never achieve the American dream of homeownership," Glickman said during an address to the 1998 National Rural Housing Conference. "Homeownership in our nation is at an all-time high, in fact 66.8 percent of all Americans now own their homes. It is vital to the future of our nation that low-income rural people are not left behind as we continue to work to make America a nation of homeowners."
This national partnership will be even more effective in creating homeownership opportunities thanks to the addition of four new national partner organizations. These include: Neighborhood Reinvestment and RNA Community Builders, which work together to promote affordable housing opportunities in rural areas; the Office of Thrift Supervision, the primary regulator for all federally chartered and many state-chartered thrift institutions; and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures deposits in the nation's 11,000 banks and savings institutions.
The existing national members of the National Home Loan Partnership are: the Rural Local Initiative Support Corporation, which assists community development corporations in transforming distressed areas into healthy communities; the Federal Housing Finance Board, which supervises 12 Federal Home Loan Banks; and USDA's Rural Development mission area, which supports the expansion of housing, business, jobs, community facilities and utility services in rural America.
When leveraged with private housing funds, the $22 million from the 502 Single Family Housing Program of USDA's Rural Housing Service should expand to at least $30 million. Lending institutions seeking more information about this program should contact their nearest USDA Rural Development office.
Media Contact: Andrew Kauders, (202) 720-4623
andrew.kauders@usda.gov
Public Contact: Dan Campbell, (202) 720-6483
dcampbel@rurdev.usda.gov
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