Media Contact: Susan McAvoy (202) 720-4623
susan.mcavoy@usda.gov
Public Contact: Steve Thompson (202) 720-2446
sathomps@rdmail.rural.usda.gov

WASHINGTON, June 26, 2000--With hammer and nails in hand, a group of volunteers that included Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman and Rural Development Under Secretary Jill Long-Thompson today helped build a house on the National Mall to promote expanded home ownership through "sweat equity."

USDA's Mutual Self-Help Housing program provides grants to 126 nonprofit organizations to help low-income participants build their own houses. The nonprofit groups set up building sites, build foundations, and provide materials and technical assistance to families who help each other build their homes. The families' labor, or "sweat equity," reduces the total amount of their loans.

Since its inception in 1971, the program has helped more than 28,000 low-income Americans buy homes. Over the last eight years, federal funding for the program has increased by 400 percent. Rural home ownership hit an all-time high of 75.4 percent in 1999 for the third year in a row.

"This house will be built by volunteers who have become homeowners themselves thanks to their own sweat and hard work," said Glickman. "By helping people helping themselves, we are making home ownership a reality for thousands of low-income Americans."

The house-on-the-mall project is a partnership between USDA, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and Proyecto Azteca, a Texas nonprofit organization in the Rio Grande Valley Empowerment Zone. The house, which should be completed on the Fourth of July, will be moved to a location in Maryland selected by the Housing Assistance Council.

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