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Photographic
Memories
Awards
Banquet
On
the evening of December 7, 2006, the Housing Assistance
Council presented rural housing awards to five individuals.
Representative Rubén
Hinojosa, an individual who has provided outstanding and
enduring service on the national level was honored with
the Clay Cochran Award for Distinguished Service in
Housing for the Rural Poor. Local leaders in rural
housing development, received the Skip Jason Community
Service Award. These Skip Jason Community Service award
recipients were: Lorna Bourg, Southern Mutual HelpAssociation;
Steve Kirk, Rural Neighborhoods, Inc.; Sabino Lopez, Center
for Community Advocacy; and Griffin Lotson, Sams Memorial
Community Economic Development, Inc.
About
the awards:
CLAY
COCHRAN (1915-1982)
Clay
L. Cochran was a fierce housing advocate who has often been
credited as the founder of the rural housing movement. Clay,
a fiery commentator on housing and basic needs, strongly
believed that the federal government must not shirk its
responsibility of providing basic shelter for low-income
rural people. He also believed that the people, given the
power to govern themselves, had the capacity to “create
a society where there is less human anguish than yesterday.”
Some of his many accomplishments were to organize the Rural
America organization, the National Rural Housing Coalition,
and the International Self-Help Housing Association. He
claimed that his enthusiasm for decent housing resulted
from a winter during his teens when his family lost its
farm and lived out the coldest months in a tent on the West
Texas plains.
SKIP
JASON (1939-1982)
Robert
Mayer (Skip) Jason, a former HAC employee and housing advocate,
was committed to improving living conditions for the rural
poor. Skip was a native of Bluefield, West Virginia where
he first learned about the difficult conditions of the rural
poor. In 1963, he became one of the first Peace Corp Volunteers
to be sent to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Upon his return
to the United States, he worked for community action agencies
in Indiana, West Virginia, Vermont, and the District of
Columbia. In 1974, he helped to set up Buffalo Housing,
Inc. in southern West Virginia, a nonprofit organization
established to help victims of the Buffalo Creek flood disaster.
Skip first joined HAC in its Atlanta office. In 1978, he
moved to HAC’s Government Services Division in Washington,
D.C. As a HAC employee, he worked on the Community Development
Block Grant program, which included a set-aside for small
cities and rural communities. Skip was also instrumental
in developing the Farmers Home Administration’s Homeownership
Assistance Program which, although never funded, resulted
in a Congress that was more supportive and more aware of
rural housing issues.
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