HAC Blog Posts
In addition to being a regular contributor to both Rooflines, a blog covering affordable housing and community development around the country, and The Daily Yonder, a blog focused on rural issues, HAC occasionally publishes blog posts to this website.
Comments on individual posts can be entered on the host sites or through HAC's comment section; general comments or suggestions can be sent to
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at HAC.
by Gideon Anders
March 13, 2014
 President Obama's 2015 Budget seeks to impose a $50 per month minimum rent on tenants living in USDA Rural Development (RD) financed Section 515 Rural Rental Housing and Section 514 and 516 Farm Labor Housing.
This will only impact extremely low-income households with adjusted annual incomes of less than $2,000. These are the absolute poorest households residing in RD housing. They typically do not have a regular source of income. RD indicates this requirement will affect about 42,000, or 10 percent, of the households living in RD rental housing...
Read the complete blog post at Rooflines
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Through my work researching housing for rural seniors, two things have become evident: first, rural America is older than the nation overall, and second, aging in place is the best option for seniors. “Aging in place” refers to older adults living independently in their current residences or communities for as long as possible. The vast majority of rural seniors own their own homes, so this often means remaining there; it can also be accomplished, however, by moving to a more manageable dwelling (such as a smaller apartment).
Numerous reports have proposed that aging in place... Read more
From Food to Housing: Sacrificing Quality for Quantity in the Colonias
In November, theWashington Postpublished an article entitled"Too Much of Too Little"about recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, in Hidalgo County, Texas, one of the fastest growing and poorest places in the nation. The article highlighted families who are forced to choose between affordable yet unhealthy foods that keep their families fed throughout the month or healthy options that are less affordable and may not feed a family for as long. Low-income Americans dependent upon SNAP are often forced to shop "quantity over quality" in order to stretch paltry food budgets throughout the month. As a result, more and more people who do not have enough food to eat are facing obesity and diabetes at alarming rates.
Read the complete Blog post at Rooflines
by Keith Wiley
After declining by more than half from 2003 to 2011, the number of rural mortgage applications increased by 19% last year. And the number of actual mortgage loans issued rose 27% from the previous year, according to data collected under the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HDMA).
Of the loan applications reported through HMDA in 2012, approximately 2.4 million, or 16%, were for mortgage loans in rural or small town communities.
Read the full blog post...
by Eric Oberdorfer
 Rural homelessness differs from urban and suburban homelessness. The image of an individual sleeping on the street, clearly visible to those passing by, is much less frequent in rural America.
Literal homelessness, or the condition of living on the street or in a shelter, does exist in rural America, but due to the geographic vastness of most of these areas and a lack of centralized services and resources, it is much more infrequent.
Read the complete blog post....
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