Episode 24. Coming to Terms with Housing and Homelessness in Rural Places with Jonathan Harwitz and Amanda Reddy
Michelle Rathman: For those who travel to rural places for recreation and find themselves in a quaint lakeside cottage or a mountain home or a secluded getaway cabin, the challenges of rural housing can be easy to miss or quite frankly dismiss, but for millions of people and families, affordable, safe and enough housing has become one of America's most pressing rural priorities.
And that's what we're talking about now. I'm Michelle Rathman, and this is a new series you'll only find here on The Rural Impact. We welcome you. Now, if you are a subscriber, you know that we've just come off my conversation with Deputy Undersecretary for Rural Development, Farah Ahmad, and we touched on the subject of rural housing in the context of the Rural Partners Network.
But today we are kicking off, as I said, a new three-part series, and we're working to connect those important dots between policy, rural housing, and homelessness. Now joining me for this first episode in this series, we invited Amanda Reddy Executive director of the National Center for Healthy Housing to join us, and you're going to hear from her just a bit later.
But first, I was fortunate to sit down with Jonathan Harwitz. Jonathan is the Director of Public Policy at the Housing Assistance Council, and we cover a lot of real estate, if you will. We cover things from the state of rural housing in America, to the federal government and funding for rural housing programs.
And of course, we round out our time together with a discussion about, you guessed it, policy. As always, you know, I say, I invite you to settle into your podcast mode and listen to my conversation with Jonathan Harwitz. Let's go.
Michelle Rathman: Jonathan Harwitz, Director of Public Policy at the Housing Assistance Council. Welcome to the Rural Impact. We are truly grateful that you could join us today.
Jonathan Harwitz: Thank you, Michelle. So glad to join you.
Michelle Rathman: Ok, so Jonathan, our listeners heard the introduction. They know that this episode is kicking off a new series that we're focusing on rural housing and homelessness. Of course, these are two extremely important complex subjects. However, in many places they connect. So we're doing our best to do what we say we're going to do, which is to connect the dots.
And so I wanted to kick off the series with you because the Housing Assistance Council, I've known about you for quite some time, but I believe the numbers like for over 50 years that the HAC as it's called has been a constant voice in rural housing and the work that HAC does, does have a pretty significant focus on policy, and that is your position. So, to kick off this conversation, share more about the work of HAC and then from there we'll get into the, to the real details, which is the current state of rural housing in America.
Jonathan Harwitz: Thank you, Michelle. And thank you to Rural Impact for focusing on this important issue for this series. I've been with the Housing Assistance Council for a little less than two of those over, over 50 years.
And I will just say that in the prior over 20 years that I've worked on public policy in this area, I always relied on HAC as a voice for rural housing policy. But as an organization, we have a mission of helping rural communities address their needs for affordable housing, with a particular focus on the most rural places and the poorest people.
And we really have four really major lines of work. I lead our policy work, but we also have a CDFI lending team that helps meet the financing needs of nonprofit and for-profit organizations in rural areas that are trying to address affordable housing and homelessness. We have a technical assistance and training division and we help build the capacity of those organizations as well as provide them technical assistance around every aspect of developing and preserving affordable housing, as well as ensuring that folks are receiving the other kinds of supports that they need.
And last, but very much not least, we have our research and information division. HAC is the leading source of information on the rural housing landscape, and I will say that is often the case in my work the statistics and other elements of the rural housing landscape that I'm describing here today are really the result of our research and information division.
So those are the lines of work that we do.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah. And I appreciate that you ended with that because I have in front of me the 2024 rural housing policy priorities, and we've had a number of guests on the podcast this year really with a keen focus. At our core, we want to connect the dots between policy and rural everything possible.
And so, I cited in our communication back and forth that there was a story very recently in the Daily Yonder which is reporting on what's news, which is the final federal budget. This was the headline for 2024 cuts most of rural housing programs, and I looked on your website and saw this report.
So, let's talk about that. Because I believe that we're not for resources like ours with a rural focus like the Daily Yonder, many folks would not understand the state of rural housing and truly how not number one complex but challenging it is right now. So, could you just give us an overview of what that looks like?
And then we'll talk about some of the policy priorities because the show isn't over. There's a lot of work to be done.
Jonathan Harwitz: Yes. So, let me just give a large overview of the state of rural housing, and then maybe we can get into the context of this particular budget bill, which I would say was not great news, but was not disastrous given the spending limits that were finally agreed to, I think, in part, we're just happy.
We're happy. The government isn't shutting down, which would have been disastrous. Um,
Michelle Rathman: right?
Jonathan Harwitz: So, if you look at our policy priorities, one of the things that we lead with visually is a couple of maps showing the level of housing cost burden across the country. And that's sort of a measure of how many people are paying more than 30 percent of their income in rent. And while it's really perceived that housing affordability is an urban or suburban crisis. It's not.
5.6 million rural households are paying more than 30 percent of their income in rent. That's a quarter of rural households. And that is a vast increase over four or even two decades ago. So, as we put in our testimony before Congress in several different instances, housing affordability is the biggest crisis in rural America by far.
Secondly, rural America particularly renters, 44 percent of rural renters are housing cost burdened. Many paying more than 50 percent of their income in rent. I think the 2nd point to make is that rural home ownership is challenged. The, the rates of home ownership in rural areas tend to be higher.
But, like everybody else with the interest rates going up, it's much more of a challenge for rural homeowners or potential homeowners to get loans.
Michelle Rathman: I'm nodding because I'm hearing those numbers and I think about all the different conversations I've had about just I heard a quote and I wish I knew who it was from, but you said it in a different order, affordable housing or housing affordability. And I think the quote goes something like this, “if only affordable housing meant the same thing as edible food.”
Jonathan Harwitz: That's really interesting.
Michelle Rathman: Really interesting comparison. So, let's talk a little bit about the policy priorities and what they look like on the ground, because the work that you're doing is so high level, you know, in this conversation, but I know that so much of the work that you guys are doing are on the ground.
So how did those priorities, you know, preserving the critical stock of USDA multifamily homes amid the growing maturing mortgage crisis, improving the overall quality availability and affordability of housing to buy and rent in small towns and rural places. What are some of the things that are happening, kind of a ray of light if you will, where the policy work and the advocacy work that you're doing is actually making its way into the communities that you're serving?
You must have several examples.
Jonathan Harwitz: Yes. And thank you for highlighting our policy priorities document. Then that's on our website. But I want to start with one you didn't happen to mention, which is our first priority, which is building the capacity of rural organizations. And I start with that because that is one of the biggest challenges, if not the biggest challenge rural communities face, which is that they tend to get less philanthropic support.
They have smaller governments; federal programs are often not designed with them in mind. And so, you have a great need for support for organizations that are currently trying to do housing. Or considering going into that. And so, we have been successful in advocating for and receiving funding from a variety of capacity building programs around the federal government, including the Rural Capacity Building Program at HUD and the Rural Community Development Initiative at USDA.
So, I wanted to just mention that we have sustained that funding you know, in a bipartisan way for many years. And that's where we start is to build the capacity. Because in order to develop and preserve how, operate and preserve housing, you have to have that capacity. So, let's move to the other 2 points that you made.
We're very focused on the 400,000 units assisted by USDA through one of the things that I hate is I feel like we lose people as soon as we start using program numbers like 515 people's eyes glaze over.
But the way I describe it, it's a long-term mortgage program that assisted 550, 000 rental units often coupled with rental assistance provided by USDA. It's now down to 400,000 units. And this is a highly vulnerable population. Two thirds, elderly and disabled average income between $12,000 and $14,000, depending on the unit that they're in. And I think we can get into sort of specific initiatives because I know you want to get an additional question in.
And but I think the fact that we have raised the profile of this portfolio. I think there are many people out there. I was one of them for many years that didn't even know USDA supported housing.
Michelle Rathman: That's why we, that's why I really wanted to kick off this episode with you because it is so important for people to understand the work. Our previous episode, we did have Deputy Undersecretary Farah Ahmad on talking about this exact thing, capacity building. But before we move on, because, capacity building sounds really smooth when it rolls off the tongue, right?
But there are barriers to capacity building. I think one thing I would like our listeners to understand from your perspective of what are those barriers to building capacity of affordable local housing and community development organizations. I mean, where do those conversations begin and how do you even imagine what capacity building looks like?
Could you just shed a little bit of light on that for us?
Jonathan Harwitz: The way I would describe it is, it's money and expertise. And meaning, it is critical for local organizations to get funding to be able to potentially add staff or even the financing that we do a long-term low interest loan that reduces the risk that a local developer has when they take on their first project.
That's critical expertise, training people on how to do a housing deal of some type and negotiate federal funding streams. Like you can provide support for grant applications. I did also want to mention because you're talking about Deputy Undersecretary Ahmad and the Rural Partners Network.
We, we are strongly supportive of the Rural Partners Network, and we see capacity building is sort of a two-way street with government that one of the challenges that rural organizations face is negotiating a bunch of different federal funding streams with less capacity than their urban counterparts often have.
And what's really helpful is if those different silos in the federal government are working together to help those nonprofits access that, that's the principle behind the Rural Partners Network. And that's something we're very supportive of and we see it working hand in glove, but really, it's about bridging the funding and the knowledge gap.
Michelle Rathman: Let's talk about funding for a moment just some from some of my own experiences in my travel to rural communities in the work that I do. And this has been a conversation that has been going on for years, which is really focused on the fact that so many of our rural communities are losing their own financial institutions. You know, and so, for those of us who live in a more populated area, when you want to, you know, now you can go online and just get a mortgage and so forth. But let's just talk a little bit about access to financial services and capital in rural places. And where does that come from?
Someone has an idea that they're going to do, some manufactured housing if there's land available, because there was also that issue and the infrastructure that goes with it. But just talk a little bit about the sources for funding. Where is that coming from that it is accessible for rural communities?
Where do they start?
Jonathan Harwitz: That's a great question, Michelle and HAC and our research and information team has done a lot of work on the closure of bank branches and others. And I'm going to, I'm going to go to the flip side of it for a moment, which is a lot of the community development and housing work that we're involved in is driven by what's called the Community Reinvestment Act or CRA.
That's a major driver of housing and community development funding, and historically, the Community Reinvestment Act has been the evaluation of bank activities under that have been based on what are they doing in the places where they have a physical footprint and to your point that that physical footprint was always underrepresented in rural areas.
But particularly over the last decades with the closure of those branches, it has been a challenge to access bank financing for affordable rural housing, particularly rental housing. And that's why actually, we have been very supportive of an element of the overhaul of the implementation of the CRA to incentivize investment in rural areas.
So, that would be a big positive in terms of driving bank investments in affordable rural rental and home ownership housing. I think to your other point about accessing financing but you happen to mention manufactured housing. One of the things that we're very interested in is there's a real challenge in the manufactured housing space, which is that many of those loans, they're not traditional mortgage loans.
They are more like auto loans, and they're known as what are Chattel Loans. And one of the things that we've really been working on, including with the federal housing administration is, how do we get more traditional mortgage financing into those properties? Because one of the challenges you have a lot of people, there have been headlines about private equity, purchasing manufactured home communities and raising rents drastically.
So, and really a lot of people don't, I think they don't realize that in their mind, they think the challenge with manufactured housing is quality. They have a vision of what it is. And yes, there are quality challenges, but often it's not the quality of the housing that's the issue. It's the quality of the financing, bad loan, and it's not secured by the property.
So, that was a, you know, I happened to pick on manufactured housing because that's an area that's really important.
Michelle Rathman: You know, it's something that could be so promising creates such vulnerability. I wrote something yesterday that said, well, there's no transparency trouble follows and we've heard this over and over again. So. All right. So, manufacturing housing, there's has challenges, but then we've got the stock of affordable and quality rural housing.
And as it happens, April is National Safe Housing Month, I believe is how it goes. And so, we know it's a challenge. The ripple effect, Jonathan, in terms of just being able to attract talent to a community for any particular industry. Without housing, and of course, people being able to grow and thrive in place.
So, let's talk about the stock of affordable and quality rural housing. And then some of the policy considerations to make sure that we have, these needs are being met and that we're not addressing this with like band aids. You know, how do we go from year over year over year to say the problem's not getting worse, but here are some things that are making it better.
And here are the things we need to do to keep going to improve this condition to the point where we're not finding ourselves so challenged anymore. Is that possible?
Jonathan Harwitz: Well, I wouldn't still be doing this work if I didn't think it was possible. Unfortunately, what I often say is the one thing federal policy can't do is build a time machine to go back in time to when the housing was cheaper to build or preserve.
And that's why preservation of precious stock is absolutely critical because if you lose it, then 10 years later, you are often trying to replicate that housing at a much higher cost and starting from scratch. So that's why we're extremely focused, as I mentioned, on the five, the USDA 515 portfolio, and we are very excited that there is strong bipartisan support for a no cost, actually, no cost policy change that would enable better financing for those properties to attract new private and public sector financing and that no cost pieces to decouple the mortgage from the rental assistance that I mentioned previously.
So, you can leverage other sources of financing. I want to be quite clear that doesn't mean there will be no additional cost to either the federal government or other public sector entities. It's estimated that's going to take about $30 Billion dollars of financing over the next three decades to sustain this 400,000-unit portfolio.
And we believe that the federal government needs to make investments into that. But it doesn't have to make all the investments. It can be a mix as we've seen in what I call HUD world. There has been a very significant initiative over the past 13 years called the Rental Assistance Demonstration, which has implemented a very similar model to redevelop a lot of, of public housing.
Has it meant that there isn't a need for a massive and federal investment in the public housing stock? No, there needs to be one, but it has managed to maintain and improve the quality of that stock in a way that we need to do on the USDA side. And right now, there are bipartisan bills in both the House and the Senate to the extent that the Senate two weeks ago or three weeks ago had a hearing on bipartisan housing proposals and basically 90 percent of the hearing was spent on this bill, the Rural Housing Service Act.
Michelle Rathman: Wow, that's great to hear. That's great to hear Jonathan. I mean, I, we could have this conversation for a couple more hours. I think because I, the day that we're recording this, we've just, seen terrible weather all over the country. So many rural places, their homes wiped out, entire communities, wiped out with their homes.
And, you know, in totality, we've got a lot of challenges. We've got to be able to be resilient, build those back up. And I think that the work that you're all doing is so informative. And the last question I want to ask you, and I ask this of everybody is what is in your advocates toolkit, you know, for the average person, we've got.
Our listenership is diverse. I'm happy to say that from all walks of life. If you could say anything to a rural stakeholder about the things that they should be advocating for safe and affordable housing. What are a couple of pieces of wisdom or tools that you could offer for us to take forward and spread the word about the importance of this topic?
I'm putting you on the spot.
Jonathan Harwitz: Well, thank you. I think that is that is great. And I really appreciate the fact that you're asking people across a spectrum of rural stakeholders about that. Because I think 1 of the things that's really striking to me in rural communities is that nobody says that's not my job. And that's not my area of expertise.
Everyone is sort of thrust into everything. And so housing, you know, what I would say is for my advocates toolkit is. Be very concrete in talking about the housing challenges that you are facing and use very specific examples of rental housing or homeowners who are having struggling to, to make repairs, or in many places you have in rural areas, people who have tangled, what's called tangled title or heirs property.
Yes, I know the whole other we can have a whole other podcast on that, which we, but I think it's really, I wasn't joking when I said before if you walk into a meeting and say, purely, I am here to advocate for the 515 Mortgage Program and the 521 Rental Assistance Program, you're not moving the ball forward on housing writ large, because then you're put into a little program box.
Housing is simple. It's bricks and sticks, the money to maintain it, and money to help people pay the rent or mortgage beyond what's affordable from their earned or benefit income. And,
Michelle Rathman: Perfect. Words of wisdom. Jonathan. Honestly, it's been an honor to have you here. You're welcome back anytime. Any policy news that you want us to know about send our way. We're going to make sure that we share it with people. And I want everyone to know that The Housing Assistance Council 2024 Rural Housing Policy Priorities, we'll put a link on our website as well.
We encourage you to go to it. So, Jonathan, thank you so much for joining us again. Really appreciate your time.
Jonathan Harwitz: and thank you for having us and happy to come back. Me or one of my colleagues, thank you for keeping housing on the forefront.
Michelle Rathman: Absolutely.
And folks do not go anywhere because up next in this Rural Impact conversation and, as I said, in time for National Healthy Home Month, joining me at the Riverside studio up next is Amanda Reddy, Executive Director of the National Center for Healthy Housing. We'll be right back with this Rural Impact Conversation.
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Michelle Rathman: Thanks for staying with us. We're continuing our conversation about rural housing on this first episode of a new three-part Rural Impact series. More on that just a little bit later, but right now I am so pleased, and I really mean that. This, the way that we met is so, I guess it would be serendipity.
Joining me is Amanda Reddy, and Amanda is the Executive Director of the National Center for Healthy Housing. Amanda, thank you so much for joining us here on the Rural Impact. It's great to have you here.
Amanda Reddy: Thank you so much and happy Healthy Homes Month to you and all of your listeners.
Michelle Rathman: I would have never known about it if we didn't, if we weren't researching for this. And so, Amanda, I was sharing with our audience, before you joined us just prior in the conversation. We had the opportunity to speak with Jonathan Harwitz. Jonathan is, probably the name he's in does a lot of policy work at the Housing Assistance Council.
And Jonathan and I, we talked about rural housing inventory challenges. There's plenty of that, access to capital, policies related to lending, for example. We talked about the recent budget that just passed. But our conversation is going to shift over to safe housing, which is healthy housing. And this has been something that has been, you know, seeds have been planted in my brain over the years from the communities that I've traveled to and seeing the correlation between safe and healthy housing and health, of course.
But again, just in time for National Healthy Homes Month, let's start off by having you tell us about your work, the catalyst for your work and then a little bit about the month that we're, we should all be focusing on right now.
Amanda Reddy: Wonderful. Well, the National Center for Healthy Housing, or NCHH as we're known in the field, was really founded on the idea that better housing is a really powerful platform for better health. You know, after all, as a nation, we spend more than 70 percent of our time in residential environments. So, it's pretty important to make sure that those places are really safe and healthy places for us to live and work and play.
And the National Center for Healthy Housing's role in creating healthier home environments over the past 30 plus years has really been through a combination of research that helps us to not just understand the problems that we face, but really importantly, the solutions that are available, right?
What policies and programs and practices are most effective in helping us create healthier home environments. Also, in translating that evidence into advocacy, which we do at the federal, state, and local level.
And then also partnering with communities across the country through capacity building, right? And including, I should mention, an increasing and significant number of rural communities who are really seeing the value and potential of improving housing quality as an opportunity to create transformation for communities, for families, for individuals. And the potential for that transformation, I think, is really what is behind the theme of this year's National Healthy Homes Month, which is making an impact healthy, safe, and resilient homes.
And I think what that really conveys is that, you know, our understanding that by improving housing conditions, we really have a unique opportunity to have a positive impact on health and wealth and well-being for individuals, for communities, for states, for our nation as a whole.
And that's, true every day. It's true all the time. It always has been true, but it's really increasing in importance. And so, I think the resilience part of that message really reflects the increasing relevance and importance and the role of housing is having on our well-being, you know, protecting us from those existing threats, but also from emerging threats and in response to a change in climate.
Michelle Rathman: And listen, if you are in what you deem, what's deemed a healthy home, maybe this conversation is, it's something that won't resonate with you, but I promise you, if you travel to any rural county across this country, and you are going to find, you know, just go over just a few blocks and we will find homes.
And it's so often it's not seen. And so, when it's not seen, we don't talk about it. So, one of the things that's important is before you can develop solutions, of course, you have to understand what the challenges are. And you your organization. And you'll tell us who in partnership this was with, but you did a 2022, 2023 identifying needs of rural healthy housing questionnaire.
And so, there's some key takeaways from that. But maybe what we should do first is talk about the biggest issues facing which I'm sure bears itself out in those key takeaways. So, one of the things that we're looking at, very specific to rural, about the key environmental factors, for example that we should know about.
Amanda Reddy: Sure. I think that environmental health hazards and healthy housing issues that are traditional environmental health issues and healthy housing hand hazards, like lead, and mold, and indoor air quality, and carbon monoxide, structural issues that may pose a fall or a trip or an injury hazard, leaking roofs, right?
Those are common to all communities. But they're important to rural communities too, and they really present a particular set of challenges for rural communities and their residents. Rural communities tend to have residents that may be more socially isolated. They have an aging population.
Their residents may have limited access to health care or services that are available to help them either, deal with a housing related illness or injury or get help to fix their homes, maintain their homes, prevent some of these illnesses and injuries from happening in the first place. So, they can be really sort of the housing hazards can seem very similar to what we see in communities across the country, but rural communities often face particular challenges and addressing them.
When we listen to rural communities, I should say, and you mentioned the work that we did in partnership with the National Environmental Health Association. You know, of all of these challenges, a few of the things that really came up as really common themes were indoor air quality was one that we've heard from a lot of rural communities.
You know, rural residents are more likely to use heating sources, for instance, that can contribute to poor indoor air quality, coal and wood burning stoves, kerosene heaters. So, we heard a lot about those challenges, water infrastructure and water quality was another area.
Michelle Rathman: Let just stop you right there. 12 percent of rural Americans report issues with their sewage systems.
Amanda Reddy: That's right. That's right. They also you know, private wells, which many residents and rural communities use are not regulated in the same way that you know, by federal or state laws. And so, they can have, special risks. My organization focuses a lot on lead. And so, we've been hearing a lot about lead service line replacement going on a lot in the country.
But what about all of the wells that many rural residents...
Michelle Rathman: Well contamination is something we're hearing. If you follow in the state of Oregon, there's certain places where you know, their senator has been very involved with leading the charge, and maybe some of the things that we'll talk about later is like, whose job is it? You know, and it's, what I've seen is it has to be a partnership because it's not one entity's challenge.
It's public health. It's the hospital. It's wherever the source and so forth.
Amanda Reddy: That's exactly right. And certainly, true with that water infrastructure. You know, I mentioned already climate change. Climate change is another area that we've been hearing from rural communities that this is an emerging concern and like a lot of growing attention being paid to wildfires and flooding events, high wind events, extreme heat, extreme cold.
You know, for instance, I think in one of our reports, we shared from another data set that nearly a third of rural counties had, 60 to 150 heat related emergency department visits per 100,000 residents. So that was a third of those counties compared to only 8.4 percent of large metro counties. So, we're hearing that that disaster preparedness and again, paired with that sort of lack of infrastructure is really on the minds of a growing number of rural communities.
Michelle Rathman: You know, and Amanda, as we're recording on this date, this particular date is April 4th and you guys will be hearing this in about a week's time. So, of course, everything here is, maybe a week behind, but we've just come off another devastating round of weather events, still more to come, houses being shredded, you know, in, in many rural communities across Oklahoma and so forth in Kentucky.
I mean, they're seeing devastating flooding, and I would imagine that we're also talking about mold. We're talking about soil contamination. I mean, it's a big, big challenge. I mean, so forget about the inventory for a moment. Is the inventory that you have in your community considered safe living conditions and not just get by, right?
Amanda Reddy: Absolutely, and I think the type of housing also really makes a difference here. If we think about the type of housing that exists in rural America, one in five rural Americans and rural American homes is a mobile home. Right? And in some states, that proportion is even higher. And we know from work that others have done that nearly a third of those residents living in those mobile homes are already worried that their housing is impacting their family's health and safety without even layering on any of these types of housing events.
Nearly a quarter have had problems with mold or inadequate heating or cooling. I think something like 40 percent have experienced issues with pests. So the type of housing in rural America presents some unique challenges in terms of thinking about improving housing quality.
Michelle Rathman: Well, I'm glad that you went there because, we know that unsafe, unhealthy housing does in fact have many health implications and, folks don't throw your shoes at my head, but I have to bring it up because I do work in healthcare as anyone who listens to this knows. And so there are implications.
I mean, there is a domino effect here and there's only so much. I mean, you know, rural health providers, federally qualified health clinics are doing as much as they can to ask the questions they can while a patient is in their office, presenting with something that's already wrong. So, talk a little bit about the research or anything that you can expand upon in terms of the intersection between healthy housing and then the overall, health and then the impacts on rural health systems.
Amanda Reddy: Sure, well, housing is one of the most well documented and powerful social determinants of health. Right? And we already said why we spend so much time in our home environments and so unsafe housing conditions, unhealthy housing conditions can contribute to a wide range of housing related illness and injury.
Whether we're talking about asthma or other respiratory diseases, cardiovascular outcomes, if we're thinking about things like lead exposure, we're talking about neurological outcomes, cognitive deficits, radon can
Michelle Rathman: can't the cancer cases that
Amanda Reddy: All of these things. Yeah, to death. Mental health is something that I think is often really overlooked, but is a significant consequence of poor mental health, particularly among children and adolescents or some really interesting research about that.
So, it really impacts almost every aspect of our physical health and well-being. So, yeah, it absolutely has an importance and your question about the sort of intersection and role of health care and health care settings, I think, is a really great one. There are really multiple layers, I think, to how the public health and health care systems are impacted and the potential role that they have to play in helping rural communities face these issues.
Michelle Rathman: I wanted I do want us to talk about some of the impact and some of the things that you see that are innovative that are happening. But before we go there, let's shift to policy because that we, that's what we do here at the end of the day. We want to make sure that we connect the dots to policy.
And while we know policy happens at the local level, the state level, let's focus on federal policy because, we talked about this in the first part of this particular episode. All roads to quality of life are paved by policy is what we say. And so let's talk about some of your organizations, if you will, I don't want to misstate, but kind of legislative priorities, what should we be aware of?
Amanda Reddy: Absolutely, so this is a great question and great timing. You know, one of the things we hear repeatedly from rural communities is the need for additional financial support, right? Not only to build a more robust infrastructure, but also to actually just help residents and communities pay for needed repairs, right?
To improve this housing stock. There are many existing funding streams, loans and grant programs, most notably at USDA and HUD that are already providing critical financing for this work. And there's certainly an opportunity to improve on and expand on these programs. And so, you know, lots of work that we can talk about there in terms of specific asks.
My organization has some nice fact sheets that describe some of these key programs. If any of your
Michelle Rathman: Yes, we will put them on our resource page. I always promise folks will make sure it's an easy link, but I mean, I'm seeing in front of me the 502 Direct Loan Program through USDA. I was interested in the Single-Family Housing, Rural Disaster Home Repair Grants that are available as well. Housing Preservation Grants.
...of course-farm labor housing grants? I mean, this is essential.
Amanda Reddy: They are essential, and I think it's also worth noting that we're seeing some increasing awareness of the specific need to invest in rural communities amongst these federal programs, particularly at HUD. Right? That may not be sort of in their typical purview. So, for example, the HUD Older Adults Home Modification Grant Program.
That is designed to help older Americans be able to age safely and comfortably in their own homes has a target of setting aside about a third of those grants for work in rural communities. And so, I think that represents a real opportunity for us to be capturing the impact of these investments.
Alongside the scale of the unmet need that still exists, despite these funding streams, right? So that we can help make the case for additional funding and to ensure that rural communities see themselves reflected in the funding opportunities because that's something that we hear a lot too, right?
Either the funding opportunities aren't designed to really help them address the challenges that they're facing in their community to help them actually address housing quality, or that they don't see themselves being eligible for able to compete for federal funds. And there are a couple of, I think, exciting things happening at the federal level that I'd love to highlight.
Michelle Rathman: Yes, please do.
Amanda Reddy: for communities to track, there are a couple of things that I think are going to be impacting all communities, but I'd really urge rural communities to be thinking about and weighing in on. First is that there's been a bill introduced in Congress to support a whole home repair approach.
Like the one that's being implemented at the state level in Pennsylvania, where they've supported it with the American Rescue Plan Act funds. And I really think this represents an opportunity for rural communities, if this pilot was successful and the government decided to scale it up to access funding streams that could really be tailored to their individual needs and opportunities, right?
Not just the needs that are reflected nationwide or by larger metropolitan areas. So that's one that I'd urge your listeners to be paying attention to.
Michelle Rathman: Okay. We'll put that on our resource page.
Amanda Reddy: Another approach under discussion is the potential for HUD's Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Housing, which is our nation's really main source of funding to address lead hazards and other healthy housing hazards.
There's a potential for them to be piloting up an approach that would combine their current strategy of awarding funding through competitive grants. With a formula funding approach, right? And formula funds all approaches grants formula funding all have biases. But I think it's really imperative for rural communities to be considering the implications of these strategies and how those formulas are set up.
Right? That could have the potential to bias funds either to or away from rural communities, and let HUD, let your elected officials know what you think or let them know that these kinds of approaches have to exist side by side, right?
So that all communities can see themselves represented in the opportunity to access these funds.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah. And I would say, don't accept your member of Congress dismissing lead and water and other impurities or other channels. Don't let it slide and saying it's going to cost you much because there's, you know, we know we, these are not just, these are investments that we need to make.
And if we can make that connection and tell their stories. All right. My gosh, I have so many questions I want to ask you and here's one.
So, we hear often how challenging it can be to even just navigate. So when we say yes, a rural community can benefit from this, who typically, who leads this charge for a rural community?
Because an individual homeowner who might not have even have access to broadband, and certainly I don't want to say that that's everybody, but we recognize that some of the funding for access to broadband is running out here soon as well. So who leads that charge at the, you know, we have county officials listening, and we hope that we do, and we'll share it with them.
If you could just share a little bit about how your organization can help navigate some of these things. I know going to your website, that's the easy answer, but tell us a little bit about some of the work that you're doing on the ground to help be navigators.
Amanda Reddy: Sure. And I'd love to share that before I go there. I'd love just to even highlight to answer the first part of your question is who is really that looks as different as you know, as the number of rural communities that exist, right? Rural is a big umbrella term that means a lot of different things. A rural community in Alaska is going to look a lot different, right than a rural community in Mississippi.
And so a lot of that depends upon the makeup and the infrastructure that exists in a community. I also want to make the point here that states have a role to play as well in supporting rural communities in two really specific ways. One is that we've already talked about how difficult it can be for rural communities to access federal funding.
And so the states can have a role in helping rural communities access federal funds. A couple of examples here for you are in Michigan. Many localities have lead hazard control grants, but the state also has a lead hazard control grant and funding to abate lead hazards that can help to provide access to those funds for communities that aren't covered by those municipal or county level grants.
Vermont used American Rescue Plan Act funds to set aside some resources to improve living conditions for residents of manufactured homes, right? Benefiting residents across the state, but certainly residents in rural communities. And New York state, they run a healthy neighborhoods program focused on improving housing conditions that benefits a wide range of communities. You know, a lot of the cities that are across the state, but also some of the rural areas that have low population density.
So, lots of ways for our states, I think, to intervene to help create access to funding.
Also, data is another place where states can step in rural communities have challenges. First of all, it takes a lot of capacity and specialized expertise to collect and analyze and report on data. And then, when you're dealing with small numbers, right, it can be hard to know what to do with that. So, we're seeing some great approaches from states that are, first of all, taking on that role and that responsibilities. But also doing things like looking at greater numbers of years of data or aggregating rural counties that are adjacent to each other.
So, instead of just suppressing data saying, oh, the numbers are too low, being able to actually tell the story of the rural areas and their state. So, I know I haven't answered your question yet, but I really just wanted to highlight.
Michelle Rathman: I think it's so essential for us to understand that information because it is so complex. I think that what you're saying to me is so encouraging is that there are so many models. It's not like you have to reinvent any wheel. You can still tailor it to what your community makeup is.
At the same time, there are models that have a blueprint, if you will. We can say, yes, we've identified first is to identify the problems, connect those dots, and then look around and see what other models might be beneficial for you to explore and see if it fits for your needs.
Amanda Reddy: That's right, and that's actually a great segue for me to answer the question you actually asked me, which is, who is leading this charge and how can they get help? And that is part of, NCHH's purpose and reason for existing is to help identify those promising models, to spread the word about them, right, share best practices and also put communities in conversation with each other.
So, we have a lot of tools on our website, as you already mentioned, we'll make sure your listeners have access to them. People can also reach out to us, right? Communities, organizations working in rural communities can reach out to us.
You don't have to do this alone. If we don't have the answer or ideas of how to help, we have a vast network of partners who might be able to. And there's a lot to share at the local level. We're seeing a tremendous amount of innovation, right? Rural communities often will tell us that the standard approaches to healthy housing and improving housing quality don't work for them, right?
Whether it's because of a lack of infrastructure or resource, or a climate that isn't favorable to regulatory approaches.
Michelle Rathman: You've heard about those.
Amanda Reddy: Exactly. Or the lack of funding or workforce supply chain issues are real and accessing remote areas comes with additional challenges. So, what we see instead is a lot of innovation happening in rural America.
As an example, we have one partner at the University of North Dakota that is doing some really interesting work to leverage the public library system to lend out radon test kits to at risk homes. And that's a really different take on systems change than we think about on a day-to-day basis, but it's one that's culturally appropriate.
It's feasible, and it's getting the job done. And one thing that from my national perspective that I really love about these success stories from rural communities is that it expands the toolkit for everyone. Right for all communities. We had one of our colleagues at the Cold Climate Research Center in Alaska, who told me once about overcoming barriers and remote areas of that state.
Like, if you can make it work in the Arctic, you can make it work everywhere.
Michelle Rathman: No excuses. No, because to your point, we should all be advocates. It shouldn't just be my house. That's healthy. It needs to be your house to for us. I mean, 1, we got to another, we get to another. Oh, my gosh, Amanda, you have, we could talk all day. There's endless, this is an endless conversation because we didn't even get into some of the more, kind of more intimate aspects of it, just like, for home safety, to prevent slips and falls.
I mean, you're looking at the entirety of this issue. And I love it. Every room of the house, if you will.
Amanda Reddy: I well, I am so thrilled that you're bringing awareness to this issue and you're right. We could fill an entire podcast series with all of the innovation and promising models that we're seeing coming out of rural communities across the country. I urge people to reach out and find out more to learn about how you might get into action to help create healthier home environments and in your area.
Michelle Rathman: Absolutely. It starts with one conversation. You know, we one voice is not enough. One voice is all you need to get started. And Amanda, we'll stay in touch. I think I'm just so appreciative that we found each other when we did. It was just so timely for this series. Everything for a reason as they say, so please we'll make sure that we put all your contact information up on our website.
Go. Get curious. We know that some of the things that we talk about on this podcast, they're not meant to be light subjects, but at the end of the day, we always hope that these conversations are enlightening you and what Amanda shared to me was certainly enlightening. So again, thank you for joining us.
Amanda Reddy: Thank you so much for having us.
Michelle Rathman: Okay. Remember I said, any resource materials we cite, we'll do our best to share that with you on our website, both in the show notes and under our resource tab. We work to make it very easy for you. Just go to theruralimpact.com Pretty simple and you'll find all that and so much more there. And speaking of more, I need to tell you that we will be continuing this series, hearing next from the author, and it's just an amazing book, Families on the Edge, Experiences of Homelessness and Care in Rural New England.
And that is Elizabeth Carpenter Song. I would never lie to you. You are not going to want to miss this conversation. She's fascinating and her research is just mind blowing in this bigger picture conversation that we're having. So lastly, before we sign off today, I want to be sure to acknowledge and thank our associate producer, Brea Corsaro, always appreciative for her help.
Our creative director, Sarah Staub. And as always, a thanks to Jonah Mancino for his musical talents. If you are not following us on social yet, we hope you'll start doing that today. Be sure to subscribe to the Rural Impact from our website. Go to any place where you'd like to listen. We're everywhere.
We're working to just build that library and be sure to subscribe on our website because that's where you're going to get our post series blogs packed with resources and some reflection. You get a little more sense of where I'm coming from. Again, we thank you for joining us and we'll see you next time on a new episode of the Rural Impact.
