United States Government Publishing Office publisher pbl distributor dst United States Government Accountability Office Resources, Community, and Economic Development Division author aut Government Organization text government publication eng GAOREPORTS Legislative Agency Publications gao legislative 2010-08-12 U.S. Government Printing Office 2000-09-15 monographic deposited born digital 79 p. GA 1.13:RCED-00-241 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-241 P0b002ee1803a2ac9 f:rc00241 DGPO 2010-08-12 2011-03-23 GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-241 machine generated eng fdlp REPORT GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-241 RCED-00-241 Rural housing programs Rural economic development Government guaranteed loans Housing construction Housing repairs Low income housing Federal aid for housing Redundancy Direct loans HUD Self-Help Homeownership Opportunities Program BIA Housing Improvement Program BIA Native American Loan Guarantee Program RHS Multifamily Housing Loan Program HUD Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program RHS Single Family Direct Loan Program RHS Single Family Loan Guarantee Program Letter Report RCED Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on rural housing programs, focusing on: (1) the physical condition of today's rural housing and rural households' access to affordable housing credit; (2) the rural housing programs offered by the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Rural Housing Service (RHS) and the ways in which RHS' programs have adapted to changes in the level of federal housing assistance; (3) any overlap between RHS' programs and the programs of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and other federal, state, and private organizations; and (4) options for maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of the federal role in rural housing.<p/>GAO noted that: (1) nationwide, the physical condition of rural housing has greatly improved since the inception of rural housing programs in the 1930s, but it still lags somewhat behind that of urban housing; (2) particularly in some remote rural areas, the quality of housing is poorer for some groups, especially minorities; (3) affordable housing is also difficult to find in some rural areas, and rural homeowners sometimes pay slightly higher mortgage interest rates than their urban counterparts; (4) RHS is the largest component of a comparatively new USDA mission area, Rural Development, created when the Department was reorganized in 1994; (5) RHS targets a wide array of housing services to rural residents, often offers more favorable terms and conditions than other federal housing programs, and delivers service through an extensive field network; (6) RHS' single family and multifamily programs are available to households that live in rural areas and have incomes ranging from very low to moderate; (7) RHS' multifamily programs provide: (a) direct and guaranteed loans to commercial developers or nonprofit organizations to produce new rental housing; (b) grants and loans to public or nonprofit agencies or individual farmers to build affordable rental housing for farm workers; (c) housing preservation grants to local governments, nonprofit organizations, and Native American tribes; (d) and rental assistance subsidies; (8) as government has scaled back its involvement in rural housing assistance, it has greatly reduced its funding for RHS' direct loan programs, expanded RHS' guaranteed loan programs, and increased reliance on state, local, and private partners to leverage funds for rural communities; (9) rural households have greater access to RHS than to other federal or state agencies; (10) overlap in the products offered and in the households served by RHS and the other organizations offering housing assistance varies by rural housing program and program mission; (11) given the diminished distinctions between rural and urban areas today, improvements in rural housing quality and access to credit, and RHS' increasing reliance on guaranteed lending and public and private partnerships, the federal role in rural housing is at a crossroads; and (12) options for optimizing the federal role include fundamentally changing the programs' targeting, subsidy levels, and delivery systems, as well as merging RHS' programs with HUD's or other agencies' comparable programs. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-241/html/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-241.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-241/pdf/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-241.pdf GAO/RCED-00-241 https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-RCED-00-241 Letter Report GAO/RCED-00-241; Rural Housing: Options for Optimizing the Federal Role in; Rural housing programs Rural economic development Government guaranteed loans Housing construction Housing repairs Low income housing Federal aid for housing Redundancy Direct loans HUD Self-Help Homeownership Opportunities Program BIA Housing Improvement Program BIA Native American Loan Guarantee Program RHS Multifamily Housing Loan Program HUD Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program RHS Single Family Direct Loan Program RHS Single Family Loan Guarantee Program