During the month of June, housing groups across the country celebrate homeownership through a variety of events. Given the critical impact housing has on our health and wellbeing, I am grateful for the opportunity to celebrate homeownership, personally and professionally with other rural and Indigenous homeowners across the western thirteen states that RCAC serves.

As the housing crisis continues to impact families across the country, it’s important to remember that while access to decent affordable housing is a universal need, the challenges are different from community to community. And rural communities are often left out of the discussion.

To the surprise and dismay of rural housing advocates and practitioners across the country, the Senate proposed an increase in 502 interest rates for very low-income borrowers who utilize this premier rural mortgage product, including Mutual Self Help families. I was in DC and met with USDA in late September and this was a primary topic. I want to share with you some of the facts on the 502 program, shared with the National Rural Housing Coalition by Bob Rapoza, and some data supporting the call for the 502 base interest rate remains at 1%.

Several years ago, I spoke at the Hawaiian housing conference. I had a bit of an outline for my remarks, but as I sat in the audience listening to other speakers and their messages, it struck me that the word that was resounding for me as the overarching value of having a home was the word “heal.” I opened my remarks with the phrase “Home is Where We Heal” and framed the remainder of my remarks around that concept.

RCAC is a diverse organization in that we are a Mutual Self-Help Housing (MSH) intermediary, and we provide a myriad of other housing services and support, including homeownership counseling training and 502 direct mortgage certified loan packaging.