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As I watched Matthew McLane’s children play in the front yard of their home, I could tell how much this family loved being homeowners. Matthew and Candice McLane became first time homebuyers through the Agency’s Mutual Self-Help Program in 2012. The couple, and their two daughters, had been living...

Last month, I had the privilege of witnessing the American dream come to life for a Rockingham, Virginia family who has just purchased and built their first home with the help of a USDA Rural Development (RD) direct low-interest loan. It was an honor to help Rural Housing Service Administrator Tony...

Owning a home opens up a world of opportunities. A home is an asset that helps families finance education or a business. A home could be the reason you learn how to use a power drill, or the reason you start your first garden. Homeownership helps people become more financially literate all while...

Focusing on international markets, renewable energy and a community’s inherent assets, rural businesses find dynamic paths to prosperity. To see this in action, I headed to Boonville, New York. Mark Bourgeois was born and raised in Boonville and today is President of CJ Logging Equipment and 3B...

USDA Rural Development’s Rural Energy for America Program, or REAP as we call it, is one of the flagship programs found in the energy title of the Farm Bill. Through REAP, USDA helps rural agricultural producers and small businesses improve their financial bottom line through increased energy...

Five years ago, Christy Carr seemed like a long shot as a future homeowner. She was a newly divorced, unemployed mom of five, and her credit score was in the 300’s. The home she shared with her children had no heat, no electricity and no running water. A neighbor let Christy run an extension cord to...

When one thinks about home, they often think about warm meals on the dinner table, cozying up on the couch, painting the nursery, or even building equity in a place one calls their own. When I think housing- especially new housing: I also think opportunity; I think jobs. Jobs come from laying...

It’s been 25 years since USDA guaranteed the first home loan in Donalsonville, Georgia. The home itself was a modest spot nestled into the tiny little village in rural Georgia. To an outsider this home may look non-descript, but to the family who moved in 25 years ago, owning this home was a dream...

California has a pioneering spirit. Rural folks there have been on the frontier for generations. That frontier may have been gold mines and cattle grasslands in the past, but today that frontier is the very air, soil and water of California itself. Climate change is transforming California like it’s...

May 20, 2016 is the 80 th anniversary of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. The REA was created to bring electricity to farms. In 1936, nearly 90 percent of farms lacked electric power because the costs to get electricity to rural areas were prohibitive. REA funding and the hard work of Rural...