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Reported Article

Health Care and Community Development Partnerships in the Time of COVID-19

For health care institutions and community development organizations that focus on low-income communities’ social determinants of health, this year has been a doozy. The concept that a person’s health is […]

destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy
Reported Article

What Prior Disasters Have Taught Housing Advocates About How to Respond to COVID-19

When it comes to helping people maintain or recover their housing, hurricanes and fires aren’t as different from a pandemic as one might think.

Reported Article

How Artists Helped a Housing Organization Adapt to Demographic Change

An in-depth look at the lessons one housing organization learned after receiving a multimillion grant to integrate arts and culture strategies in its work. Has the organization changed the way it operates?

rural cooperative
COVID

We Need a Rural New Deal

COVID-19 is a combined health and economic crisis poised to further devastate rural communities already suffering severe economic stress. Already, rural health care systems are strained by the outbreak, and […]

A flooded street in Princeville, North Carolina.
Reported Article

Deciding Not to Rebuild After Climate-Related Disasters

Officials in large and small cities along the East Coast are realizing that maybe they shouldn’t rebuild on land that repeatedly floods. Instead they’re focusing on buyouts, building affordable housing on higher ground, and other mitigation efforts.

water storage tanks in Beattyville, Lee County, Kentucky
Community Development Field

How a Dozen Organizations Are Fighting Persistent Poverty Together

A national coalition of development financial institutions, CDCs, and financial intermediaries have banded together with local leaders who live in communities where more than 20 percent of the population has lived in poverty for more than 30 years.

A doctor and her patient walk outside.
Reported Article

Rural Hospital Struggles Are Also an Economic Development Issue

Aside from the health implications, the closure of a hospital in a rural community deeply impacts the area’s economic wellbeing. But in some cases, it can be avoided.

The Answer

Q: Is Rental Housing a Rural Issue?

Yes! Although homeownership rates are higher in rural areas, there is still a significant rural population that needs rental housing.

Community Development Field

Small Numbers, Great Expectations: A Case for Rural Investment

“Drop dead” wasn’t an acceptable answer to urban decay in the 1970s. And it isn’t the right answer for struggling rural areas today.

Community Reinvestment Act

Improving CRA for Rural America

The Community Reinvestment Act regulations should be recrafted to incentivize investments in underserved and economically distressed communities, many of which are rural.

A group works to raise a wall as part of the Self-Help Housing Program.
Housing

Working up a Sweat with the Self-Help Housing Program

Fifty-four years and 52,000 homes later, the future of the Self-Help Housing Program for low- and very-low income households is uncertain after it was eliminated in a budget proposal for next fiscal year.

Kids stand in front of a mural in Thomas, West Virginia.
Arts & Culture

An Antidote to the Negativity Surrounding Rural America

With all the news of downward trends in rural America, this rural sociologist says he finally has something to smile about.