Funds Available for Rural Improvements

Funds Available for Rural Improvements. I'm Greg Martin with Washington Ag Today.

If you live in a rural area and need to make some improvements on your home, the government has money available to assist you. Tony Hernandez, Rural Housing Service Administrator explains.

HERNANDEZ: What we're trying to do is provide access to dollars for seniors and low income folks so they can fix up their homes. We try to help people get into home ownership and then trying to keep them in there so we can help them fix their homes, repair windows, doors, handicap accessibility, energy efficiency, things to keep people in their homes.

Hernanadez says that in Washington State alone this year they have invested about $88-thousand dollars in eleven different projects. He talks about some of the guidelines.

HERNANDEZ: First of all you have to live in a rural area and you have to be at a certain income levels and if you're a senior citizen, 62 and over, you can qualify for a grant up to $7500 so these folks are on a fixed income a lot of times.

One question I get often is what constitutes a rural area?

HERNANDEZ: You know it's less than 20-thousand in population. A lot of folks do live in small towns and between the small towns there's a field, a forest and other things. What we're trying to do is make the house a better home and that's why we provide these grants and loan dollars to change people's lives. We do it every year, every year. So we want folks in Washington to call 360-704-7767 or they can go to our website which is rd.usda.gov

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.