HAC in the News Archives

Congressional Hearing Focuses on the Potential of Manufactured Housing

May 31, 2022/in HAC in the News Housing Affordability, Housing Structure Type /by Daniel Stern

HAC’s Director of Research, Lance George, was one of several witnesses to provide testimony at a hearing of the House Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee on Manufactured Housing: Supporting America’s Largest Unsubsidized Affordable Housing Stock. North Carolina news station WRAL covered the hearing and provided local perspective on the potential for manufactured housing to increase housing affordability in the region.

How HAC Fills the Data Gap in Rural America

May 23, 2022/in HAC in the News, News Persistent Poverty, Rural Data, Rural Demographics /by Daniel Stern

Filling The Data Gap In Rural America on forbes.com highlights how HAC works to increase access to data about rural America to better address rural housing challenges and persistent poverty.

Over the years, there has been an increase in accurate data collection regarding rural America, and HAC has been at the forefront.

David Lipsetz Offers Perspective on Inflation and its Impact on Nonprofits

April 11, 2022/in HAC in the News Housing Affordability /by Daniel Stern

HAC President and CEO David Lipsetz was quoted in Inflation Hits Ability of Nonprofits to Provide Services, Keep Workers — and Raise Money, an article by Dan Parks at the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The piece examines how inflationary pressures are affecting nonprofits and their ability to operate.

“It’s stalled countless projects for us, right in the middle of a period of time when housing and shelter are the most important things needed to weather the storm of a pandemic,” says Lipsetz. “For us, a modest increase in costs can shut down a project in an area of the country where it’s needed the most.”

Read the full story.

The story also appeared in:

HAC’s Lance George Discusses Housing Affordability and Tourism with NPR Washington

February 3, 2022/in HAC in the News, News Housing Affordability, Rental Housing /by Daniel Stern

In an interview on the Soundside podcast, Lance George, HAC’s Director of Research and Information, speaks about the importance of affordable housing not only in high amenity rural communities, but in rural communities throughout the U.S. He stresses that housing affordability has been an ongoing problem that is only getting worse and argues that comprehensive community-based solutions are needed to address the issue.

“It’s a misperception that rural communities should be more affordable or shouldn’t have affordability challenges and pressures that you’re know seeing. In fact, housing affordability has always been the challenge in rural communities, as well as urban communities.”

Lance GeorgeHAC Director of Research and Information

CIRD Work Featured by New Hampshire Newspaper

December 23, 2021/in HAC in the News, News Placemaking and Rural Design /by Leslie Strauss

Representatives of the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design, a leadership initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Housing Assistance Council, drew attention from the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel when they toured an area in Keene, New Hampshire targeted to become an arts corridor.

National Rural-Design Agency Advising Keene on Proposed Arts Corridor

by Caleb Symons

November 22, 2021

The mural needed a second look.

Sylvie Rice, a volunteer with the Historical Society of Cheshire County, had pointed out that Abraham Lincoln’s profile is deliberately etched into the clouds of an otherwise colonial-era scene on Church Street in downtown Keene. In unison, the small group of local arts promoters and rural-development advisers craned their necks to better see the 16th president.

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HAC’s Research featured on Marketplace Morning Report

December 20, 2021/in HAC in the News, News Housing Affordability, Rental Housing /by Daniel Stern

Lance George, HAC’s Director of Research and Information, contributed his expertise to a segment on the Marketplace Morning Report. For unincorporated communities, limited ways to regulate housing examines the challenges high amenity communities like Joshua Tree, California have with rental housing affordability. Lance offered a national perspective on factors that contribute to these challenges.

DAvid Lipsetz interviews Secretary Tom Vilsack

Housing Assistance Council

The Daily Yonder: USDA Seeks Equity in Housing…

December 3, 2021/in HAC in the News, HAC Rural Housing Conference, News U.S. Department of Agriculture /by Daniel Stern

The Daily Yonder reports from the 2021 HAC National Rural Housing Conference on President & CEO David’s Lipsetz’s interview with USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack.

USDA Seeks Equity in Housing, Less Extractive Rural Economies, Secretary of Ag Says

by Kristi Eaton
December 1, 2021

According to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is incorporating an equity commission to review its activities, a move meant to provide greater equality and fairness in a department that has not always lived up to that.

Vilsack was interviewed during the 2021 National Rural Housing Conference. Put on by the Housing Assistance Council (HAC), a national nonprofit that supports affordable housing efforts throughout rural America, it provides below-market financing for affordable housing and community development, technical assistance and training, research and information, and policy formulation.

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Successful Farming – Rural America, Mostly White, is Becoming More Diverse

October 4, 2021/in HAC in the News Rural Data, Rural Demographics /by Daniel Stern

Successful Farming highlighted research from HAC and the Brookings Institute focused on diversity in rural America.

Three-quarters of rural Americans are white, a larger proportion than the roughly six in 10 for the nation overall, but the rural population is becoming more diverse, said a pair of analyses of Census data. The rural America of the future will be increasingly diverse and not as politically conservative as many assume, said the Brookings Institution…

“The overall rural population between 2010 and 2020 would have declined substantially if not for growth in its Hispanic population,” three researchers from the Housing Assistance Council said in the Daily Yonder. Hispanics make up 10.4% of the rural population and Blacks make up 7.4%. People of two or more races make up 4% of the rural population, and Native Americans are 2%, twice the national rate.

The Housing Assistance Council researchers said, “Despite advances made through the civil rights movement, labor struggles, and increased self-determination, the experiences and conditions of non-white rural residents and communities are often overlooked given their relatively small populations.”

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HAC lends expertise to profile of rural housing affordability challenges in Joshua Tree

July 8, 2021/in HAC in the News Housing Affordability /by Daniel Stern

Lance George, HAC’s Director of Research and Information, provided his rural housing expertise to Short-Term Rentals and High-End Buyers Wipe Out Affordable Housing in Joshua Tree, Say Residents, a recent article from The Daily Yonder. The piece profiles residents and housing advocates in Joshua Tree, California as they struggle to find affordable housing options in their community.

Michel Cicero has hardly taken a day off work since July 7, 2020. On that day she was paddleboarding at Big Bear Lake with friends but had to leave early because her phone was ringing off the hook, she said. “It hasn’t stopped since.”

Cicero is a real estate agent in Landers, California, which borders the community of Joshua Tree, adjacent to the national park. She has seen firsthand the disruption the pandemic has created in the real estate market. The length of her selling season doubled. In an area where single-offer home sales were the norm, multiple buyers started making offers—often of the all-cash variety—on each sale, raising prices and severely depleting housing stock…

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“You add all of those dynamics together and you could get a really accelerated housing crisis among low- and moderate-income households that don’t have the money to buy homes.”

Lance GeorgeDirector of Research &Information

Rural Assembly profiles HAC’s Shonterria Charleston

July 2, 2020/in HAC in the News /by actualize

As part of its #RuralWomenLead effort, the Rural Assembly wrote a profile highlighting HAC’s Director of Training and Technical Assistance Shonterria Charleston.

Shonterria Charleston brings to her work both a military sense of duty to get the job done and dedication to serve those in need.

Charleston has relied on both instincts during her 21 year career at the Housing Assistance Council, a national organization that helps build homes and communities across rural America.

Read the full profile on the Rural Assembly website.

Shonterria Charleston - HAC Director of Training and Technical Assistance