As a result of rising rents in eastern Tennessee, which has been hit hard by rising housing costs like much of rural America, Heather Colley and her two kids moved four times in five years. The 45-year-old single mother and manicurist, who makes $18.50 per hour, was unable to build a house, even though a family gift of a tiny plot of land in 2021 gave her a chance at homeownership.
Then, thanks to a grant program that has been enabling affordable housing in rural areas for decades, she was eligible to receive $272,000 from a nonprofit to construct a three-bedroom home. Last June, she moved in.
“Every time I pull into my garage, I pinch myself,” Colley said.
The HOME Investment Partnerships Program award is currently being targeted for elimination by President Donald Trump, and House Republicans in charge of federal budget discussions did not include funds for it in their proposed budget. That would impede tens of thousands of potential affordable housing projects across the country, according to experts and state housing agencies. It would be especially detrimental to rural counties and Appalachian towns, where investors are scarce and government assistance is limited.
According to an Associated Press examination of federal data, the program has assisted in the construction or renovation of more than 1.3 million affordable homes over the past three decades, with at least 540,000 of those units located in rural or extremely rural congressional districts.
“Maybe they don’t realize how far-reaching these programs are,” said Colley, who voted for Trump in 2024. Among those half a million homes that HOME helped build, 84% were in districts that voted for him last year, the AP analysis found.
“I understand we don’t want excessive spending and wasting taxpayer dollars,” Colley said, “but these proposed budget cuts across the board make me rethink the next time I go to the polls.”
Beginning in the 1990s under President George H. W. Bush, the HOME program has withstood years of budgetary struggles but has been overburdened by years of static financing and growing building costs. In certain rural locations, where property values have increased more quickly than in urban areas, this has resulted in fewer units.
Government Actions Take a Toll
According to HUD data, the program has spent over $38 billion countrywide since it started to close funding gaps and draw in more investment for the purchase, construction, and repair of affordable houses. Additional funds have been allocated to rental assistance and unfinished projects. House Republicans want to utilize roughly $5 billion from a pandemic-era fund that allowed states until 2030 to invest in programs that help those without homes or at risk of homelessness to fill the gap left by the proposed cuts.
However, according to state housing agencies and groups that represent them, many projects have not yet been entered into the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s tracking system, so that $5 billion may be much less. HOME isn’t as successful as other programs where the funds might be better used, according to a representative for HUD, which runs the program.
In contrast to Trump, Senate Republicans have left HOME funding in their proposed budget. Both chambers may reach a compromise in the next negotiations and prolong the entire budget from the previous year or cut HOME’s funding but leave it intact.
Davis Ingle, the White House spokesperson, did not answer any of the AP’s specific queries. Rather, Ingle said that Trump’s efforts to reduce red tape are lowering the cost of homes. The infamous red tape associated with HOME, which even supporters claim slows down building, is being reduced by a bipartisan group of House members.
Residents of Owsley County, one of the poorest counties in the country, which is situated in the rural hills of Kentucky, endure hardships in an economy that has been devastated by the closing of coal mines and the fall in tobacco crop profits.
There is a demand for affordable housing, but it is difficult to construct in an area that does not draw the kind of large-scale rental complexes that are usually funded by federal funds.
According to Cassie Hudson, the director of Partnership Housing in Owsley, which has depended on HOME to construct the majority of its affordable housing for at least a dozen years, that is where HOME comes in. According to Hudson, the organization only constructs 25% of the single-family houses it once did, and the absence of new financing for HOME has already made it difficult to keep up with building costs.
“Particularly for deeply rural places and persistent poverty counties, local housing developers are the only way homes and new rental housing gets built,” said Joshua Stewart of Fahe, a coalition of Appalachian nonprofits.
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