In USDA’s Mutual Self-Help Housing program, low-income borrowers work together under the guidance of a nonprofit public housing entity (self-help grantee) to build each others’ homes. With a construction supervisor on site, these building groups perform at least 65 percent of the construction work required (known as “sweat equity”) to build their homes. In most cases, the grantee also manages the construction loans, develops the building site, provides homeownership training, offers building plans, qualifies the borrower for his/her mortgage and markets the program in the service area.

RCAC provides additional resources through annual, regional self-help housing conferences and statewide meetings on land development, loan packaging, construction supervision and other related topics at the request of the grantees and USDA Rural Development.