Even during the best of times, Hawaii Community Assets (HCA) faces an uphill battle to provide housing counseling for its service area. Jeff Gilbreath, HCA’s director of lending and development, said the cost of living in Hawaii is consistently among the highest in the world, making economic mobility for would-be homeowners seem out of reach.

Rural Community Assistance Corporation’s long running “workshop-in-a-box” (WIAB) has recently been a source of unexpected opportunities in rural Utah. Funded by U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development (USDA), RCAC created the workshops in 2012 in partnership with USDA and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Northern Circle Indian Housing Authority (NCIHA) provides affordable housing services, including housing counseling to Native American households in the rural Ukiah, California area. Dana Novoa, NCIHA’s sole housing counselor, travels as far as Butte County, a three-hour journey one way, to provide services for Tribal families.

Utilities in Lake County, California, have proven resilient in the face of adversity during the past several years. Wildfires have consistently posed the largest, but not the sole, threat. The summer of 2019 marked the first Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS), creating a new set of challenges for small water systems.

Northern California, with its thousands of acres of forests and dozens of small towns tucked away, has become ground zero for wildfires year after year. Rough terrain and isolated communities present unique challenges for firefighting operations. The 2018 Camp Fire was the deadliest in California history, causing massive destruction in the town of Paradise.