Where: Kuna, Idaho
Problem: Low-income residents in rural Idaho lack access to affordable housing.
Solution: RCAC worked with Autumn Gold to help it become a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Mutual Self-Help Housing Program grantee and provide 20 families with affordable homes.
To help low-income families access safe and affordable housing, RCAC provides technical assistance and financing to local nonprofit organizations to implement the USDA Mutual Self-Help Housing Program. Assistance includes financial and construction management training, loan financing packaging, outreach and marketing and homeownership training for participants.
During the Great Recession, Idaho lost most of its USDA Mutual Self-Help Housing grantees that provided affordable homeownership opportunities to low-income residents. To address this loss of capacity, RCAC worked to find a nonprofit organization that could expand its operations to include a self-help program.
As an experienced affordable housing developer, Autumn Gold has been successfully managing single-family homeownership programs in the Boise, Idaho area through the HOME and Neighborhood Stabilization Programs (NSP) during the past five years. It has completed 33 homes utilizing HOME funding and 34 homes through NSP, and another 12 homes are currently under construction/being rehabilitated.
RCAC worked with Autumn Gold during the past year to assess the organization’s capacity to manage a self-help grant and prepare to implement the program. With RCAC’s assistance and training Autumn Gold successfully completed the application process and was awarded a Section 523 Mutual Self-Help Housing grant in late 2015 to develop in Kuna, Idaho. Twenty families will participate in the program and construct their homes during the next two years.
As with all self-help housing projects, participants are required to provide at least 65 percent of the labor to build their home and their neighbors’ homes. They work 35 hours per week, in addition to their day jobs, for almost a year. This “sweat equity” is contributed in lieu of a down payment, creating an affordable mortgage.
During 2015, families, nonprofit organizations and USDA across the country celebrated the 50,000 dreams of homeownership realized during the 50 years of the program.
