Agency: Everyone should own a home

June 21, 2005

SPECTRUM/Bill Allen

On May 25th, President George W. Bush proclaimed the month of June as National Homeownership Month.

At USDA Rural Development, we know nothing promotes financial security and a sense of family better than homeownership.

Over the past year, in Alaska alone, Rural Development's single-family home loan activity increased 37 percent. In all, we made or guaranteed $47 million in home loans. Dollar figures don't tell the whole story, however.

Here in the Mat-Su we worked with the Alaska Community Development Corp. to help nine income-eligible families (all renters) build new homes at Settlers Bay.

Over the next two years, 16 families will participate in this process. We plan to honor and recognize them at an event at our state office on Friday, June 24. They deserve it. Working together, they will do something unprecedented in modern America.

Over the course of a year, working cooperatively, they will build their own homes. Under the rules, at least 65 percent of all the labor has to be performed by the families themselves.

It is tough work. One new homeowner told me at the end of the process that it was the "toughest thing he'd ever done." But when it was over, that man, his wife and four children owned their own ranch-style home with a beautiful view of Pioneer Peak and had an estimated $60,000 in "sweat equity." Not bad for a one-year investment.

In Wasilla, a woman with a physical disability that made it difficult for her to climb stairs moved from a rented duplex into a newly built, handicapped-accessible home on an acre of land. She worked with us, the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to take advantage of a pilot program that allowed her to use her "Section 8" rental voucher to make mortgage payments on her home.

She told us, "This is the first thing I've ever owned that doesn't have wheels under it."

From Barrow to Metlakatla and Nome to Tok, literally hundreds of families each year benefit from Rural Development housing programs. In Kenny Lake, using our "504" program, we provided loan and grant funds to allow income-eligible seniors to drill wells so they don't have to haul water from the local fire station.

We provided funding to put a new roof, porch and generator in the home of a World War II veteran living alone off the power grid. A senior with health problems living west of Fairbanks saw her leach field and well fail at 60 below. We found the money to fix that.

Across the state, we assist in the construction of multi-family housing, and provide rental assistance. We're looking for new, qualified applicants for our loan program that provides farm labor housing and, thanks to the support of Sen. Ted Stevens, we're working to provide clean, affordable dormitory-style housing for seasonal fish-processing workers.

In 2002, President Bush announced a goal of increasing minority homeownership by 10 percent by the end of the decade. Here in Alaska, my goal is 20 percent.

Last year, the number of new minority homeowners who took advantage of our home loan programs was 21.6 percent, and 95 percent of all RD-Alaska single family loans went to first-time homebuyers. I'm proud of that record and I'm proud of the housing professionals in our state office in Palmer and at our six area offices elsewhere in the state, who made it happen.

At Rural Development, my goal is to see to it that no credit-worthy Alaskan who wants a house is deprived of the opportunity to achieve his or her dream of homeownership.

Working with our partners, including local lending institutions, we are in the business of making and guaranteeing home loans. We also provide home repair grants and loans to income eligible Alaskans. We want to make one for you. Call us at 761-7705. Let's talk.

Bill Allen is state director for Rural Development and a member of the Mat-Su Borough Assembly.