Dr. Tom Carew, State Director, USDA Rural Development
In the thick of the holiday season, there are many decisions to be made. When do we decorate? What’s our holiday dinner plan? What gifts to buy our loved ones?
All those decisions are predicated upon a major assumption – that you’ll have a home in which to celebrate.
Over the last year, a massive tornado ripped across Western Kentucky, and devastating flood waters ravaged South Eastern Kentucky. These historic weather events destroyed thousands of homes, and many of the displaced families are still trying to figure out their next steps. Thankfully, our Local, State, and Federal Governments along with strong non-profit organizations like Fahe and Habitat and all their members and volunteers, and good ol’ hard work, efforts to rebuild have made measurable strides, but there is a major housing crisis on our hands, and if we don’t act soon and swiftly, we risk losing entire communities to it.
Anyone who owns a home or was looking to purchase a home in the last few years knows how hot the real estate market has been. Low interest rates combined with a very low stock of available housing made finding a home to buy challenging. Many who found a home to make an offer on often found themselves in a bidding war or completely outdone by a cash offer. Recently we helped a single mother purchase a home in Nicholasville, and that was only after she put in offers on 15 houses!
If purchasing a home is out of the question, families turn to rentals. We’ve seen story after story on the news about the skyrocketing cost of renting, and that’s been especially hard on working families!
Even before the tornado in Western Kentucky and the flooding in South Eastern Kentucky, buying a house was getting harder and renting more expensive, and that must play into the calculus of businesses interested in expanding in or relocating to Kentucky. If their employees can’t find an affordable place to live, Kentucky starts looking less and less enticing. This housing crisis is now threatening to stem the tide of economic development that’s been rolling through the Commonwealth.
Thankfully, there is a way forward, but it’s not an easy path. As a first step, we need more affordable housing non-profits in Western Kentucky to step up. In Eastern Kentucky, there are strong non-profits driven to help their communities build and rehabilitate affordable housing. The Eastern Kentucky non-profits are highly skilled at combining and leveraging local, state and federal resources to achieve amazing results. Those results are attainable in Western Kentucky, as seen in the great work being done by Habitat, Community Ventures and Samaritan’s Purse.
We want every Kentuckian’s concern for their holiday to be about how they celebrate the season and not if they’ll have a home in which to celebrate. There’s a lot more work to be done before we reach that goal. We at USDA Rural Development are committed to working with the Commonwealth, and our non-profit partners across this beautiful state of ours to address the affordable housing crisis.
