On November 30 th and December 1 st , PolicyMap attended the Housing Assistance Council (HAC) 2016 Rural Housing Conference to learn about housing and community development trends in rural America. This conference brings together interested stakeholders from federal agencies, state and local government, nonprofits and industry experts to network and discuss issues related to rural affordable housing. The theme of the conference was Building Rural Communities , and many of the sessions and workshops focused on strategies for creating rural communities that are healthy, sustainable and vibrant places to live, work and stay.
There were a lot of great workshops, but some of the conference highlights included:
PolicyMap’s partnership with the USDA Rural Housing Service (RHS) was certainly a primary driver for our interest in learning more about rural housing trends at the HAC conference, and we were definitely pleased to hear this work mentioned in several of the workshop sessions. It sounds like the USDA RHS data currently available in PolicyMap, including investments in rural multifamily housing and single family housing, are helping to drive useful insights into federal housing assistance in rural communities.
It was also useful for us to hear about the unique data challenges and needs facing rural stakeholders. Some of the common issues raised were:
One of the most commonly cited data needs was a comprehensive dataset on the quality of the housing stock. This is likely on the wish list for almost everybody working in housing and community development throughout the country.
We learned a lot about affordable housing development in rural America at the HAC conference and it was great to meet some of the stakeholders working hard to pursue this mission.