Rural Housing Preservation Grants

To assist very low- and low-income rural residents individual homeowners, rental property owners (single/multi-unit) or by providing the consumer cooperative housing projects (co-ops) the necessary assistance to repair or rehabilitate their dwellings. These objectives will be accomplished through the establishment of repair/rehabilitation, projects run by eligible applicants. This program is intended to make use of and leverage any other available housing programs which provide resources to very low and low-income rural residents to bring their dwellings up to development standards.

Must be a State or political subdivision, public nonprofit corporation, Indian tribal corporations, authorized to receive and administer housing preservation grants, private nonprofit corporation, or a consortium of such eligible entities. Applicants must provide assistance under this program to persons residing in eligible rural areas available online at eligbility.sc.egov.usda.gov. Assistance is authorized for eligible applicants in the United States, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, and the territories and possessions of the United States.

Projects must provide a feasible repair rehabilitation program and serve areas with a concentration of substandard housing and very low and low-income persons. In addition, the following criteria will be considered in the selection of grant recipients. Each preapplication and its accompanying statement of activities will be evaluated on: (1) The percentage of very low-income persons assisted; (2) the percentage of use of HPG funds to total cost of housing preservation; (3) the applicant's administrative capacity and experience in (i) housing rehabilitation or weatherization, (ii) assisting very low and low-income persons attain housing assistance and (iii) prior programs no outstanding audits findings; (4) the proposed program will be undertaken in non-Metropolitan Statistical Areas identified by Rural Development as having populations below 10,000 or in remote parts of other rural areas, (i.e., rural areas contained in Metropolitan Statistical Areas with less than 5,000 population); (5) the program will minimize the use of grant funds for administrative purposes, i.e., less than 20 percent of grant funds; (6) the program will alleviate overcrowding in rural residences inhabited by very low and low-income families; and (7) if an existing grantee has met the objectives of its current grant.

Fiscal year 2025: A grant of $26,234 to rehab 8 homes with leveraged funds of $27,707 in Vermont; a grant of $287,607 to rehab 8 homes in Alabama; and a grant of $119,487 leveraged with $70,000 to rehab 100 homes in California.