USDA Blog

By mid-morning the wind was howling and blowing the auburn colored sand across Zuni Pueblo located in western New Mexico. But this was the last thing on the minds of Kay Panteah, Reyanna Nastarcio and Martha Sheche tribal members of Zuni Pueblo. This is the day they celebrate the completion of...

Cross-posted from the Huffington Post: Last Wednesday, I participated in a regional forum of the White House Working Families Summit that was held at Virginia State University in Petersburg, Virginia. Coming from a small town in Southwest Georgia myself, I can relate to the unique challenges that...

Some mornings Nona Schuler would make the teeth-jarring drive along a washboard dirt road from her home on the Navajo Nation to her job in town only to discover when she got there that her earrings didn’t match. Without electricity and lighting, it was often difficult for her to see what she was...

As part of USDA’s ongoing celebration of National Homeownership Month, I visited several communities bordering Illinois and Missouri last week to meet some of the people whose lives have been changed with homeownership. Joe and Heather Sumner had been renters in Highland, IL, who needed more space...

June marks the 2014 celebration of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month. USDA is taking this opportunity to recognize the immeasurable positive contributions made by the LGBT community -- including our coworkers, partners and clients -- to help rural America innovate and thrive...

A stormy sky didn’t dampen spirits as a crew of us from USDA Rural Development’s national headquarters celebrated National Homeownership Month by helping Mutual Self-Help Housing Program participants build their own homes in Lincoln, DE. USDA Rural Development’s Self-Help Housing Program offers...

More than 50,000 rural families have become homeowners using their “sweat equity” as their down payment on an affordable USDA mortgage. What is “sweat equity?” These families have helped build their own homes and provided most of the construction labor with guidance from a qualified construction...

Recently, I visited southeastern Kentucky, where I joined Rural Development State Director Tom Fern on a whirlwind tour to parts of an eight-county region designated by President Obama as a rural Promise Zone and by Secretary Vilsack as part of USDA’s StrikeForce initiative covering 73 Kentucky...

The Sixth Street Elementary School in Silver City, New Mexico, has seen a lot of students over the years. But May 8 th 2014 was a very special day at the 130-year-old school. Why? Because 10-year-old Mireya Cisneros, a fourth grader, was honored for her winning illustration for New Mexico’s 2014...

In commemoration of USDA’s annual Homeownership Month, some industrious Ohio Rural Development team members and I recently spent a sunny day at a Habitat for Humanity building site, helping Marysville resident Michelle Amrine and her two children frame out a place to call their own. Financed through...