NOTES

The “New” (and Evolving) Rural America

1. Housing Assistance Council. Rural Voices. “Creating the New Normal: COVID-19 Leaves its Mark on Rural America.” Housing Assistance Council. Volume 25. Number 1. Fall 2021. https://ruralhome.org/covid-19-leaves-its-mark-rural-america/

2. Wikipedia. Hurricane Maria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Maria

3. Ilene J. Jacobs and Christina Davila. Rural Voices. “Rural Disasters: Preparedness, Response and Recovery” Housing Assistance Council Volume 23 No.1 November 2019. rv-fall-2019.pdf (ruralhome.org)

4. Housing Assistance Council. “Hope After Disaster: Rural Resilience and Recovery.” Rural Voices Magazine. November 15, 2019. https://ruralhome.org/rv-rural-resilience-and-recovery/

5. Housing Assistance Council. “Hope After Disaster: Rural Resilience and Recovery.” Rural Voices Magazine. November 15, 2019. https://ruralhome.org/rv-rural-resilience-and-recovery/

6. “Rural Hospital Closures,” Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, accessed April 22, 2022, https://www.shepscenter.unc.edu/programs-projects/rural-health/rural-hospital-closures/.

7. Eli Saslow, “‘Out here, it’s just me’: In the medical desert of rural America, one doctor for 11,000 square miles,” The Washington Post, September 28, 2019, https://wapo.st/3LainOe.

8. National Agricultural Statistics Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, “2017 Census of Agriculture: Data Release,” April 11, 2019, https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2017/index.php#highlights.

9. U.S Department of Agriculture, “Small Farms, Big Differences,” March 11, 2021, https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2010/05/18/small-farms-big-differences.

10. Sara Low, “Manufacturing is Relatively More Important to the Rural Economy than the Urban Economy,” August 4, 2021, https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/09/12/manufacturing-relatively-more-important-rural-economy-urban-economy.

11. Ibid.

12. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of Bureau of Economic Analysis Gross Domestic Product by County, 2021. https://www.bea.gov/data/gdp/gdp-county-metro-and-other-areas

13 Ibid.

14. Jake Cigainaro. “Who Are France’s Yellow Vest Protesters, And What Do They Want?”

National Public Radio. December 13, 2018. https://www.npr.org/2018/12/03/672862353/who-are-frances-yellow-vest-protesters-and-what-do-they-want

15. Ana Garcia Valdivia. “The Challenge Of Rural Depopulation: Facing The Scenario Of Demographic Deserts In The EU.” Forbes. December 22, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/anagarciavaldivia/2018/12/22/the-challenge-of-rural-depopulation-facing-the-scenario-of-demographic-deserts-in-the-eu/?sh=4d4a9dc01295

Rural People and Places

1. USDA Economic Research Service. (2018, November). Rural America at a Glance: 2018 Edition. Retrieved January 31, 2020, https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/90556/eib-200.pdf

2. Note: There is no universal consensus on defining age generations as these groupings are not only an age construct, but also have cultural characteristics and are empirical in nature. For this report, age generations were constructed in close approximation to the Pew Research Center’s delineations of generations: https://www.pewresearch.org/st_18-02-27_generations_defined/ as well as available age data categorization in the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey as of 2021. For this report, Generation Alpha is defined as persons born between 2013 and 2021. Generation Z is defined as persons born between 1997 and 2012; Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996; Generation X were born between 1965 and 1980; Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964; the Silent Generation were born between 1928 and 1946; and the Greatest Generation were born between 1901-1927. Data tabulations on the age groups were calculated using the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017-2021 American Community Survey.

3. Kenneth Johnson. “Rural America Lost Population Over the Past Decade for the First Time in History” University of New Hampshire, Carsey School of Public Policy. February 22, 2022. https://carsey.unh.edu/publication-rural-america-lost-population-over-past-decade-for-first-time-in-history

4. Housing Assistance Council, “Housing an Aging Rural America: Rural Seniors and Their Homes,” October 2014, https://ruralhome.org/reports/rrr-rural-seniors-2014/.

Rural Economy

1. Paul Krugman, “Getting Real about Rural America.” New York Times, last modified Mar 18, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/opinion/rural-america-economic-decline.html

2. Douglas J. O’Brien and Mary Clare Ahearn, “Rural Voice and Rural Investments: The 2016 Election and the Future of Rural Policy,” Choices, Agricultural & Applied Economics Association, 31(4), 2016. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Rural-Voice-and-Rural-Investments%3A-The-2016-and-the-O’Brien-Ahearn/79e462eea2f0b5f31b53a9598e9263af628c60e4

3. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “ Projections of industry employment, 2016–26,” December 2017, https://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2017/article/projections-industry.htm

4. Juliana Menasce Horowitz, Ruth Igielnik and Rakesh Kochhar. 2020. Social & Demographic Trend – 1. Trends in Income and Wealth Inequality. Pew Research Center. January 9, 2020. Accessed 4/15/2020 from the following url: https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/

5. Telford, Taylor. 2019. Income inequality in America is the highest it has been since Census Bureau started tracking it, data shows. The Washington Post – Business Section 9-26-2019. Story accessed 3-20-2020 from the following url: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/26/income-inequality-america-highest-its-been-since-census-started-tracking-it-data-show/

6. Jessica Semega and Melissa Kollar.Income in the United States: 2021. U.S. Census Bureau. September 13, 2022. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-276.pdf

7. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2017-2021 American Community Survey data.

8. Economist. 2019. America’s economic expansion is now the longest on record. Economist – Daily Chart 7-2-2019. Accessed 4/21/2020 from the following url: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/07/02/americas-economic-expansion-is-now-the-longest-on-record

9. Throughout this brief we use the word “rural” to refer to the Housing Assistance Council’s rural and small-town geography. Sometimes we spell out rural and small-town and other times we simply state rural.

10. Danilo Trisi. Government’s Pandemic Response Turned a Would-Be Poverty Surge Into a Record Poverty Decline. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. August 29, 2023 https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/governments-pandemic-response-turned-a-would-be-poverty-surge-into

11. Counties where 75 percent or more of the population live in a HAC defined rural and small-town census tract. In other words, three-quarters or more of the population is rural.

12. An urban institute report notes that about a third of the people who fall into poverty in a year will remain so for 5 more years. Aron, Laudan, Wendy Jacobson, and Margery Austin Turner. 2013. Addressing Deep and Persistent Poverty: A Framework for Philanthropic Planning Investment. Urban Institute Report Released December 2013. As of 4/23/2020, this report can be accessed at the following url: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/24326/412983-Addressing-Deep-and-Persistent-Poverty-A-Framework-for-Philanthropic-Planning-and-Investment.PDF

Rural Housing

1. Calculation of housing structure type in this section included total housing units, not occupied homes.

2. Housing Assistance Council, “Rural Voices: Innovation in Building Technology for Affordable Rural Housing.” January 19, 2017. Rural Voices: Innovation in Building Technology for Affordable Rural Housing – Housing Assistance Council (ruralhome.org)

3. Ibid.

4. Housing Assistance Council, “Rural Research Brief: Manufactured Housing in Rural America,” July 2020, https://ruralhome.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Manufactured_Housing_RRB.pdf.

5. U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States, 2023. https://www.census.gov/construction/nrs/current/index.html

6. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Manufactured Home Survey, https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/econ/mhs/latest-data.html.

7. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Manufactured Housing Finance: New Insights from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Data (Washington, DC: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 2021), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_manufactured-housing-finance-new-insights-hmda_report_2021-05.pdf.

8. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Manufactured Home Survey, https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/econ/mhs/latest-data.html.

9. Ibid.

10. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2021 American Housing Survey data, January 2023. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/ahs.html

11. Housing Assistance Council, “Manufactured Housing in Rural America.”

12. Chelsea Catto, “Manufactured Housing Cooperatives: Innovations in Wealth-Building and Permanent Affordability,” Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law 26, no. 1 (2017): 13-22, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26408196.

13. “Manufactured Housing 2Q23 Market Insights Report: Occupancies Inch Lower, But Rent Growth Accelerates,” Northmarq, September 26, 2023, https://www.northmarq.com/manufactured-housing-2q23-market-insights-report-occupancies-inch-lower-but-rent-growth-accelerates/.

14. Abha Bhattarai, “‘We’re all afraid’: Massive rent increases hit mobile homes” The Washington Post, June 6, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/06/06/mobile-manufactured-home-rents-rising/

15. “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver April 7, 2019: Mobile Homes,” video, HBO max, https://www.hbo.com/last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver/videos/last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver-april-7-2019-mobile-homes.

16. “Historical Census of Housing Tables: Homeownership,” U.S. Census Bureau, 2000, https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/dec/coh-owner.html.

17. “The Housing Journeys,” Fannie Mae, 2023, https://www.fanniemae.com/about-us/esg/social/housing-journey.

18. Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, Esha Kamra, Connor Sanchez, Kathy Ramirez and Rogelio Tec, “Racial Wealth Snapshot: Native Americans,” National Community Reinvestment Coalition, 2022, https://ncrc.org/racial-wealth-snapshot-native-americans/.

19. Cerulli Associates, U.S. High-Net-Worth and Ultra-High-Net-Worth Markets 2022 (Boston: Cerulli Associates, 2023), https://www.cerulli.com/reports/us-high-net-worth-and-ultra-high-net-worth-markets-2022.

20. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Pulse Survey data, https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/household-pulse-survey/data.html.

21. Peter Hepburn, Renee Louis, and Matthew Desmond, “Racial and Gender Disparities among Evicted Americans,” The Eviction Lab, December 16, 2020, https://evictionlab.org/demographics-of-eviction/.

22. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Housing Insecurity and the COVID-19 Pandemic (Washington, DC: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, March 2021), https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_Housing_insecurity_and_the_COVID-19_pandemic.pdf.

23. Lowell R. Ricketts and Stephen P. Roll, “Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Housing Distress during the Pandemic,” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, April 12, 2021, https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2021/april/racial-ethnic-disparities-housing-distress-pandemic.

24. Khadijah Edwards and Mark Hugo Lopez, “Black Americans Say Coronavirus Has Hit Hard Financially, But Impact Varies by Education Level, Age,” Pew Research Center, May 12, 2021, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/12/black-americans-say-coronavirus-has-hit-hard-financially-but-impact-varies-by-education-level-age/.

25. “Coronavirus Relief Bill Stops Evictions, Funds HUD but not USDA Rural Housing,” HAC News, April 2, 2020, https://ruralhome.org/hac-news-april-2-2020/.

26. Jasmine Rangel, Jacob Haas, Emily Lemmerman, Joe Fish, and Peter Hepburn, “Preliminary Analysis: 11 Months of the CDC Moratorium,” Eviction Lab, August 21, 2021, https://evictionlab.org/eleven-months-cdc/.

27. Office of Evaluation Sciences, Equity in the Distribution of the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, (Washington, DC: U.S. General Services Administration, 2022), https://oes.gsa.gov/projects/era-equity/.

28. Rebecca Yae, Sophie Siebach-Glover, Andrew Aurand, Meredith Abel, Continuing Emergency Rental Assistance: Jurisdictions Are Building on Treasury’s ERA Program (Washington, DC: Housing Initiative at Penn and National Low Income Housing Coalition, July 2023), https://nlihc.org/resource/new-report-continuing-emergency-rental-assistance-how-jurisdictions-are-building-treasurys.

29. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data. While the data suggests a slightly under-representative amount of lending in rural areas, it is important to remember that the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act does not require data reporting by smaller-volume lenders and those headquartered outside of metropolitan areas. These exemptions that disproportionally affect smaller lenders and rural communities. Therefore, unreported mortgage activity might account for some of the apparent rural underperformance.

30. Forbes. “Mortgage Demand Plunges As 2022 Ends,” January 5, 2023

https://www.forbes.com/sites/qai/2023/01/05/mortgage-demand-plunges-as-2022-ends/?sh=2fc8ec485fd0

31. Mortgage Bankers Association. “Mortgage Applications Decreased Over a Two-Week Period in Latest MBA Weekly Survey,” January 4, 2023, https://www.mba.org/news-and-research/newsroom/news/2023/01/04/mortgage-applications-decreased-over-a-two-week-period-in-latest-mba-weekly-survey

32. Housing Assistance Council, “Rural Research Note: Home Mortgage Demand Declined in Rural America Too,” February 6, 2023, https://ruralhome.org/information-center/rural-research-notes/.

33. A high-cost loan is defined by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a first lien loan with an interest rate of 1.5 percentage points or more than one would receive for similar prime rate loan. For second lien loans, a high-cost loan has an interest rate of at least 3.5 percentage points higher than the interest rate for a similar prime loan. 12 CFR §1026.35(a), https://www.consumerfinance.gov/rules-policy/regulations/1026/35/#a.

34. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 2022 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, https://www.consumerfinance.gov/data-research/hmda/summary-of-2022-data-on-mortgage-lending/.

35. Ibid.

36. The Mobile Home Trap, The Seattle Times, 2015-2017, https://www.seattletimes.com/category/mobile-homes/.

37. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of 1995-2023 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Data.

38. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s 2022 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data.

39. Tan Vinh. “White Salmon, a Gorge vacation hot spot, can’t staff its restaurants,” Seattle Times. September 23,2023, White Salmon, a Gorge vacation hot spot, can’t staff its restaurants | The Seattle Times

40. Joaquin Altoro, “Results of the 2022 Multi-Family Housing Annual Fair Housing Occupancy Report,” Unnumbered Letter, March 21, 2023,

https://www.rd.usda.gov/directives/results-2022-multi-family-housing-annual-fair-housing-occupancy-report

41. Housing Assistance Council, “Rural Research Brief: An Update on Maturing Mortgages in USDA’s Section 515 Rural Rental Housing Program,” March 2, 2022, https://ruralhome.org/update-maturing-mortgages-usda-section-515-rural-rental-housing-program/.

42. “Median Sales Price of Houses Sold for the United States (MSPUS),” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS, January 30, 2023.

43. Federal Housing Finance Agency, All-Transactions House Price Index for the United States [USSTHPI], Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, accessed January 31, 2023, https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USSTHPI.

44. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of 2005-2022 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data in nominal dollars.

45. Note: In this analysis, loan amounts are a proxy for housing prices.

46. Housing Assistance Council, “Home Mortgage Demand.”

47. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s American Housing Survey.

48. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and U.S. Census Bureau, “Appendix A. Subject Definitions and Table Index,” American Housing Survey for the United States: 2021, https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/ahs/tech-documentation/def-errors-changes.2021.html.

49. Ibid.

50. Kevin S. Blake, Rebecca L. Kellerson, Aleksandra Simic, Measuring Overcrowding in Housing (Bethesda, MD and Fairfax, VA: Econometrica, Inc. and ICF International, 2007), https://www.huduser.gov/publications/pdf/measuring_overcrowding_in_hsg.pdf.

51. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of 2021 American Community Survey data.

52. Blake et al.

53. Samiya A. Bashir, “Home Is Where the Harm Is: Inadequate Housing as a Public Health Crisis,” American Journal of Public Health 92, no. 5 (May 2002): 733-38, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222229/.

54. Corianne Scally, Brandi Gilbert, Carl Hedman, Amanda Gold, and Lily Posey, Rental Housing for a 21st Century Rural America: A Platform for Production (Washington, DC: Urban Institute and Housing Assistance Council, 2018), https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/99045/rental_housing_for_a_21st_century_rural_america.pdf.

55. Claudia D. Solari and Robert D. Mare, “Housing Crowding Effects on Children’s Wellbeing,” Social Science Research 41, no. 2 (March 2012): 464-76, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0049089X11001694.

56. Karan Varshney, Talia Glodjo, and Jenna Adalbert, “Overcrowded Housing Increases Risk for COVID-19 Mortality: An Ecological Study,” BMC Research Notes 15, no. 126 (2022), https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-022-06015-1.

57. HAC tabulations of the U.S. Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) 2019-2020 data, https://www.dol.gov/agencies/eta/national-agricultural-workers-survey.

58. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of HUD 2022 AHAR: Part 1 – PIT Estimates of Homelessness in the U.S. 2022 AHAR: Part 1 – PIT Estimates of Homelessness in the U.S. | HUD USER

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid.

61. Ibid.

62. “Provisional Drug Overdose Death Counts,” National Vital Statistics System. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm.

63. Lance George, “Landless Homeowners in Forgotten America: Identifying the Nexus Between Long-Term Poverty, Homeownership, and Land Tenure,” Housing and Society 41, no. 2: 277-295 (2014), https://doi.org/10.1080/08882746.2014.11430631.

64. Southern Region Heirs’ Property Collaborative: Final Report (Mississippi State, MS: Southern Rural Development Center, Mississippi State University, 2021), https://srdc.msstate.edu/sites/default/files/2023-06/SOUTHERN-REGION-HEIRS-PROPERTY-Final-Report-2021.pdf.

65. Conner Bailey, Robert Zabawa, Janice Dyer, Becky Barlow, and Ntam Baharanyi. Heirs’ Property and Persistent Poverty among African Americans in the Southeastern United States. In, Gaither, Cassandra J.; Carpenter, Ann; Lloyd McCurty, Tracy; Toering, Sara, eds. 2019. Heirs’ property and land fractionation: fostering stable ownership to prevent land loss and abandonment. June 15, 2017, Atlanta, GA. e-Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-244. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Southern Research Station. p. 105.

66. Scott Pippin, Shana Jones, and Cassandra Johnson Gaither, Identifying Potential Heirs Properties in the Southeastern United States: A New GIS Methodology Utilizing Mass Appraisal Data (Asheville, NC: Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture, 2017), https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/gtr/gtr_srs225.pdf.

67. Ivis García, “Deemed Ineligible: Reasons Homeowners in Puerto Rico Were Denied Aid After Hurricane María,” Housing Policy Debate 32, no. 1 (2022): 14-34, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10511482.2021.1890633.

68. Housing Assistance Council tabulations of USDA data.

69. Housing Assistance Council, USDA Rural Development Housing Activity: Fiscal Year 2021 Year End Report (Washington, DC: Housing Assistance Council, 2022), https://ruralhome.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/USDA-Housing-Activity-Report-FY-2021.pdf

70. Jill Khadduri, Carissa Climaco, and Kimberly Burnett, What Happens to Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Properties at Year 15 and Beyond? (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2012), https://www.huduser.gov/publications/pdf/what_happens_lihtc_v2.pdf.

71. National Low Income Housing Coalition and Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation, Balancing Priorities: Preservation and Neighborhood Opportunity in the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program Beyond Year 30 (Washington, DC: National Low Income Housing Coalition, 2018), https://nlihc.org/resource/balancing-priorities-report.

72. Jerome H. Powell, “Statement by Chair Jerome H. Powell,” Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, September 21, 2020, https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/powell-statement-20200921.htm.

73. Source: HAC tabulation of FDIC made public Summary of Deposits Report data 2022, June 2022, https://www7.fdic.gov/sod/dynaDownload.asp?barItem=6

74. “Rural Capacity Building,” HUD Exchange, accessed October 1, 2023, https://www.hudexchange.info/programs/rural-capacity-building/.

75. “Rural Community Development Initiative,” Rural Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture, accessed October 1, 2023, https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/community-facilities/rural-community-development-initiative-grants.

TAKING STOCK 2020