Kentucky HUD and USDA Partner to End Chronic Homelessness

HUD Kentucky Field Office Director Christopher Taylor meets with Kentucky USDA Rural Development staff.

Written By: Deborah Knight (deborah.l.knight@hud.gov)

Ending chronic homelessness is all about housing the most critically homeless in our communities. The Kentucky HUD and USDA Rural Development Offices (www.rd.usda.gov/ky) recognized that reality and recently met to create an effective partnership in which they could identify cross-cutting ways that they could help the chronic homeless throughout the Commonwealth.

"We will not be satisfied until every chronically homeless person has a home," said HUD Kentucky Field Office Director Christopher Taylor. "Along with our established partners, we realized right away that we would need a strong federal partner like USDA to help us to achieve this goal and we are excited about both their capacity and willingness to be part of the solution."

The two agencies were able to identify various resources and strategies that will have a definite impact on providing new resources for the chronically homeless.

The USDA Rural Development is committed to helping improve the economy and quality of life in rural America. Through their programs, they help rural Americans in many ways. They offer loans, grants and loan guarantees to support essential services such as housing, economic development, health care, first responder services and equipment, and water, electric and communications infrastructure.

They also promote economic development by supporting loans to businesses through banks, credit unions and community-managed lending pools and offer technical assistance and information to help agricultural producers and cooperatives get started and improve the effectiveness of their operations.

USDA Rural Development provides technical assistance to help communities undertake community empowerment programs and helps rural residents buy or rent safe, affordable housing and make health and safety repairs to their homes.

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