USDA Blog

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...