National and state rural housing officials met Tuesday to tour the Mississippi Delta and assess its needs.
Tammye Trevino, administrator for the Rural Housing Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Trina George, Mississippi Rural Development director for USDA, met with more than 75 people at Mississippi Valley State University for a bus tour of the Delta.
Trevino has been touring various areas nationally in honor of the 60th anniversary of USDA Rural Development’s Single Family Home Loan program.
“Our president believes in a bottom-up approach,” Trevino said. “We are looking at where the needs are and if funds are available.”
Trevino said she wants to see why poverty persists in some areas. She said her administration is looking at new ways to help those in poverty.
“It’s a new day,” she said. “And we don’t want to do business as usual.”
Trevino said she hoped to see both the positive and negative of the Delta. The tour includes some historical stops, some rural housing success stories and visits to areas still in poverty.
George said the tour would cover the good and the bad.
“We are showing her the pride of Mississippi, and we are going to show her areas of great need where we’ll continue to assist Mississippi,” George said.
Trevino said 340 of 386 counties identified as “persistent poverty” counties are rural, and 280 are in the South.
“I think housing is going to be a critical need in the Delta,” she said. “If we find where the needs are, we may be able to target some funding.”
George said Trevino’s visit will increase awareness of the USDA’s rural housing program in Mississippi. The program, started in 1949, focuses on providing clean, safe, affordable housing for people in need.
Passage of the Housing Act in 1949 established the Farmer’s Home Administration, which later became the USDA Rural Development’s Single Family Housing program. According to a USDA news release, 3 million rural Americans have received housing loans, grants and guarantees totaling $124.6 billion through this program. More than 100,000 Mississippi individuals and families were assisted.
The tour was scheduled to go through through Sumner, Tutwiler, Mound Bayou, Cleveland, Leland, Indianola, Belzoni, Lexington, and Yazoo City with a focus on “funding for single-family housing programs, water and wastewater systems, and community facilities such as hospitals.”
