Farm Labor Housing Direct Loans & Grants

Submitted by Dawn.Bonsell on Mon, 01/05/2015 - 16:06

PROGRAM STATUS:

Closed
Federal Register

What does this program do?
It provides affordable financing to develop housing for year-round and migrant or seasonal domestic farm laborers. (1)

Who may apply for this program?
This program assists qualified applicants that cannot obtain commercial credit on terms that will allow them to charge rents that are affordable to low-income tenants. Borrowers must have sufficient qualifications and experience to develop and operate the project. Qualified applicants include:

  • Farmers, associations of farmers and family farm corporations
  • Associations of farmworkers and nonprofit organizations*
  • Most State and local governmental entities*
  • Federally-recognized Tribes*

*Eligible to apply for grants and loans

What is an eligible area?
Housing may be constructed in urban or rural areas, as long as there is a demonstrated need.

How may funds be used?
Construction, improvement, repair and purchase of housing for domestic farm laborers is the primary objective of this program.

Funding may also be available for related activities including:

  • Buying and improve land
  • Purchasing household furnishings
  • Paying construction loan interest
  • For a complete list see 7 CFR 3560.53.

Who may live in the rental housing?

  • Domestic farm laborers, including those working on fish and oyster farms and on-farm processing (1)
  • Retired and/or disabled farm laborers
  • Must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident
  • Very-low- to moderate-income households (2)

What kinds of funding are available?

  • Low interest loans
  • Grants based on need and may not exceed 90% of project cost

What are the loan terms?

  • Up to 33 year payback period
  • 1% fixed rate
  • An allocation of loan funds is also available for on-farm labor housing and is funded on a first-come, first-served basis

How do we get started?
A two-phase application process starts with pre-applications accepted on an annual basis through a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) in the Federal Register. Selected pre-applications are invited to submit final applications

Who can answer questions?
Locate your regional contact on the Contact tab  or you can find Rural Rental Properties

What governs this program?

NOTE: Because citations and other information may be subject to change please always consult the program instructions listed in the section above titled "What Law Governs this Program?" You may also contact your local office for assistance.

(1) Domestic farm laborer: A person who receives a portion of his/her income from farm labor employment. This definition may include the immediate family members residing with such a person.

(2) Very-low to moderate-income: Very-low income is below 50% of area median income; low-income is 50-80% of area median income; moderate income is capped at $5,500 above low-income limit.

 

Fiscal Year 2019 Pre-application for Section 514/516 Farm Labor Housing (FLH) Loans and Grants:  The application period for fiscal year 2019 has ended as of August 30, 2019.

Funding

Funding published in FY 2019 for the FLH Notice for Loan and Grant applications are as follows:

  • FLH Loan (514):  $27,000,000
  • FLH Grant (516):   $8,000,000

Funding available for the Technical Assistance (TA) NOSA that was published on June 23, 2016 is as follows, with one grant for each of the three geographic regions:

  • Eastern Region:  $250,000
  • Central Region:   $250,000
  • Western Region: $250,000

Individual states may have particular requirements based on state and local regulations. Please contact the state office in the state where your project is located.

Individual states may have particular requirements based on state and local regulations. Please contact the state office in the state where your project is located.

Rural Development environmental requirements can be found here: RD 1970 Environmental Policies and Procedures. Benefits of the 1970 environmental regulations are described here: 7 CFR 1970 Benefits.

There are no other additional requirements at the national level. If there are additional state-specific requirements they will be listed above.

There are currently no events scheduled.

On October 11, 2020 Rural Development’s Multifamily Housing Program finalized its structural realignment which, in some cases, redistributed the existing portfolio to a servicing Specialist within our new Field Operations Division. If you are looking for the servicing Specialist for a specific property, you will find a complete and sortable list here: https://www.sc.egov.usda.gov/data/MFH.html

Our Field Operations Division maintains local relationships through regionally organized servicing teams and handles all day-today servicing of Multifamily housing properties to ensure that tenants have safe and affordable housing. The four regions and the contact information for each Regional Director follows:

Becki Meyer, Regional Director, Western Region Becki.meyer@usda.gov
(AK, AZ, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY)

Byron Waters, Regional Director, Southern Region Byron.waters@usda.gov
(AL, AR, FL, GA, KY, LA, MS, NC, OK, PR, SC, TN, TX, VI)

Karissa Stiers, Regional Director, Midwest Region Karissa.stiers@usda.gov
(IA, IL, IN, KS, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, OH, SD, WI)

Laurie Warzinski, Regional Director, Northeast Region Laurie.warzinski@usda.gov
(CT, DE, MA, MD, ME, NH, NJ, NY, PA, RI, VA, VT, WV)

If you need information on a loan transaction currently in process, or have questions on a new transaction, our Production & Preservation Division (PPD) processes, underwrites, and closes all multifamily direct, preservation, and guaranteed loan transactions. PPD will support all the Multifamily Housing Programs, including 515, 538, Multifamily Preservation and Revitalization (MPR), prepayments, and preservation efforts. This division will also oversee Notice of Solicitation of Applications (NOSA) drafting and administration efforts for Farm Labor Housing, Housing Preservation Grants, MPR, technical assistance, and 515. The email contact information for the Production & Preservation Division follows:

Processing and Report Review Branch 1 MFHprocessing1@usda.gov
(CT, DE, IA, IL, IN, KS, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, ND, NE, NH, NJ, NY, OH, PA, RI, SD, VA, VT, WI, WV)

Processing and Report Review Branch 2
MFHprocessing2@usda.gov
(AK, AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, HI, ID, KY, LA, MS, MT, NC, NM, NV, OK, OR, PR, SC, TN, TX, UT, VI, WA, WY)