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Distressed Rural Communities

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Distressed Rural Communities

Distressed rural communities are plagued by persistently high poverty, low educational attainment, high unemployment, and substandard housing. Appalachia, the Lower Mississippi Delta and Southeast, the border region of the Southwest, Native American areas, and regions that attract high numbers of migrant farm workers are areas where poverty rates and housing needs are high, capacity is low, and conventional financing tools do not always work.

In central Appalachia, for example, 50 percent of families live on less than $25,000 per year and 25 percent live on less than $15,000. The median income is 56 percent of the national average, and the poverty rate is nearly double the national average. Twenty-seven percent of adults do not have a high school equivalent education, and the drop-out rate exceeds 40 percent in many parts of  central Appalachia. Unemployment is double the national average, and substandard housing affects 800,000 households. Confronted with these economic realities, the private sector is unable to operate effectively and efficiently.
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Both public- and private-sector strategies for and approaches to rural revitalization have enjoyed varying degrees of success in surmounting the obstacles to successful development. Those challenges include the large geographic reach of rural areas; finding the strong partners necessary for effective work; and having the capacity-building strategy to engage those partners effectively. Capacity building includes a range of activities undertaken to strengthen the ability of an organization to make sustainable change. The “solutions” facilitated by federal government do not adequately address issues unique to rural communities, just as the solutions attempted by nonprofits are rarely broad enough to successfully revitalize distressed communities. Those that have scale potential for sustainable high impact are most likely to create lasting change. The Federation of Appalachian Housing Enterprises Inc. (FAHE) has found that success stems from comprehensive strategies that address leadership, collaboration, and resource development.

This is an excerpt from The NEXT American Opportunity. The full text can be downloaded as an Adobe PDF Document.