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RCAC, EICAP and USDA Rural Development collaborate to develop Idaho’s first Mutual Self-Help Housing Program

Housing Project Highlight

Eastern Idaho Community Action Partnership (EICAP) has assisted 167 families achieve homeownership through the USDA Rural Development Mutual Self-Help Housing Program. RCAC began training EICAP in the early 1990s to establish Idaho’s first Rural Development self-help housing program.

The families receive mortgages for their self-help homes through the Section 502 direct loan program, and foreclosure rates among borrowers are extremely low. For example, in California last year with 10,000 plus active 502 direct loans, the federal government foreclosed on only 57 homes while the rate was nearly four times as great in the private market. 

Idaho has an Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which has never been funded. HUD Down Payment Assistance Programs exist, but state administrative guidelines have made them mostly unattainable and, Community Development Block Grant funding is not designed for affordable housing. The Mutual Self-Help Housing Program, EICAP’s partnership with USDA – Rural Development and RCAC’s guidance is critical to bringing affordable homeownership to low- and very-low income families throughout Idaho.

The self-help housing program is unique in that it provides opportunities for low-income families to participate in homeownership while constructing their homes. Six to eight participating families work together under the supervision of an EICAP construction supervisor to contribute approximately 65 percent of labor construction for their homes. This investment in time and labor is the family’s equity contribution, and in essence acts as their down payment.

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