41. Disaster Recovery in Rural America Interview with Dr. William Hathaway and Marion McFadden
Michelle Rathman: Hello and welcome to a very special Rural Impact Extra episode. I'm Michelle Rathman, and I am so thankful to have you join us for this important conversation. It's a bit of a departure because as you know, just a little over a month ago, Hurricane Helene caused widespread catastrophic devastation in several states, including Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina as well. But this event was followed by yet another hurricane Milton and entire communities disappeared.
As of the day that we are recording this episode, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services have confirmed 101 verified storm related deaths in that state alone. Health care facilities remain without water systems and the list of truly devastating as to the word that just keeps coming to mind impacts goes on and on. And that includes the shameful and deliberate disinformation activity impeding rescue and recovery efforts.
So, I felt so strongly about during this episode. So, for our part, we wanted to check in with a few experts working in recovery efforts, some of them on the ground, and have them give us information about what is needed and ways to access essential support services moving forward. It's going to take years to recover from the damage that has been caused.
So, to that end, I had a conversation with Dr. William Hathaway. Dr. Hathaway is the CEO of Mountain Area Health Education Center, which is a nonprofit that works to improve training and retention of healthcare professionals across Western North Carolina. They're located in Asheville, North Carolina serving 16 regions in the western most counties. And, you're going to hear Dr. Hathaway give us a first-hand account of what's happening on the ground with respect to the impact to healthcare facilities, their infrastructure, the challenges and needs of providing care to those who before Hurricane Helene and the flooding that he says never saw coming. They were already underserved and so what that does to impede their ability to make sure that they reach those populations.So, we're going to hear from him about that now.
In the second part of this episode, I was joined by someone who has been here before Marion McFadden, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development at HUD. And, we learned about HUD's rapid response efforts in the region, as well as programs and initiatives that are addressing homelessness, housing shortages and new programs that include and I love this, funding that is conditioned on building homes designed for resiliency.
We had a really good conversation about that. All right. So, before we dive in, let me just say, if your organization is involved with recovery efforts in rural places impacted by these devastating climate events, please reach out to us and let us see if we can help amplify your work.
Now, if you're listening or watching us on your favorite podcast channel, be sure to head over to theruralimpact.com. Super easy, theruralimpact.com and become a subscriber because when you do, you'll receive our eblast post-series, all the resources that we talk about. And we also have a great resource page that you can peruse on our website as well as written transcripts. So, if that's important to you, know that you can find that on our website.
Okay, with all that said this is the time I always invite you to put on your podcast frame of mind and listen to my conversations with Dr. William Hathaway and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development at HUD, Marion McFadden. Are you ready? I'm grateful for your time.
I'm ready. So, let's go.
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Michelle Rathman: Dr. William Hathaway, Chief Executive Officer for Mountain Area Health Education Center. Thank you so much for joining us on the Rural Impact here today. We are so appreciative that you could be with us.
Dr. William Hathaway: Oh, I appreciate the invitation. Thank you, Michelle.
Michelle Rathman: All right. So, full disclosure for our listeners today is October 28th. It's a Monday and a few weeks after one of the most disastrous climate events in your area. The New York Times headline today reads this, "In Western North Carolina, Helene's Devastation is Threatening Health Care Access."
Now, this article was written by Emily Cochrane and covering a wide range of challenges, including a section that begins with this, "Several hospitals in both North Carolina and Tennessee remain closed, including one in Irwin, Tennessee, where dozens of patients and staff members had to be rescued on the day of the storm hit in Western North Carolina. Some hospitals are still relying on a bottled water or mobile water unit."
So Dr. Hathaway, Western North Carolina is home to nearly one million people. We do a lot of conversations on this podcast about rural populations, about 18 counties or so, and on average, as is the narrative, primarily rural, poorer, older, and less resourced in other areas of the state.
Before the devastation caused by this Helene event, the region had already faced a lot of things like shortages of healthcare professionals, challenge in the areas of transportation, and so on. So, as someone so close to the situation as you, and we've never had this conversation before, I wonder if you could tell us about, a little bit about your organization, and then the state of rural hospitals and access to those for those residents to health care, you know, where we are today, Again, October 28th, a few weeks after, the dust hasn't settled.
Dr. William Hathaway: Yeah, no, it's it certainly hasn't settled. It's just a month almost to the day. It's a month to the calendar. It was the 27th and 28th of September and it was a Friday morning when the impact hit us. A little bit about myself and my organization as context from my perspective. I've been in Western North Carolina for 25 years.
I was a practicing cardiologist since 1999 through 2019. And I served as the Chief Medical Officer of Mission Health, which is a large five hospital system in western North Carolina, including three or four Critical Access Hospitals. And then, two years ago, I joined MAHEC the Mountain Area Health Education Center, whose purposes, as many AHECs are, is twofold.
One is to train and recruit, train and retain the future healthcare workforce of our community. 50 years ago, the AHEC system was created to put doctors and other providers in rural communities. And then, if we do that, of course, you can't train people to take care of patients unless they actually take care of patients.
So, we have a very large patient care mission, and we are a Federally Qualified Health Center, and we will see about 280,000 patient visits, maybe 50,00-60,000 unique patients each year. And so, um, and our, we're scattered all over Western North Carolina with other Federally Qualified Health Centers. And our job is to take care of the, the underserved, the Medicaid, uninsured population.
Not exclusively, but as a Federally Qualified Health Center, we get a special reimbursement that allows us to take care of those, those patients. And so, this storm four weeks ago caught everyone, I think it's safe to say everyone by surprise, most everyone by surprise, at least in terms of the severity and the devastating impact.
It would have a not just on loss of life, which was huge, but on community infrastructure and, our ability to care for patients, caught everyone by surprise. And, we're, we've got a long way to go, Michelle, we have a long way to go.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, I mean, I'm watching from afar and I know lots of folks in the region. I work with folks, the person we were connected with the Office of Rural Health. For those of us who are so removed, in that we only saw whatever headlines we saw, can you give us a little bit of a insight into how some of the clinics and hospitals were immediately impacted?
I mean, I saw some photographs, but I don't think it does it justice unless we hear from you and tell us a little bit about what that looked like then and what it is now.
Dr. William Hathaway: Yeah, it doesn't do it justice. Let's, let's start with the biggest health system, Mission Hospital here in Asheville, an 850 bed hospital with thousands of providers on the medical staff, and 9,000-10,000 employees. We all lost power. We all lost water. We all lost everything at the time. Internet and cell phone connectivity.
The hospital, of course, has a large generator system, but they lost water. There was no pressurized water coming into the system and they had to, they did two things. One was to dig a well,
Michelle Rathman: Wow.
Dr. William Hathaway: to get water into the chillers for their HVAC system. And then they created a pressurized, a 20,000-gallon pressurized bladder, that pressurizes the water to pump it through the system.
But that wasn’t operational for five or six days. And so, you can imagine you can't run a hospital that big without pressurized water for your toilets and your sterile processing and a variety of things there. Nothing. And that was the most heavily resourced, HCA hospital system most heavily resourced healthcare provider in the community, was devastated.
So, when they were hit like that, you can imagine what happened to the smaller critical access hospitals, smaller community hospitals, and then the outpatient practices and community Federally Qualified Community Health Centers. I had the privilege of being able to go on a tour of the region to see my fellow Federally Qualified Health Centers.
There's about six of them. And I did a counterclockwise circle tour, which normally is a beautiful route to take for Western North Carolina fall foliage tour. It was not quite so beautiful this time. And this was, this was 13 days out. And what impressed me the most was, the widespread nature, like the geographic widespread nature severity of the problem is 60 miles away in all directions.
There were trees and floods and just devastating damage to communities. And no one was really spared. We got 15 inches of rain here in Asheville, 15 inches. Which is like almost unheard of. And south of us in Hendersonville, they had 22 inches, northwest of us northeast of us they had over 24 inches, and one small community had 30 inches of rain and just a little bit over 24 hours.
I heard a really interesting description or analogy or comparison to Florida, whereas in Florida, they may see these rainfalls, not infrequently because of the, the hurricanes that they see. Florida's flat and so they get lakes or still water, lots of, still water.
Asheville and the geographical terrain are not flat and we have valleys. We have rivers that run through all the communities. All the communities are built on water. That's where they're built. And when that water hits the valleys that then floods into the rivers, and that was where the devastating death occurred because of the rapid moving water in the Swannanoa, and the French Broad, and the South Doe Rivers in our community, just to name a few.
And so it was, it was not like anything we've ever seen. And, you know, I looked up like, how do you define biblical? Well, this defined biblical, right? It was the largest flood we've ever seen dating back to 1916 when the records we were six feet above that flood stage in 1960. So, it just wiped out huge, huge areas.
Michelle Rathman: You know, and with that, as we're reading, I mean, so the domino effect, I mean, we know we can say unequivocally that this climate event has just literally changed the landscape for the region that we're talking about, literally roads are gone, community, whole communities are gone.
And at the same time, that also means that access to healthcare, it's very challenging. So, as I, as I understand it, there are still so many. I don't know the number. Maybe you do. So many people. It's just having access doesn't mean well, the, the clinic or whatnot is challenged with water or power or broadband, but that there's literally no way for people to get to their treatments, whether it's infusion therapies, whether it's blood tests, you know, forget electives. Let's just talk about just essential dialysis.
Let's talk a little bit about where you are today in terms of just people being able to, in the affected areas, being able to access. Cause I know you all are trying your best to get to them, but that's not easy right now.
Dr. William Hathaway: Yeah. So, when I look back four weeks into this and think about the phases of the response. Well, first of all, you really need to look back at what healthcare was like pre-Helene. And Western North Carolina is an 18-county region with about a million people. And the vast majority of those are concentrated in a corridor that runs along the major highways.
I-40 runs east west through the state, and I-26 runs south into North Carolina or South Carolina and then north into Tennessee. That's where the vast majority of the people live, and that's only about four or five of the counties. And then the remaining areas, and that's where the people live, that's where the health care is provided predominantly.
In rural areas, we've suffered from a rural health care shortage for years and years and years. And we've been trying to improve access. Rural hospitals are closing. Rural labor and delivery suites have closed. There's only three or four that actually offer labor and delivery services in our 18-county region.
We have a shortage of primary care physicians, and we have since I came to town 25 years ago. Our organization was founded 50 years ago to put providers in the region. And while we've been very successful at that, with over 50 percent of our graduates staying in North Carolina, which is hundreds of physicians.
We still have a primary care shortage. Like everywhere in the country, there's a primary care shortage. And so that's the that's the starting point. So, we're already behind the gate, you know, from the, from the start of this. And then you get a massive insult to our infrastructure, and it wasn't like a tornado where just a small community was affected, and everyone could come in and help them.
We were all affected. And so, while we're trying to rebuild our own lives, and our employees are trying you know, put their cars back together and get their homes together and and get the trees off their homes and handle all the things that happened. We also have a calling to serve those who were starting off in a more needy, more vulnerable place than we were to begin with.
As an example, we took our providers out and sent them to one of the emergency medical shelters. I got a call from the county manager on Saturday and asked if we had any doctors who could go help at the emergency medical shelter. Many of our residents were already working in the hospital doing OB and surgery, family medicine, internal medicine.
So, we had the hospitals covered, but a lot of shelters popped up. There was need on the outside and the patients couldn't get to us. Right? So, in that early phase of rescue and relief. We went to the patients, and so we staffed the emergency medical shelters. We took our pharmacy supplies from our pharmacy and just took them to the places where the patients were, so that those with COPD, and those with diabetes, and those with heart failure, and seizure disorders, didn't go through a critical period where they were without medications.
And then we deliver. So our organization delivers over 2,500 babies a year. Okay. So, if we're delivering 2, 500 babies, just divide that by 12, it's between two and 300 each month. So, imagine if you're a nine, eight months pregnant or almost nine months pregnant, and you've just gone through this. You can't call your doctor because there's no cell phones working.
You don't have potable water. You don't have electricity. Those mothers and families were in crisis. We were able to, um, get a clinic working with others in the community opened up on Tuesday of that first week, four days out. We saw 20 some odd visits that very first day. But it was apocalyptic.
It was very, very challenging.
Michelle Rathman: Oh, my goodness, you know, I, um, it brings tears to my eyes because I just I think about the rural communities I work in, and I can't even imagine, you know, the level of commitment, at the same time just the tenacity to reach people. I mean, I mean, where do you begin?
Let's talk about this. I mean, you know, hospitals all over the country are being impacted by this in other ways. For example, the Baxter facility that was impacted with IV and so forth. I mean, we don't even think about these things. This podcast is all about connecting dots, you know, tell me a little bit about what you're experiencing now in terms of, you know, the acute things in terms of, you know, getting those babies delivered and getting people their medications and so forth.
Are you seeing an emergence of health conditions as a result of the flooding, the mud, the debris and so forth? Tell us a little bit about that.
Dr. William Hathaway: So undoubtedly there has been. We have not seen it in our outpatient facilities, with the exception of some respiratory flare and respiratory illnesses, and patients coming in whose diabetes and blood pressure have been poorly, their exacerbation and acute exacerbation of their chronic illnesses due to inability of them to get their medications, and to get their follow-up visits handled.
And they haven't prioritized it, right? They, they, they're like trying to get food in their house and shelter, and like medicine falls, it's close to one of the tops, but you know, it's not, it's a little bit higher up on Maslow's hierarchy. You know, it's not right at the bottom there. So, without a doubt, we saw that.
We made recommendations early on for any of the women who are in that final month to go if they could. And of course, our population is vulnerable. They're not, they don't have access to travel in places to go live and to move. But if they could, to go deliver elsewhere, not because the hospital wasn't a safe place to deliver, but to have a newborn baby with no water, electricity or power in your house.
I mean, that's just not something that,
Michelle Rathman: I can't even wrap my brain around that.
Dr. William Hathaway: Yeah, that's
Michelle Rathman: Can't even wrap my brain. All right. In the time that we have I, I would like to know how our listeners. All right. So we know that you've had, you know, just overwhelming support state, federal agencies coming together. I mean, all the other rhetoric aside, we know that help has been on the ground.
Tell us what you need. What do you foresee to be? The biggest needs moving forward to help to some rest. More restoration, recovery, I mean, the word resiliency doesn't even come to mind because it just feels like that's such a long way off to bounce back. And there's, there's a lot of recovery work that still needs to be done.
What can we do?
Dr. William Hathaway: Yeah, well, don't lose sight of us. Okay, that's for sure. I think, you know, I think it's two things. The acute need for us. I just got off a phone call with the North Carolina Community Health Center Association and five of my colleagues who run health centers, and frankly, many in far more affected areas than Asheville was. You know, Asheville, Asheville will be fine in the sense that we're a large, we're the largest community in Western North Carolina.
We have more financial resources. There's a stronger tourism base here. There's more intellectual capital just because of the numbers of people who live here. If you look at Mitchell, Yancey, and Avery counties as an example, they run to our north and border on the Tennessee border. You know, Avery County has 14 to 16,000 people in it.
You know, when something like this happens to them and they have one or two clinics where care is delivered, it's devastating to them because they run the risk of losing employees because their employees leave. They run the risk of losing providers. I just asked them how many providers have been lost and they said five different providers across these counties have left to take jobs elsewhere.
Okay? It's very difficult to recruit people to these areas to provide care because the communities are more rural. The schools are different. There's less economic opportunity for spouses. There's all kinds of challenges that way. So there's, there's immediate needs that go to covering our losses, which I don't think your listeners can really help, nor should they.
And then there's the needs of our people, and if they're interested in helping in the sense of contributing to a disaster relief program. The North Carolina Community Health Center Association has set up a disaster relief fund, which was designed to support the health center staff that's been impacted by Hurricane Helene.
So, if, if you're, if you're readers want to help in a tangible financial way, that would be huge.
Michelle Rathman: Well, we will, we will, yes, please do. We'll make sure we get that link up in our show notes and our transcripts. It will be there. We'll, we'll put it out there on social media. I mean, my heart goes out to you all. I recognize how challenging. I don't think people understand. I mean, you know. Everyone with good hearts intentions and all, but at the end of the day, it is important for everyone to take care of themselves and their families.
And I appreciate why people are leaving, but the hope is that we can make sure that your pipelines remain full because when the recovery happens, the resiliency can begin. Dr. Hathaway, we are willing everyone in your state impacted by these events, continued recovery. And we thank you so much for taking the time to join us.
Dr. William Hathaway: Oh, sure.
Michelle Rathman: We're going to follow this story. We're not going to leave you. Rural is where we are. This is the place where we belong. And anything that you think we can do in the future, please reach out to us. It's really been a pleasure to meet you, and I don't want to say good luck or anything like that I'm, just willing you all the best.
Thank
Dr. William Hathaway: We'll take all the luck we can get. We'll take all the prayers we can get, and cash is king. You know, we need money to infuse and build. We need strong communities to begin with so that we can care for everybody in the community.
Michelle Rathman: yeah, you know, like I said, folks, I mean, now this episode is dropping just in the very first part of November. When you're thinking about what to do for thanksgiving. Think about making sure you keep these communities in your plans this year, because they need all the help that we can muster and provide.
So, hey, everyone sit tight because this conversation about rural recovery from climate disaster is not over. Stay with us. We'll be right back after this Rural Impact Message.
Michelle Rathman: Marion McFadden, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development at the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Everyone knows you as HUD. Thank you so much for joining us here again on The Rural Impact. We are really glad that you could be with us. It's a tough subject.
Um, nobody better than you to talk to us about it.
Marion Mollegen McFadden: Thanks so much, Michelle, for having me back. I really appreciate your interest in these topics. And you're right, it's a really tough topic. So, I appreciate the opportunity.
Michelle Rathman: Absolutely. You know, before our break, our listeners know that I had a conversation with Dr. William Hathaway and Dr. Hathaway is the CEO of Mountain Area Health Education Center. And it was a challenging conversation because he gave us a sense of the impact and unless you're on the ground, I don't think you can actually imagine it.
But we talked a little bit earlier about just how widespread the devastation is and including their health infrastructure due to unprecedented and completely unexpected flooding. And so, we're going to continue the conversation, Secretary McFadden about how HUDs is working, to the work that you are all doing related to hurricane Milton, if that weren't enough for, you know, hurricane Helene recovery.
So let's focus on some of those efforts, including, I want to talk about the Block Grant Disaster Recovery funds that are, that are being made readily available. And I will just say, we know that there's been a tremendous amount of disinformation misinformation about the kind of work that's happening on the ground and I know that you can help us clear that up and provide us with some good solid information that people can take to the bank as they say.
Marion Mollegen McFadden: Happy to do that. So, you know, in the time that I've been at HUD, we've been focused on disaster recovery, trying to support communities before the worst disasters happen, and planning ahead for when the worst disasters do. So, when we provide disaster recovery funds, we include a component for mitigation to make sure that even folks that weren't impacted in towns, that weren't impacted have a little bit of access to funds to make them more resilient. And one of the things that we did was revamp the way we give waivers, so that communities that have been through a terrible disaster can reorganize the use of their funds.
So, we have what we now call the Mega Waiver. The most flexibility possible for communities to switch up how they're spending the funds we give them every year. So those include CDBG funds that can be used for infrastructure and economic development as well as housing, affordable housing dollars, and funds to serve people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
So, with those existing funds, we made it much easier to come in and say, give me all the flexibility. I need it.
Michelle Rathman: You know, and I know I follow, I kind of have in front of me the list of press releases that went out. And I know, for example, I mean, and obviously there are so many people who have lost their homes, but on October 10th, HUD announced 3 million in funding to support people experiencing or at risk of homelessness in North Carolina.
Can you talk to us a little bit about that? And 3 million might not seem like a lot, but every little bit helps. I know that.
Marion Mollegen McFadden: And we, and we hope to make more available. So we identified that there are some gaps in the way federal assistance was being provided, and people who were living doubled up with another family, or people who were unhoused at the time of a disaster, were falling through the cracks and not accessing FEMA assistance.
So we stood up a new program, which we called RUSH, Rapid Unsheltered Survivor Housing, to get money to our annual grantees who receive Emergency Solutions Grants. So, we're able to get extra money to the jurisdictions that have the worst impact after the disasters. So, that's how we got that $3 Million out there and we do hope to be able to make more funding available.
It's a two- round program. So really want to make sure that there aren't gaps in the way federal assistance is reaching communities after the worst disasters.
Michelle Rathman: And because we're talking about Georgia, we're talking about Florida, we're talking about North Carolina. And so, you know, just expand that it's one state at a time. So, let's, if we could, can we shift a little bit to preparedness and resiliency? And you said something a little bit earlier, because. I mean, I'm thinking about the work that I'm doing in my, my, my double life that I lead.
I know that there's a tremendous amount of resources for community facilities, for municipalities and so forth after a disaster. that makes me think about the kind of programs and efforts and initiatives that you all are doing that are designed for preparedness. And, and I think being prepared helps us be resilient.
That's just kind of a no brainer for me. So, can we talk a little bit about those programs? Because it's not just reactive work that you all are doing. It's, there's some serious thought being put to being proactive.
Marion Mollegen McFadden: Absolutely. And going back to around the time of Hurricane Sandy, we really started realizing the hypocrisy in having stronger standards for construction after a disaster than we have before a disaster. So we started making changes. So, under the Biden-Harris Administration, we have increased flood resilience standards so that when we're paying for construction, we're making sure that whatever's being built is going to withstand foreseeable flooding, not just now, but over the coming decades, right?
We build a building, we want it to last and go through foreseeable flooding. We've increased our energy efficiency standards for the construction that my office is funding to make sure that homes are survivable longer. Right? If the heat goes out, you want a nice well, insulated home, same thing with the air conditioning for summer events and we've taken care with those. But also we've asked every jurisdiction that receives Community Development Block Grant funds that is participating in the annual planning process, to consider the impact of the changing climate on their housing stock.
And that means working with communities to help them understand their community resilience needs. We don't, we're not the federal government in Washington, telling them what they need, but saying, hey, pay attention to this.
We've also done a series of cohorts where we work with states and local governments to help them think through what they can do, what is within their power to do to make people and facilities safer.
Michelle Rathman: Gosh, that makes perfect sense, doesn't it? And I just think about the implications. We take a look at what's happening in states where insurance companies are no longer insuring. So, the expense to us looking at this through a rear-view mirror is just, it just seems so insane that we're not putting in.
Thank you. I'm so grateful that this administration is actually looking at that as, you know, kind of a condition for, you know, providing funds, make sure that there's a resiliency factor built in.
Marion Mollegen McFadden: Yeah, and even in communities where insurers are remaining, we're hearing terrible complaints from consumers about how much it's costing to get the same or a lower level of coverage. And our Acting Secretary was very concerned about that, and we did a convening with people interfacing with the insurance company at all levels to really start to understand is there more that HUD can do, and how can consumers know what they can do to bring down their cost of insurance.
So, these are important issues for us.
Michelle Rathman: Oh, yeah, and it's, it's reaching communities that, and we had a conversation with this last night and communities in North Carolina that flooding was never on their bingo card of this magnitude. All right. So the time we have left, there's a couple of things I want to talk about, because this is not, you know, like, you know, with this, as they say, water cooler conversation, but talk to us a little bit about the Section 108 LegacyChallenge.
I love the name of it anyway, just the legacy challenge for our listeners who have no idea what that is as it relates to rural housing. Let's talk about that.
Marion Mollegen McFadden: So, we have heard from communities all across the country, that there's a dire need for housing. I understand 33 governors talked about the need to increase housing and their State of the State Addresses this year. So, really, it's being felt all over the country and we're really interested in ensuring that we're not leaving any money on the table that HUD could be providing for housing.
So, we said, hey, elected officials. They are receiving HUD Community Development Block Grants, which is all the states and more than 1, 200 cities and counties. What's your legacy going to be when it comes to affordable housing? Are you going to be able to say, I did everything I could to support the residents in my community that need housing?
And so, we set aside 250 million for CDBG recipients to get low interest loan guarantees for housing. It can be for infrastructure, can be for renovation. It can be for converting an old factory or office building or other nonresidential building into homes. We're very flexible about how those dollars are used.
But we had authority to make these loans, the people weren't taking advantage of, I think because it's kind of a confusing program, that's built on the back of a grant program but requires lending. So, we've been providing technical assistance to communities, doing webinars, having one on one conversations with communities to make sure they're taking advantage.
Michelle Rathman: I love it, and you're right, I mean, everywhere I go, housing is, that's the, that's the topic in what we, I'll tell our listeners at the end, I mean, we just did a convening of HHS and USDA and HUD talking about the social drivers of health and how that's connected.
Marion Mollegen McFadden: There's a doctor in Boston, Dr. Megan Sandel, who says housing is a vaccine. We just need to make sure we're administering it at the correct dose. I mean we know that for many communities the housing assistance they're providing absolutely works, but the people who are getting the housing assistance are like the lottery winners, because there are so many more people who need to be able to take advantage of government programs to make all the pieces of their lives fit together so they can focus on their health and their education, their jobs, their retirement. People shouldn't be stressed out about housing costs.
That's just not the country we want to have. So, we're making sure here at HUD, we're working with communities to meet them where they are and let them know how they can access every dollar we have.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, it's a, it's a high time we have this conversation and have it often. Otherwise, we're just not going to make a dent in it. All right, let's talk a little bit. It goes right into this next subject, which is Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing. You know, we say affordability, but that's just one piece of it.
Inventory is another talk about the PRO Housing. If you could just touch on that. And then I want to kind of get into preservation and reinvestment initiatives for communities as well.
Marion Mollegen McFadden: You're exactly right, Michelle, that it, in order to increase our housing supply, we need to preserve the housing we have. And in order to ensure housing is affordable, we need to increase the housing supply, right? So, we know that we haven't built enough housing in this country really for decades now, there is more housing under construction right now than we've seen.
So, it's exciting that we know that more housing is going to come online, but we still know that we need to create millions of more homes to keep up with the American population. So, the PRO Housing program is a unique one that we launched. Yeah. To ask communities that are already working on addressing their challenges to identify their own barriers and come in to get assistance, knocking down those barriers.
So, communities identified their state and local zoning laws, their parking requirements, their available funding sources. Some talked about their need for more resilience to disasters. Really, the ball was in their court to identify the challenges and the potential solutions and it was fantastic.
The first round of the funding was $85 million and we were able to provide funding to 21 different grantees at least one and every one of the HUD 10 regions and for focusing on rural areas. So, yeah, really excited about making that money available.
And, we're currently looking at the applications. We just got in for the new round of funding. So, looking forward to getting to the bottom of the great new ideas. The new applicants,
Michelle Rathman: Yeah. And we want to stay, I mean, I just think it's so important because these are not, again, these are not things that you hear about. It's not something you're going to learn about in your local paper, unfortunately, maybe your local radio station, if you're still fortunate enough to have it. And so, you know, with that said, I just, maybe if you could share with our listeners ways to stay in touch with you, how, you know, how does an agency that people think about, oh, it's DC.
But I, as I understand it, because I just met somebody in Region 10, Andrew Lofton, you know, he, he was on a panel that I moderated. How do folks engage with HUD at their state level? Can you kind of clear the air on that so people know that you are accessible? It's not just you, you've got people all over the country.
Marion Mollegen McFadden: Absolutely. We do have people all over the country. My office, the Office of Community Planning and Development has 43 field offices. So, wherever you are, we're probably pretty close by. I would start with social media. We're pretty good about getting regional information out. Check out HUD.gov. It can get a little overwhelming because there's so much information, but if you use social media to curate, that can be really helpful.
And you can find Facebook pages, X, Instagram, LinkedIn's my favorite. So, there's information out there in bite sized chunks. So that's what I recommend to folks. Check out social media.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, and you can subscribe. I mean, because I get, I get all the announcements of all the different funding and I think, you know, that's very easy to do as well. And that, you know, it puts some really good, solid, factual information in your inbox directly from the sources, they say.
Marion Mollegen McFadden: And we really love sharing how communities are using our funding. So, there may just be some ideas buried in there that folks could take advantage of.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, I think that's a great idea because as we say, you know, every rural community is alike, but certainly we can glean lessons from each other. And what may work in one place may very well work in another as well. Wow. Marion McFadden, if you don't know this already, I mean it when I say you are welcome to join us anytime.
You have new information for us. I particularly want to stay in touch with you to talk more about the work that you all are doing and the funding that relates to ending our homelessness challenges in this country. So, we thank you for that. Again, your time is valuable and we appreciate you.
Marion Mollegen McFadden: Thanks, Michelle. And I hope we'll have a chance to share when we have winners from our manufactured housing grant competition, the PRICE competition.
Michelle Rathman: You better believe it.
Marion Mollegen McFadden: We are reviewing those now. And, we were, I'm not going to say we were overwhelmed because we were ready, but we were delighted with the number of applications that came in from all over.
Michelle Rathman: Well, we can't wait to see the results from that. And before we sign off to everybody else, I just want to acknowledge, my small but very mighty team, Brea Corsaro. She's our Associate Producer. She manages all those details behind the scenes, including scheduling, which sometimes could be like, as we say, herding kittens.
Um, I also want to make sure I thank Sarah Staub. She does all of our editing and our producing and all of our graphics. So, thank you for that. And then I just want to thank our listeners. And for those of you who are watching us on YouTube, we are so appreciative and sometimes a little overwhelmed at the response we're getting.
So, thank you for your notes, your letters, your ideas. We appreciate you. And if you have not become a subscriber, please do that because you're going to get our post a series of e blogs. All of our resources. We'll make sure everything that was shared to us today about the great work being done by HUD is on our website as well.
Just go to theruralimpact.com, become a subscriber. We really appreciate you joining our family. And lastly, I want to remind you that this is dropping just the first week of February, excuse me, November, on Thursday, November 21st is National Rural Health Day.
And I cannot wait to have you join us because we recorded an incredibly special episode from Bend, Oregon, with the Oregon Office of Rural Health. And the panel included, it's a rockstar panel, USDA Food Nutrition Services, HHS, and HUD. And we were talking about how agencies are working with healthcare organizations to address those social drivers of health. So be sure that you tune into that.
And until the next time, now more than any other time, please take good care of yourself and everyone else around you. Nobody can do that better than you. We will see you the next time on a new episode of The Rural Impact.
