Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 9/7/18

Availability of affordable housing is an issue one hears about most often in connection with urban areas, but experts predict there's trouble on the horizon for hundreds of thousands of rural residents who live in USDA-subsidized homes. The Housing Assistance Council examined the problem in an expansive new report that was commissioned by USDA.

Back in 1963, USDA started subsidizing mortgages for developers to provide rental assistance to low-income people, mostly the elderly and disabled. Tenants living in multifamily units receiving USDA loans are also eligible for rental assistance, which many of them take up.

But those loan terms are poised to end in the next few decades as they were set on 30- to 50-year repayment plans. As mortgages "mature," developers can then exit the program and hike up rents to market rates, potentially displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

The so-called Section 515 program touches nearly every corner of the country: 87 percent of counties in the U.S. have at least one USDA-sponsored property. Today more than 13,000 USDA-mortgaged properties provide in excess of 415,000 affordable homes for families and individuals, the report says. By 2050, nearly all properties participating in the program are estimated to drop out.

"At nearly all intersections, the coming wave of maturing mortgages is a crisis," the report states.