INDEPENDENCE — The biggest challenges facing rural communities today — housing, child care, health care, educational opportunities and infrastructure — are echoed across the country.
To that end, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development offices have played an integral role, noted Gimmie Jo Jansonius, the newly minted state Rural Development director.
“It is essentially a ticket to help build,” Jansonius said at a recent gathering of several local leaders in Independence.
But within the Trump administration, an overarching theme has been to pull back grant funds, leaving many USDA projects in a state of flux.
That uncertainty for city, county and state officials led to the Aug. 22 get-together, arranged by U.S. Rep. Derek Schmidt and hosted by Southeast Kansas, Inc., where locals spoke for about 90 minutes on projects and concerns they have related to USDA projects.
“It’s really just to make sure we’re checking with folks to make sure we’re pulling in the right direction on the pieces we’ve got,” Schmidt said.
“That’s why I’m so passionate about this work,” Jansonius said. “We get down into the grass roots and we get to help people identify the challenges and the resources and the progress that they want to make to help their communities be prosperous and vibrant.”
Jansonius said Rural Development’s mission will remain the same, but with an increased emphasis on securing local resources along the way to better ensure sustainability.
“Over the years I’ve seen some really great initiatives provided by grant funds,” Jansonius said. “But you know what? When the grant funds dried up, the work went away.”
Now, one of the top priorities will be to leverage local resources at the entry level.
“Have we leveraged local investment?” she asked. “Have we talked with local businesses? Have we engaged our community banks?”
The Rural Development Guaranteed Loan program is USDA’s best-kept secret, she continued. “It infuses capital back into your community. It gives that bank assurance the loan is going to be good. We know that your community bankers know what’s going on … far better than I ever will as a state director.”
HOUSING
April Nutt, Independence Housing Authority director, spoke about opportunities and challenges facing her community, which mirror many others.
“There’s a gap,” Nutt said. “Even though valuations are going up, there’s still a gap between what it costs to construct and what a house can sell at.”
And that gap is exacerbated where wages are traditionally lower than in other parts of the country, Nutt added.
