In a small Iowa town, one home can change everything.
It can mean the difference between keeping a young teacher in the community or losing her to a city 90 minutes away. Between a farm kid staying on the family land or leaving for good. Between a Main Street that’s growing and one that’s going dark.
Zoom out: America is short roughly 5 million homes, and rural Iowa feels that shortage differently than big cities do.
Small towns don’t need new massive subdivisions or high-rise apartments. They need the ability to build a few homes at a time — and restore the homes that are already part of the community.
The solution: Making sure rural communities actually have a seat at the table. That’s why I worked to include Iowa’s voice in the rural housing provisions of the bipartisan Housing for the 21st Century Act that passed the House last month.
Here’s what we delivered for Iowa. ⬇️
Our rural housing bill — big ideas, small-town impact:
🏠 Prefab and manufactured homes that fit communities of 500 — affordable, flexible options that don’t require building an entire subdivision at once
🔨 Doubled USDA loans to restore existing homes — helping families replace a roof, fix lead pipes, or bring the Victorian on Main Street back to life
🌾 Approval times slashed — cutting wait times from months to weeks, so a family that’s lived in a community their whole life can actually buy the neighbor’s house when it comes up for sale
Bottom Line: Rural Iowa doesn’t need Washington’s one-size-fits-all approach to housing. It needs programs that work the way small towns actually grow — one home, one family, one community at a time. That’s what we fought for, and I’ll keep pushing until it’s signed into law.