The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development offers grants for constructing, purchasing, and enhancing public and essential community facilities, as well as purchasing equipment and paying related project expenses.
An essential community facility is defined as providing an essential service to the local community for the orderly development of the community in a primarily rural area, and does not include private, commercial, or business undertakings.
Examples include:
- Healthcare facilities such as hospitals, medical clinics, dental clinics, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, or facilities that provide for the prevention, treatment, and recovery of substance misuse disorders
- Public facilities such as town halls, courthouses, airport hangars, bridges, port authorities, or street improvements
- Community support services such as childcare centers, adult daycare, homeless shelters, community centers, or transitional housing
- Public safety services such as fire departments, police stations, prisons, police vehicles, fire trucks, public works vehicles or equipment
- Educational services such as schools, colleges and universities, community colleges, charter schools, vocational and technical schools, dormitories, museums, or libraries
- Local food systems such as community gardens, food pantries, community kitchens, food banks, food hubs, or greenhouses
- E-connectivity end-user equipment to include distance-learning equipment, telemedicine equipment, and health information technology equipment, as well as internal wiring and publicly available Wi-Fi capability within a facility
Funding types:
- Low-interest direct loans
- Grants
- A combination of the two, as well as our loan guarantee program. These may be considered with commercial financing to finance one project if all eligibility and feasibility requirements are met.
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