Did a hurricane, flood, wildfire, or other disaster damage your home? If you live in a rural area, the USDA has a program that can help you fix it. It’s called the Single Family Housing Disaster Assistance Fund Program, and it offers both grants and loans.
Let’s talk about what this program is and how it may be able to help you.
What Is the USDA Disaster Assistance Fund Program?
This program is run by USDA Rural Development. It helps very-low and low-income homeowners repair a home damaged in a disaster that the President declared. Disasters declared by a state Governor or by the Secretary of Agriculture also count.
Money from this program can go toward:
- Disaster-related home repair costs, including repairs you already paid for before applying for the program
- The cost to move a manufactured home
- Site preparation
How Much Can I Get?
The maximum grant from this program is $32,420.
If you’re a very-low-income applicant, you may also be able to combine this with the USDA’s Section 504 Home Repair Loans and Grants program for even more help. We’ve written a full guide to Section 504 grants if you want to see how that program works alongside this one.
One important condition: if you receive this grant, you have to certify that you’re not receiving duplicate help for the same repairs from another source, like FEMA or insurance.
Who Is Eligible?
To qualify, you need to meet all of these:
- Your property was damaged in a disaster that the President declared (disasters declared by the Secretary of Agriculture or your state Governor also qualify)
- You own the home and live in it (if repairs are needed before you can move back in, that’s okay too)
- Your household income falls within the USDA’s very-low or low-income limits
- Your property is in an eligible rural area (this rural requirement doesn’t apply if you live in California or Hawaii)
You can check whether your address counts as a rural area using the USDA Income and Property Eligibility website.
How Do I Apply?
Contact a USDA home loan specialist in your area to get started. You can find your local Rural Development office using the USDA’s office locator.
When you reach out, be ready to provide:
- Form RD 410-4 (Uniform Residential Loan Application)
- Form RD 3550-1 (Request for Information)
- Form RD 3550-4 (Employment and Asset Certification)
Applications are accepted on an ongoing basis, as long as funding is available, and they’re processed in the order they’re received. The program’s funding is authorized fiscal year to fiscal year (the federal fiscal year runs October 1 through September 30), so you may see a cutoff date tied to the current fiscal year listed on the program page. That’s not a one-time deadline to worry about missing forever — the program is expected to reopen for the next fiscal year once new funding is authorized. Still, since funding is limited each year, it’s worth applying as soon as you can if your area was affected by a recent disaster, rather than waiting.
Relief Recap
Recovering from a disaster is hard enough without also facing the bill for repairs alone, and this program exists specifically to close that gap for rural homeowners. If you don’t live in a rural area, or your damage wasn’t disaster-related, take a look at our guide to free home repair grants for other programs that might help.
