Later this month, a Department of Agriculture representative will be at the Glasgow-Barren County Chamber of Commerce to speak about two USDA programs that can help low-income people get rural home loans and single-family housing repair loans and grants.

According to Ernie Myers, executive vice president of the chamber, this will be the third time in three months the chamber has hosted a USDA representative to speak about the loan program.

“It’s a loan program at an extremely inexpensive rate for people with limited income,” he said.

According to a USDA release, the interest rates on the direct loan program, designed to help low and very low-income applicants get adequate housing in rural areas, can be as low as 1 percent and the payback period can be as long as 38 years.

The single-family housing repair loans and grants program provides loans to very low-income homeowners for repairs and improvements to their homes or grants to elderly very low-income homeowners to remove health and safety hazards.

The housing repair loans and grants have a maximum loan amount of $20,000 and the maximum grant amount is $7,500.

On March 23, Susan Hughes, an area specialist with the USDA, will be discussing the programs from noon to 1 p.m.

Hughes said her office in Columbia is trying to send a representative each month to all 10 counties it serves, one of which is Barren, in order to make their services and information more readily available.

“Sometimes the elderly who can’t come to our office will show up when we go to their counties,” she said.

The goal is to let the public know about the USDA programs low-income people in rural areas can use to help with housing issues they may be having, Hughes said.

“We’re just kind of there if the public wants to come and find out about our program,” she said.

Because of the one-hour timetable, Hughes won’t be able to walk anyone through the entire process of applying for loans or grants, she said.

“We can answer their questions and get the process started,” she said.

Eric Kennedy with USDA’s Rural Housing Service said that although the loan and grant programs are a great boon to the lives of many rural people, there’s little public knowledge of the programs.

“I think people just don’t see USDA as a resource for helping people find loans,” he said.

USDA doesn’t have the resources to advertise loan program information sessions, meaning attendance of these events can vary wildly depending on local word-of-mouth, Kennedy said.

“I think if we had the resources available, there’d be people lined up outside my door,” he said.