Nebraska Panhandle News

Yesterday, U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts, a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, emphasized the need for effective solutions to tackle the housing shortage crisis in a committee hearing. Ricketts stated:

“The housing shortage in our country is something that is creating problems in all of our communities across this country. And in my state of Nebraska, we talk about rural housing, and that’s one of the things that we worked on when I was Governor of Nebraska,” Ricketts said. “Being able to cut through the red tape and come up with solutions is one of the things that is important to look at. In Nebraska, we created a rural workforce housing bill, which provided $7 million that was available for communities to apply for. The way most communities ended up using this grant was as a revolving fund so that developers would be able to get a low-interest loan to be able to come to a rural community and build houses.”

The hearing titled "Housing Roadblocks: Paving a New Way to Address Affordability" included witnesses such as The Honorable Eric Johnson, Mayor of Dallas, Texas; and Dr. Edward Glaeser from Harvard University.