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Scott McReynolds is the executive director of the Housing Development Alliance (HDA) in Hazard, Ky.
The HDA’s programs have helped more than 2,900 low-income people in rural southeastern Kentucky become new homeowners, make home-improving repairs, and break free of debt. The organization builds homes, provides housing counseling to prepare people for homeownership, offers home repair, manages rentals homes, runs volunteer programs, helps households achieve energy savings, and provides on-the-job construction training to men and women and recovery.
In this episode of the Rural Business Show, McReynolds discusses how extensive the need is to improve housing in rural communities and the primary roadblocks to homeownership that HDA helps people overcome. We discuss challenges the organization has faced including dealing with the supply chain issues and higher material costs brought on by the pandemic. Plus, McReynolds shares several examples of how HDA’s work has changed lives.