With strong roots in the rural community from growing up on a trading post in northwestern New Mexico, Anarde finds RCAC’s wide-ranging reach to help many different areas especially gratifying. “Eighty-seven percent of persistent-poverty communities are in rural areas in America,” said Anarde. “Our services are available to communities with populations of fewer than 50,000, other nonprofit groups, tribal organizations, farmworkers and other specific populations.” Thus far, the nonprofit and Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI) based in west Sacramento has helped hundreds of thousands of the estimated seven million Americans who live in rural areas in California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Alaska and Hawaii. Building on the success of programs like Agua4All, Anarde hopes to tackle the challenge of digital access for students and communities. “We’d like to help with expanding broadband access in rural areas. Connectivity is so vital and that would greatly assist students and the local economy.” One nonprofit RCAC works with is the Northern Circle Indian Health Authority (NCIHA), based in Ukiah in Mendocino County. Both organizations were founded around the same time and “have grown up together like siblings,” said Elizabeth Elliott, NCIHA’s executive director. “These organizations both strived to provide equity for marginalized communities and have championed water rights, housing rights and
secure $7 million in grant funding for emergency rental assistance. The funds supported a planned small apartment complex on the rancheria of one of the NCIHA-served Native American communities and also went toward a housing rehabilitation program. McGill gives no small measure of credit for that success to the RCAC team. “That emergency rental assistance program alone has helped 457 families just since February of 2021,” Elliott said. RCAC’s successes in supporting rural communities have even caught the attention of philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, who donated $20 million to the nonprofit in December 2020. “I think rural America is finally getting more visibility,” Anarde said. “Receiving those dollars is a huge opportunity and a huge responsibility. We hope to expand and deepen the impact of this grant by leveraging it one-to-one through matching donations and investments.” With that generous grant and matching funds, Anarde and her team hope to develop “an efficient and effective infrastructure” to be able to readily address disaster recovery needs after natural disasters like wildfires that can affect large swaths of rural areas; the effects of drought; and the impact of residential foreclosures. “We’re looking at how to maintain capacity to respond quickly to needs such as these,” she said. Looking toward the future, Anarde leads with empathy and optimism with goals of bringing more equity and access for Americans in rural areas. “At the end of the day, rural Americans want the same things as everyone else: they want their kids to be happy and successful, they want a decent home, they want to be accepted and empowered,” she said. “The journey may look different, but the goals are certainly similar for all Americans.”
Tribal sovereignty for the last 40 years.” One NCIHA staff member that RCAC has
mentored is 28-year-old Moriah McGill. Working in the construction department of NCIHA, she enrolled in a program offered by RCAC called the Tribal Housing Excellence Academy. McGill and her fellow Academy participants from Alaska, Arizona and Washington state collaborated to conceptualize a 28-home subdivision as a case study. “RCAC definitely gave me the tools to plan for housing rehabilitation projects and new development,” she said. After completing RCAC’s Academy program, McGill applied for and received two large grants from the U.S. Treasury Department totaling $5.3 million for an emergency rental assistance program. She also applied for and received another $2 million in several smaller grants earmarked for the small apartment complex project and the block grants. McGill’s dedication and tenacity has helped
For more information, visit rcac.org .
calbanktrust.com/ inyourcorner
9
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker