Like broadband today and telephone service in the 1950s, rural housing was a cause célèbre for electric cooperatives in the 1970s. Local distribution systems, statewide associations, NRECA and allied groups were devoting staff time and serious money to the issue.

The Rural Housing Alliance estimated in 1973 that 500,000 new or rehabilitated houses were needed in rural areas every year for 10 years to eliminate what some called “rural slums.”

Clay Cochran, executive director of the Alliance and a former NRECA staff member, expressed shock “that thousands of rural people are still living in tarpaper shacks and other forms of substandard housing in the most prosperous country in the world.” 

In Wisconsin, 252 low-income families had obtained new or improved housing through a rural housing co-op started in 1970 by the Wisconsin Electric Cooperative Association (statewide).

The Wisconsin Rural Housing Cooperative arranged for low-interest loans for the families through the Farmers Home Administration. To be eligible, annual family income had to be $7,000 or lower. Most families earned much lower amounts: In 1970, one of the counties involved reported that only 20 percent of its families made more than $7,000 and the median income was $4,300.

In addition to low incomes, many of the families receiving help from the housing co-op had a lot of mouths to feed. One had 17 members and another 14. Four had 13 members and two had 12. Seventy-one other families had seven or more children.

The housing co-op got help from the U.S. Department of Labor to develop an on-the-job-training program for unskilled workers at its construction sites, which helped keep costs down.

Basin Electric Power Cooperative in Bismarck, North Dakota, a large regional generation and transmission system, started the Basin Electric People’s Housing Program in 1970 and secured a $100,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

The PHP used the money to teach co-op directors and staff how to be housing planners and developers. Five distribution systems in North Dakota and four in South Dakota were involved. Each statewide association had a role too.

The first step was to do a detailed survey. Among other things, the survey revealed that the average rural home in the two states was 40 years old and had never been updated. Many didn’t have indoor bathrooms, central heating or basements.

The PHP showed the local co-op people how to establish housing authorities, conducted training seminars and wrote a “How-to-do-it: Rural Housing” manual. The book contained all the federal housing applications and contact information for all the players in Washington and at the regional and state levels.

Once trained, the local co-op people began educating their members and community leaders. They also helped develop projects.

An act of God tested the PHP’s mettle in the spring of 1972: Torrential rains on the night of June 9 sent a wall of Canyon Lake Reservoir water crashing down on a community near Rapid City, South Dakota. Trees were ripped out of the ground, homes were flattened. More than 200 people lost their lives, and 1,500 families were left homeless.

Three days later, Basin Electric General Manager Jim Grahl sent a telegram to Rapid City Mayor Don Barnett offering assistance. And a few days later two PHP managers moved to Rapid City to help local leaders organize a housing authority so the community could submit a HUD application for rebuilding funds.

Two years later (July 1974), 203 units of new elderly housing were close to being occupied, and ground was about to be broken for 179 family units. In addition, 31 family units were under construction in Wall, S.D., another community devastated by the flood.

Mayor Barnett commented that had it not been for Basin Electric Power’s efforts, “many Rapid City citizens would never again have had the opportunity to own their own homes.”

He added, “Basin Electric’s PHP and rural electric cooperatives have played an important role in the Missouri River Basin by helping other unfortunate families … improve their quality of life with better housing.”