This issue of Rural Voices, the magazine of the Housing Assistance Council, highlights the ways that various organizations and agencies have successfully used tax credits to address rural community development needs. Contributors to this issue highlight affordable housing projects, a museum, and office space that were made possible through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit and the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentive programs. Also mentioned are New Markets Tax Credits and a proposed homeownership tax credit.

This issue begins with articles illustrating innovative ways that the LIHTC has been used to develop affordable housing in rural areas. Washington state's housing finance agency has encouraged the use of tax credits in rural places, while Kentucky's agency has collected advice for developers using tax credits in Appalachia. Utah's state housing finance agency and a nonprofit developer in rural Maryland have used the LIHTC program to provide homeownership opportunities for low-income families through rent-to-own programs.

Historic tax credits have also been used successfully in relatively rural areas and as a result have breathed new life into communities through the development of projects such as a museum, which attracts thousands of visitors to a small town in New York state, and an office building where hundreds of residents in Wheeling, W.Va., now work. Finally, this issue ends with a description of a proposed homeownership tax credit.