As President Obama has made clear, America will win the future by out-innovating our global competitors - and unlocking that innovation depends on revitalizing our rural communities. That's why the Department of Housing and Urban Development recently announced 46 awardees for the $28 million Rural Innovation Fund, a new initiative to help rural communities tackle their unique housing and poverty challenges. One of those winners is here in Mississippi.

Despite our agency's name, HUD's work has reached across almost every neighborhood in our country - including rural neighborhoods. Over the last decade, HUD's Rural Housing and Economic Development program has helped create nearly 12,000 jobs and provided job training to nearly 30,000 people in rural communities, with the quarter billion dollars HUD has invested in this program leveraging more than three times that amount in other funds - providing an excellent return for the taxpayer.

The new Rural Innovation Fund recognizes that you can't build sustainable communities if you have concentrated housing distress and community poverty.

The fund takes a more comprehensive approach by helping communities use federal dollars not just on a problem-by-problem basis, but to meet multiple needs - providing them with a new online Rural Mapping Tool to help them more accurately measure poverty and housing distress.

And it makes a bold commitment to Indian country, setting aside $5 million for Native American tribes who face unique housing and community development challenges.

With the Rural Innovation Fund, communities will have a powerful tool to spur innovation, create jobs, and grow their economies.

With this new approach, communities will not only have a built-in competitive edge in attracting jobs and investment - but also the innovative solutions and partnerships needed to tackle multiple problems with a single investment.

That's the kind of partner the Obama Administration is committed to being - and it's the partner rural communities need to win the future.

Ed Jennings Jr. is the regional administrator for Region IV of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.