Start at the state level and work down. There are others such as housing related agencies. So keep looking. Contact as many of these organizations personally as you can and build a database of what services are available to you. Ferret through the claims and discover what concrete services they can do in your town.
Programs earn grants, which cover the overhead.
Get down to the real deliverables that you can use in your community. Planning may well be one of the deliverables, but you will need others. Get this attitude in concrete into the mission statement of your organization. Everybody has problems. In fact, often more Federal help per capita is available in rural areas than in urban areas.