The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs’ Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development held a hearing, “State of Native American Housing,” on June 13. Witnesses included: Chelsea Fish (Seminole), executive director of the National American Indian Housing Council (NAIHC); Patrick Goggles (Northern Arapaho), executive director of the Northern Arapaho Housing Authority; Tammy Moreland (Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians), chairperson of the Minnesota Tribal Collaborative to Prevent and End Homelessness; and Pete Upton (Ponca), CEO of the Native CDFI Network and executive director of the Native360 Loan Fund. The hearing included a robust discussion about the urgency of reauthorizing the “Native American Housing and Self Determination Act of 1996” (NAHASDA), the importance of Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs), and respecting Tribal sovereignty while ending homelessness in Native communities.
Chair Tina Smith (D-MN) opened the hearing highlighting that she and Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), the new Ranking Member of the Subcommittee, both agreed that Native housing is a top priority for the Subcommittee’s work. Chair Smith commented, “Housing challenges in Native communities stretch across the entire housing continuum, from the lack of emergency shelter to a shortage of homeownership opportunities on Tribal lands.”
Ranking Member Lummis focused on the importance of federal investments in Native communities, homeownership, and the value of Native CDFIs. Introducing witness Patrick Goggles, Senator Lummis highlighted his expertise, “Mr. Goggles brings vast knowledge and experience working on tribal housing. His resume is impressive, currently serving as the Executive Director of the Northern Arapaho Tribal Housing Authority.” A member of the United Native American Housing Association (UNAHA), an NLIHC state partner, Mr. Goggles was recently recognized by UNAHA and HUD’s Office of Native American Programs Northern Plains Office with the “Legends of Indian Housing” award for his 40 years of service.
Chelsea Fish started with a personal story, sharing her grandmother’s overcrowded home with 20 other people at any time in Oklahoma trust land. As the new director of NAIHC, she expressed surprise that Native American housing issues are not well understood, “It is uncanny how unaware people are of the housing conditions on tribal territories and reservations. Every day I talk to people who are completely oblivious to the poverty that we find on Indian reservations.” Ms. Fish pleaded for Congress to reauthorize NAHASDA and to adjust the formula used to allocate funds stating, “Congress has failed to fulfill its trust obligation and has been neglectful of tribal communities by keeping funding stagnant for 30 years.” Since 1998, tribal housing programs have lost $3.4 billion in funding by not keeping up with inflation. Ms. Fish provided an example from Nulato, Alaska, a remote village that needs 200 homes where the cost of a single-family home is more than $670,000. Ms. Fish stated that the current NAHASDA formula only provides funding sufficient to build 29% of one home.
Patrick Goggles stressed the importance of reauthorizing NAHASDA. Mr. Goggles stated that the flow of funds from NAHASDA helps his housing authority plan, develop, and implement needed projects. He also spoke about overcrowding and Northern Arapaho’s reliance on NAHASDA for housing, “I manage 234 houses. One five-bedroom house has 27 people in it. One three-bedroom house has 15 people in it. The overcrowding is acute. The shortage of housing on our reservation is very acute. There is no private ownership of family homes on the Wind River Reservation currently.” Mr. Goggles also discussed the need for Indian Housing Block Grant competitive grants, noting that Tribes are not on a level playing field with NAHASDA formula funding.
Pete Upton discussed the challenges of Native homeownership and summarized his organizations’ work providing home loans for Native communities. Mr. Upton noted several concerns regarding improving the rates of Native homeownership: access to long term funding, scarcity of housing stock, lack of infrastructure and skilled workers, the limited availability of land, and complex land ownership structures.
Tammy Moreland explained that her organization is tribally-initiated and has an innovative approach to addressing American Indians housing and homelessness in Minnesota. Ms. Moreland noted the organization’s successful advocacy in amending a federal law to allow Tribes to access the Continuum of Care homeless programs, affording them increased federal funding to address homelessness. In response to questions from senators, Ms. Moreland noted that Tribal sovereignty extends to homelessness data. Noting the Collaborative’s work with the Wilder Foundation, Ms. Moreland stated, “Wilder has respected tribal sovereignty, the data that is collected is owned by each Tribe and the Tribe will decide how they would like to disperse that information.” Ms. Moreland’s testimony added research to the overcrowding discussion, “Before the reservation homeless survey was done in 2006, the belief was that Indians like to double up, that it was cultural preference. Yet the reservation homeless survey showed that 99% of the people surveyed who were doubled up in overcrowded households would take separate housing if it was affordable, safe, and made available.”
Members of the Subcommittee asked witnesses about barriers to affordable housing. Chair Smith remarked on the difficulty of building housing on different types of Tribal lands, the high rate of homelessness in Native communities, and the need to reauthorize NAHASDA. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) asked Ms. Fish and Mr. Goggles about NAHASDA’s training and technical assistance program. Mr. Goggles stated that providing Native communities with training opportunities empowers them to be good stewards of federal assistance. Ranking Member Lummis asked witnesses about development barriers, reforming NAHASDA, and Native veteran services. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) highlighted that one-third of new homes on Tribal lands in Nevada are manufactured homes, and she discussed the need for incentives to provide for more manufactured housing. Senator Cortez Masto also supported Native CDFIs, and noted the need for reforms to the Federal Home Loan Banks. Senator Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) spoke about the opioid epidemic in Native communities and asked about allowable IHBG uses for meth remediation. In all, witnesses agreed that accessing federal funding for Native American housing is “a big jigsaw puzzle.” They urged Congress to reauthorize NAHASDA and extend funding for it, reauthorize the Native CDFI fund, and to provide homelessness assistance funds directly to Native Tribes, rather than through the HUD CoC program.
Watch the hearing and read witnesses’ testimony at: https://tinyurl.com/3bzukhvw