NAHASDA Reauthorization: Addressing Historic Disinvestment and the Ongoing... (EventID=113988)

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On Tuesday, July 27, 2021, at 2:00 p.m. (ET) Housing, Community Development, and Insurance Subcommittee Chairman Cleaver and Ranking Member Hill will host a hearing entitled, “NAHASDA Reauthorization: Addressing Historic Disinvestment and the Ongoing Plight of the Freedmen in Native American Communities."

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Witnesses for this one-panel hearing will be:

• Chuck Hoskin, Jr., Principal Chief, Cherokee Nation

• Chris Kolerok, Director of Public Policy & Government Affairs, Cook Inlet Housing Authority

• Marilyn Vann, President, Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Tribes Association

• Anthony Walters, Executive Director, National American Indian Housing Council

• Jackson Brossy, Executive Director, Native CDFI Network



Background on Native American and Native Hawaiian Housing Needs

Native Americans living in tribal areas experience some of the most severe housing needs in the United States. Due to the historic and ongoing dispossession of Native lands and resource extraction by non-Native people,

Native American communities disproportionately experience high poverty rates and low incomes, overcrowding, chronic homelessness, lack basic utilities such as plumbing, clean drinking water, and heat, and face barriers to housing and community development. According to an extensive Congresionally-mandated report on American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) housing needs released by HUD in early 2017, some 6% of AIAN homes located in tribal areas had inadequate plumbing, 12% had heating deficiencies, and 16% were overcrowded, while nationwide, only 1 to 2% of homes suffered each of these conditions. At the same time, 38% of AIAN households were overrepresented among cost-burdened households (paying more than 30% of their income on housing costs), compared to 36% nationally. Researchers also estimated that between 42,000 and 85,000 people in tribal areas were doubling and tripling up with their friends or relatives because they had no place of their own.5 In 2020, 5% of Native American households, including Alaska Natives, Pacific Islanders, or Native Hawaiians, despite accounting for just 1% of the total U.S. population.

Housing conditions are exacerbated by underlying economic issues among Native American communities. Two of the most identified barriers to housing development are the geographic isolation of some reservations and insufficient infrastructure (such as road, water, and sewer systems), adding expenses and delays to housing development. In addition to physical challenges, the real and perceived financial characteristics of Native American borrowers have limited the creation of a lending market on reservations to support homeownership and finance new construction. Researchers have found that homeownership among Native Americans is constrained by challenges similar to those experienced by non-Native low-income individuals, such as a lack of mortgage financing, thin credit histories, and low incomes. Bureaucratic and legal barriers unique to Native communities, such as the legal status of trust land, further impede credit access and housing development on tribal lands because tribal lands held in trust cannot be used as collateral when securing a mortgage loan. Additionally, a lack of financial services and limited access to conventional lending markets make many Native American communities more likely to have to depend on subprime and predatory lending. In fact, between 2002 to 2005, Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data revealed that Native American borrowers accessed high-cost lenders more than twice as often as White borrowers.

Native Hawaiians. The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 created the Hawaiian Home Land Trust, which includes more than 200,000 acres of land managed by the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL). The amendment offered in 2000 that authorized the Native Hawaiian programs under NAHASDA was consistent with Congress’ recognition that it has a “unique trust responsibility to promote the welfare of the aboriginal, indigenous people of the State [of Hawaii],” who were displaced by European and American settlement, beginning in the colonial era through the annexation of Hawaii. However, there is a waiting list to access leases to such home lands. Native Hawaiians who are on the wait lists experience lower incomes on average and have some of the most acute need for affordable housing and a lack of access to homeownership in Hawaii compared to other Native Hawaiians and the general non-Native population. Native Hawaiians, like Native Americans, also face unique geographic challenges such as those presented by...

Hearing page: https://financialservices.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=407954