WASHINGTON – Reauthorization of the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act is the top priority of the National American Indian Housing Council, council members said at the organization’s annual legislative conference.
More money to fund NAHASDA, and restoration of administration cuts to other housing programs used in Indian country, are also priorities for the year.
NAHASDA is considered the most important American Indian housing legislation ever to be passed into law. Its reauthorization by Congress is in process and has passed the House and the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.
Indian housing authorities, like their older cousins the public housing authorities, used to be conduits for federal housing money for tribes under the 1937 Housing Act. The money was for established housing programs run strictly under the rules and regulations of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
NAHASDA, which was passed in 1996, provided a radically different way of doing things. Tribes were directed to leverage their housing money so it could help put more of a dent in the intractable problem of extremely poor housing conditions in Indian country. And they were given more arrows in the quiver to do it with, specifically Title VI, which could help them fund project loans 95 percent guaranteed by the government. And tribes were given the authority, under their own status as sovereign nations, to determine how best to do this on their own.
NAIHC, in its position papers on NAHASDA, said it ”revolutionized” the way Indian housing was financed by the government. The $5.7 billion of housing assistance voted by Congress since fiscal year 1998 has certainly been better stretched and used than any money since IHAs started to come into existence during the 1960s.
The reauthorization contains a key component to help fight the low success rate of housing
development in Indian country – lack of infrastructure and acquisition, development and construction (ADC) money. Roads, water, phone lines, sewage lines – the things taken for granted in most of America – often aren’t in place in the remote areas where many tribes live.
Section B of the reauthorized bill allows tribes to pledge some of their housing block grant money as collateral for infrastructure or ADC, financing. The amount must be reconciled – it’s up to 10 percent of $1 million in the House version, or up to 20 percent or $2 million in the Senate version, according to Wendy Helgamo, government affairs specialist at NAIHC.
Funding for NAHASDA has stagnated in recent years, and NAIHC is proposing a boost in funding to $789 million for FY 2009. Money for the Indian Housing Block Grant has been at about the $625 million level since FY 2005. Estimates show there is an immediate need for 200,000 new units of housing in Indian country.
But NAHASDA has been making a dent. According to Felipe Eduardo Sixto, associate director for intergovernmental affairs at the White House, 50,000 housing units have been built, acquired or rehabbed using IHBG money.
According to the NAIHC, NAHASDA isn’t the only underfunded instrument in Indian housing. The I-CDBG, for instance – the Indian version of the Community Development Block Grant – is in the budget for $57.4 million, down from $72 million in FY 2004. NAIHC is asking for $77 million.
The BIA’s Home Improvement Program, funded at more than $20 million prior to FY 2003, has been zeroed out in the administration’s FY 2009 request. NAIHC would like to see it funded at $25 million.
HUD’s usual Rural Housing Service loan, often used in Indian country, has also been cut back. Section 502 direct (single-family) and Section 515 direct (multi-family) have also been zeroed out.
The department’s Rural Housing and Economic Development program, also highly utilized by tribes, has been zeroed out as well for FY 2009 after being funded in previous years for as much as $25 million.
A separate program, HUD’s Section 184 Indian mortgage guarantee, has been a success in Native areas and has been expanded to include cities and even whole states where they live. According to Oklahoma Rep. Dan Boren, 4,200 HUD 184 loans have been guaranteed since program inception, for a total of $517 million in finance. It can be used for new homes, rehabs, refinancing and new construction.
