For the past 20 years or so, many looking for answers on how to care for the environment have turned to Native American cultures. During that same period, fulfillment for thousands of “lost souls” has been found in Native American spirituality, frequently to the dismay of our nation’s First People.
From healing herbs to how to get in touch with your spirit, all answers seem somehow linked to the country’s indigenous population. So, where do we turn at this time of our nation’s worst economic crisis in decades? To the economists? To Native Americans.
Think not? Listen up.
The First Nations Oweesta Corporation – launched in 1999 – is a Native American Community Development Financial Institution, or CDFI. You might have heard about them in the news, lately. CDFI’s are those financial institutions that have weathered the current economic turmoil well by being careful about how they invest their money. Careful is a word that hasn’t been part of the American economic vocabulary for some time (like decades, man).
In the midst of the nation’s economic deterioration last fall, the Oweesta Corporation opened a new office in Rapid City as the organization continued to expand. Hmm. Expansion during a recession. How is that possible?
Oddly, in this day of individual and corporate irresponsibility, Oweesta’s primary investment is in people. As Chief Executive Officer Elsie Meeks explained, Oweesta’s role is to develop smaller CDFIs in Native communities across the country that, in turn, help Native Americans start their own businesses; otherwise known as grassroots economic development.
The reason for Oweesta’s continued success – even in (or in spite of) hard economic times? Teaching people good financial management skills and then teaching them how to run a business. That would involve economic principles like not spending money you don’t have and keeping your books balanced. Oweesta and its sub-CDFIs also teach folks that running a business and the solvency of that business should be the preeminent daily goal; you get up thinking about keeping your business solvent, you go to bed with the same thought.
Solvency: there’s a word that Wall Street’s powerbrokers, all those mortgage lenders and all those mortgage buyers who caused this chaos need to learn. It means “capable of meeting financial obligations.”
Gee, what a concept.
It’s that personal contact with those who’ll receive financial assistance at the grassroots level that allows Oweesta to remain in the black. Statistics show that CDFIs have a delinquency rate one-sixth the national average of other investment organizations. That factor, combined with lending policies geared toward the client’s needs and abilities, are actually making CDFIs a good investment risk in the current economy and ensuring their economic future.
A hundred miles away, the Pine Ridge Reservation has a local CDFI. Started 21 years ago, Lakota Funds has been vital to the community’s economic development. According to Loan Portfolio Manager Tawney Brunsch, the goal is to educate people about being “responsible” business owners (there’s that word again). Lakota Funds is not only concerned about someone making the payments on the loan for their business; the ultimate goal is to make that business succeed for the ripple effect it will have on the reservation – creating jobs and helping to support other Native-owned businesses. Since its inception, Lakota Funds has invested more than $4 million in the community for small businesses including artisans, contractors and stores.
If you think the success of Native-owned CDFIs is a fluke, let’s focus on Rapid City’s Teton Coalition. Founded in 1993, the group’s goal is to find affordable housing for members of the Native American community “and beyond.” As director Germaine Little Bear notes, “We don’t think in terms of race at all. We think in terms of housing.”
Gee, another unique concept.
Like Oweesta and Lakota Funds, the Teton group also thinks in terms of responsible financing and educating their clients about the realities and (here it is again) the “responsibilities” of home ownership. The Teton Coalition makes it easier for someone to own a home – and reduces the stress of the process – by matching available houses to applicants’ incomes and current rents. This might seem like a no-brainer. But it was the failure of so many banks to follow simple financing guidelines that led to the current economic crisis. There’s even a class in landscaping.
It’s this attention to detail and awareness of their clients’ financial abilities that has brought the Teton Coalition success. The result? Thirty families placed in their own homes last year alone – no foreclosures.
Native Americans have taught us how to be one with nature, a higher being and ourselves. Seems they can also teach us how to be one with the economy.
Jim Kent is a writer living in Hot Springs, S.D. He can be reached at kentvfte@gwtc.net.
