[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                  NAHASDA REAUTHORIZATION: ADDRESSING
                     HISTORIC DISINVESTMENT AND THE
                     ONGOING PLIGHT OF THE FREEDMEN
                     IN NATIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES

=======================================================================

                             HYBRID HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                        SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING,
                         COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT,
                             AND INSURANCE

                                 OF THE

                    COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                             JULY 27, 2021

                               __________

       Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

                           Serial No. 117-44
                           
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                              __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
45-861 PDF                 WASHINGTON : 2021                     
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------   

                 HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

                 MAXINE WATERS, California, Chairwoman

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York         PATRICK McHENRY, North Carolina, 
NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York             Ranking Member
BRAD SHERMAN, California             FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York           BILL POSEY, Florida
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia                 BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri
AL GREEN, Texas                      BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri            ANN WAGNER, Missouri
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              ANDY BARR, Kentucky
JIM A. HIMES, Connecticut            ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                FRENCH HILL, Arkansas
JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio                   TOM EMMER, Minnesota
JUAN VARGAS, California              LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey          BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas              ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia
AL LAWSON, Florida                   WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio
MICHAEL SAN NICOLAS, Guam            TED BUDD, North Carolina
CINDY AXNE, Iowa                     DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana
AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts       ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
RITCHIE TORRES, New York             JOHN ROSE, Tennessee
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts      BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin
ALMA ADAMS, North Carolina           LANCE GOODEN, Texas
RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan              WILLIAM TIMMONS, South Carolina
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania         VAN TAYLOR, Texas
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York   PETE SESSIONS, Texas
JESUS ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
SYLVIA GARCIA, Texas
NIKEMA WILLIAMS, Georgia
JAKE AUCHINCLOSS, Massachusetts

                   Charla Ouertatani, Staff Director
                  Subcommittee on Housing, Community 
                       Development, and Insurance

                  EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri, Chairman

NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York         FRENCH HILL, Arkansas, Ranking 
BRAD SHERMAN, California                 Member
JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio                   BILL POSEY, Florida
AL GREEN, Texas                      BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas              LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York         TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana
JUAN VARGAS, California              JOHN ROSE, Tennessee
AL LAWSON, Florida                   BRYAN STEIL, Wisconsin, Vice 
CINDY AXNE, Iowa                         Ranking Member
RITCHIE TORRES, New York             LANCE GOODEN, Texas
                                     VAN TAYLOR, Texas
                            
                            
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on:
    July 27, 2021................................................     1
Appendix:
    July 27, 2021................................................    27

                               WITNESSES
                         Tuesday, July 27, 2021

Brossy, Jackson, Executive Director, Native CDFI Network (NCN)...    11
Hoskin, Hon. Chuck, Jr., Principal Chief, Cherokee Nation........     4
Kolerok, Chris, Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs, 
  Cook Inlet Housing Authority...................................    10
Vann, Marilyn, President, Descendants of Freedmen of the Five 
  Civilized Tribes Association...................................     8
Walters, Anthony, Executive Director, National American Indian 
  Housing Council (NAIHC)........................................     6

                                APPENDIX

Prepared statements:
    Brossy, Jackson..............................................    28
    Hoskin, Hon, Chuck, Jr.......................................    32
    Kolerok, Chris...............................................    38
    Vann, Marilyn................................................    44
    Walters, Anthony.............................................    53

              Additional Material Submitted for the Record

Cleaver, Hon. Emanuel
    Written statement of the Muscogee Creek Indian Freedmen Band.    64
    Written statement of Damario Solomon Simmons, Esq............    76
Hoskin, Hon, Chuck, Jr.:
    Written responses to questions for the record submitted by 
      Chairwoman Waters..........................................    86
Kolerok, Chris:
    Written responses to questions for the record submitted by 
      Chairwoman Waters..........................................    89
    Written responses to questions for the record submitted by 
      Representative Posey.......................................    91
Vann, Marilyn:
    Written responses to questions for the record submitted by 
      Chairwoman Waters, including attachments...................    94
    Written responses to questions for the record submitted by 
      Representative Posey.......................................   103
Young, Hon. Don:
    Letter of introduction for his constitutent witness, Chris 
      Kolerok....................................................   105

 
                  NAHASDA REAUTHORIZATION: ADDRESSING
                     HISTORIC DISINVESTMENT AND THE
                   ONGOING PLIGHT OF THE FREEDMEN IN
                      NATIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES

                              ----------                              


                         Tuesday, July 27, 2021

             U.S. House of Representatives,
                           Subcommittee on Housing,
                             Community Development,
                                     and Insurance,
                           Committee on Financial Services,
                                                   Washington, D.C.
    The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:16 p.m., in 
room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Emanuel Cleaver 
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
    Members present: Representatives Cleaver, Vargas; Hill, 
Rose, Steil, and Taylor.
    Ex officio present: Representative Waters.
    Chairman Cleaver. The Subcommittee on Housing, Community 
Development, and Insurance will come to order. Without 
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess of the 
subcommittee at any time. Also, without objection, members of 
the full Financial Services Committee who are not members of 
this subcommittee are authorized to participate in the hearing 
today.
    Today's hearing is entitled, ``NAHASDA Reauthorization: 
Addressing Historic Disinvestment and the Ongoing Plight of the 
Freedmen in Native American Communities.'' I now recognize 
myself for 3 minutes for an opening statement.
    The treatment of the original inhabitants of the North 
American continent has been a stain on the history of our great 
nation. The establishment and expansion of the United States 
included the seizure and forced removal of Native Americans 
from their homes, particularly under Andrew Jackson's Indian 
Removal Act.
    Subsequent legislation continued to oppress and limit the 
mobility of Native Americans. The United States signed more 
than 370 treaties, passed laws, and instituted policies that 
have come to define the special government-to-government 
relationship between the Federal and Tribal Governments, and 
obligates the Federal Government to promote the general well-
being of Native American Tribes. Yet, the United States has 
failed to provide that assistance.
    Native American communities continue to experience 
disproportionately high poverty rates and low incomes, 
overcrowding, chronic homelessness, and a lack of basic 
utilities such as plumbing, clean drinking water, and heat, and 
face barriers to housing and community development.
    In 1996, Congress passed the Native American Housing 
Assistance and Self-Determination Act (NAHASDA), which provides 
Federal funding to Tribal areas via the Indian Housing Block 
Grant (IHBG) Program. That program is intended to support safe, 
decent, and affordable housing in Tribal areas while respecting 
Tribal sovereignty.
    Today's hearing is focused on the need to reauthorize 
NAHASDA, which is the central statutory framework through which 
the Federal Government helps Tribal Governments improve housing 
and other infrastructure.
    We are also here today to understand the history of the 
Black Native American Freedmen. If you are not familiar with 
this particular history, then I encourage you to take a good 
look, and to listen to this hearing today.
    Also, we are going to look at how certain Tribes, including 
Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole 
Nations, known as the Five Tribes, who purchased and enslaved 
people from Africa, signed a treaty agreement and abolished 
slavery by freeing any insulated individuals, and agreed to 
treat them and their lineal descendants equal to Native 
citizens.
    Today's hearing will discuss this turbulent history, and 
how Congress may be used to ensure that all federally-
recognized Tribes will receive the support and flexibility to 
make local decisions in how they serve low-income families.
    The Chair now recognizes the ranking member of the 
subcommittee, Mr. Hill, for an opening statement.
    Mr. Hill. I thank the chairman. I thank you for holding 
this hearing today. And I thank our panelists for being with us 
today. We are here to talk about the Native American Housing 
Assistance and Self-Determination Act, that we refer to as 
NAHASDA.
    In many ways, this hearing is long overdue, and there is 
much to discuss. In fact, other than a 2017 field hearing in 
Wisconsin, held by then-Chairman Sean Duffy, this subcommittee 
has not even had a hearing on NAHASDA in 14 years, going all 
the way back to June of 2007.
    Moreover, while NAHASDA has been amended several times 
since it was enacted, it has only been reauthorized twice, once 
in 2002, and once in 2008, and the program is currently 
receiving appropriations from Congress without authorization. 
That passive level of oversight bordering on apathy is no way 
to run our government or to administer this program.
    But it is even more devastating, given the extreme level of 
present need for too many of our 570 federally-recognized 
American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes. It almost defies 
belief to witness the persistent pockets of poverty on Tribal 
lands. According to a Brookings Institution report from 2019, 
child poverty rates among American Indians and Alaska Natives 
have consistently exceeded 40 percent for the past 30 years. 
That is unacceptable to me, and I know it is to our Chair, and 
to all of the participants on our panel today, and we have to 
figure out a more effective way to combat it.
    While there are many technical questions to discuss here, I 
think it is important that we ask some bigger questions in 
order to get to the heart of the matter of these reforms, such 
as, has NAHASDA been successful in accomplishing its objective? 
How can the Tribes better leverage private capital to enhance 
their economic development opportunities? How can we better 
increase accountability for the use of NAHASDA funds, while 
maintaining the core principle of Tribal self-determination? 
After all, the worst thing anyone could take away from this 
hearing today is the notion that if we just enact a new NAHASDA 
reauthorization, all of the myriad problems and complexities in 
Indian country will simply go away. I wish that were the case, 
but life is never that simple.
    Still, anything worth doing is worth doing well, and good 
Federal policy that leads to quality economic development, and 
with hard work and diligence, economic prosperity for our 
brothers and sisters on Tribal lands is certainly worth our 
time and effort.
    Which brings me to another point about a certain level of 
inescapable irony here. Just a week ago, we had the HUD 
Secretary, Secretary Fudge, sitting in this very room, 
proclaiming that she had no idea how much COVID emergency 
rental assistance money had been approved by Congress last year 
and had gotten into the hands of distressed tenants. That quote 
came nearly 6 weeks after I wrote Secretary Fudge a letter, 
with my colleague from Illinois, Rodney Davis, and asked her, 
in June, why HUD had still not spent the CARES Act money from 
16 months ago, a letter to which she has not yet responded.
    Such a level of irresponsibility and disengagement is the 
last thing the American people want to hear right now. And now, 
one week later, we are here talking about giving HUD more 
Tribal rental assistance funding and expecting them to produce 
better and more productive results.
    Last week, some of our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle seemed willing to let accountability slip. Well, you can 
rest assured that on this side of the aisle, we do intend to 
hold HUD and others in the government accountable on their 
COVID emergency spending and on making sure that every dollar 
authorized for NAHASDA ends up going to a worthy cause without 
any unnecessary delay.
    Our citizens who rely on programs like NAHASDA deserve that 
level of accountability from Washington, and our job at this 
hearing and in oversight is to ensure that every promise we 
make is a promise that the U.S. Government will keep.
    I thank the chairman, and I yield back.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes the 
Chair of the full Committee on Financial Services, the 
gentlewoman from California, Chairwoman Waters.
    Chairwoman Waters. Thank you, Chairman Cleaver, for 
convening this important hearing. Unequal access to housing 
sits at the heart of many racial and economic injustices across 
the country, including among Native American communities. The 
legacy of land and cultural dispossession has contributed to 
Native people experiencing, of course, high levels of chronic 
homelessness, overcrowding, and poor housing conditions.
    We also know that a key determinant of housing access on 
reservations is Tribal citizenship, which is one of the 
barriers faced by descendants of Black Native American Freedmen 
today. Many remain unaware of the ongoing plight of the 
descendants of Freedmen, whose ancestors were held as enslaved 
people by five slave-holding Tribes, including the Cherokee, 
Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole.
    Today, under their 1866 treaty agreement with the United 
States Government, these Tribes must recognize descendants of 
Freedmen as Tribal citizens and guarantee equal access to 
Federal housing resources. While many confuse this issue with 
Tribal sovereignty, I want to be clear that this is not a 
Tribal sovereignty issue. Rather, it is about honoring the 
treaty rights promised to the Freedmen and their descendants 
all those centuries ago.
    While it took decades of litigation, I am pleased that 
Chief Hoskin is leading the Cherokee Nation to honor the rights 
of Cherokee Freedmen. And other Tribes must follow suit.
    Today, we are considering my legislation to address Native 
housing needs by reauthorizing NAHASDA programs and 
guaranteeing equal access for all Tribal citizens, including 
the descendants of Freedmen.
    So, I want to thank our witnesses for their testimony. This 
is a fight that is about fairness and equality. For one 
minority group to discriminate against another minority group 
cannot stand. And as the Chair of the Financial Services 
Committee, I do not intend for it to stand.
    I yield back my time.
    Chairman Cleaver. The gentlewoman yields back.
    Today, we welcome the testimony of our distinguished panel: 
Mr. Chuck Hoskin, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation; Mr. 
Chris Kolerok, Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs 
with the Cook Inlet Housing Authority; Ms. Marilyn Vann, 
President of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized 
Tribes Association; Mr. Anthony Walters, Executive Director of 
the National American Indian Housing Council; and Mr. Jackson 
Brossy, Executive Director of the Native CDFI Network. Thank 
you all for being here.
    Witnesses are reminded that their oral testimony will be 
limited to 5 minutes. You should be able to see a timer on the 
desk in front of you that will indicate how much time you have 
left. When you have 1 minute remaining, a yellow light will 
appear, and I may tap very gently to remind you that your time 
is approaching its end. I would also ask that you be mindful of 
the timer, and when the red light appears, to quickly wrap up.
    And without objection, your written statements will be made 
a part of the record.
    Chief Hoskin, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to give 
an oral presentation of your testimony.

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CHUCK HOSKIN, JR., PRINCIPAL CHIEF, 
                        CHEROKEE NATION

    Mr. Hoskin. ``Osiyo,'' which means, ``hello,'' in Cherokee, 
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Hill, Chairwoman Waters, and 
distinguished members of the subcommittee. I am Chuck Hoskin, 
Jr., Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. I appreciate the 
opportunity to speak with you today.
    Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black once wrote that, ``Great 
Nations, like great men, should keep their promises.'' I want 
to share a few words with you about Cherokee Nation's work to 
meet a promise that our Nation made to the Cherokee Freedmen 
and their descendants in the Treaty of 1866. That treaty is a 
living, powerful, and foundational document, Mr. Chairman, that 
ties together all of the Cherokee Nation treaties that existed 
before it.
    When we speak of our most important treaty rights, from our 
reservation lands to our right to a delegate to the House of 
Representatives, what we are really pointing to is language in 
the Treaty of 1866 which says that all provisions of treaties 
heretofore ratified and enforced are hereby reaffirmed and 
declared to be in full force. It is a document that we, as 
Cherokees, must defend and preserve.
    Article 9 of the Treaty, Mr. Chairman, states that, ``All 
Freedmen and their descendants shall have all of the rights of 
Native Cherokees,''--not some of the rights, Mr. Chairman, but 
all of the rights of Native Cherokees. And we criticize the 
United States when it fails to live up to its treaty 
obligations, yet we have the same responsibility.
    For Cherokee Nation, the issue of Freedmen citizenship was 
really settled 155 years ago, in the treaty that we agreed to, 
that the Senate ratified, and that the President of the United 
States signed. It was settled, Mr. Chairman, by our ancestors. 
Now, we talk a great deal in Cherokee culture about respecting 
our ancestors, and seeking guidance from them. Well, they were 
clear, in 1866. They agreed, by treaty, to forever cede the 
right to exclude Freedmen and their descendants. Because of 
this, some of the actions taken by some of my predecessors to 
exclude Freedmen were void ab initio, that is, Mr. Chairman, 
void from the beginning. Quite simply, Cherokee Nation has not 
possessed the ability, since 1866, to deny full citizenship to 
Freedmen.
    The enslavement of other human beings, and the subsequent 
denial to them and their descendants of basic rights, is a 
stain on the Cherokee Nation, and it is a stain that must be 
lifted. I offer both an apology on behalf of the Cherokee 
Nation for these actions, and more importantly, Mr. Chairman, I 
offer a commitment to reconciliation.
    I am proud of the actions that we have taken over the last 
decade to begin to right these wrongs. We did not appeal the 
Federal District Court decision in the Nash case, which 
confirmed that the 1866 treaty is alive and well and preserves 
the rights of Freedmen to have all of the rights of Native 
Cherokees. The day after that historic decision in 2017, our 
own Cherokee Nation Supreme Court affirmed that same principle. 
The Nash decision is the law of the land in the Cherokee 
Nation. We immediately began processing applications for 
citizenship of Freedmen descendants, and to this day, and on an 
ongoing basis, 8,500 applications for citizenship have been 
processed.
    Earlier this year, our supreme court determined that the, 
``by blood,'' language in our constitution was also in 
violation of the Treaty of 1866, and that that language was 
void also from its inception. Interior Secretary Haaland 
recently recognized that the Cherokee Nation had brought the 
longstanding issue of Freedmen citizenship to a close and 
fulfilled our obligations, when she approved our constitution.
    But, Mr. Chairman, we know we must do more than just 
acknowledge the legal principle of equality. We have to embrace 
the spirit of equality every day. And we know it does not 
happen overnight. For more than a century, Freedmen have been 
disconnected from the Cherokee Nation. They have not had the 
same experience as Cherokee citizens. We have to bridge that 
gap. So to that end, I issued an executive order on November 
7th of last year on equality, to reaffirm equality in the 
Cherokee Nation, to knock down barriers to access to services 
and programs if they exist.
    We have also undertaken an effort to recognize and 
celebrate Freedmen history and Freedmen art, so that we can 
celebrate our full history in the Cherokee Nation.
    I want to close by saying that the reason I am here today 
is because it is a moral imperative that I be here, and that 
the Cherokee Nation recognize equality. I am not here because 
of the 2008 NAHASDA rider that addressed the Freedmen issue. We 
took these actions because it was the right thing to do.
    I do not believe Congress should condition Federal housing 
policy and dollars on this type of public policy end. I think 
it breeds antipathy. I don't think it breeds understanding. But 
I will say this, Mr. Chairman, the Cherokee Nation is a better 
nation, and a stronger nation for having kept its promise with 
respect to equality for Freedmen.
    ``Wado,'' which means, ``thank you,'' in Cherokee.
    [The prepared statement of Chief Hoskin can be found on 
page 32 of the appendix.]
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Chief Hoskin. Mr. Walters, you 
are now recognized for 5 minutes.

  STATEMENT OF ANTHONY WALTERS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL 
            AMERICAN INDIAN HOUSING COUNCIL (NAIHC)

    Mr. Walters. Thank you, and good afternoon. I would like to 
thank Chairman Cleaver, Ranking Member Hill, Chairwoman Maxine 
Waters, and the members of the subcommittee for holding this 
hearing today and for inviting NAIHC to provide testimony 
regarding NAHASDA.
    The committee uses the term, ``historic disinvestment,'' to 
describe the state of Tribal housing programs, and this is all 
too accurate. In Fiscal Year 1998, the first year of NAHASDA, 
Tribes received $600 million. In Fiscal Year 2021, Tribes 
received only $650 million for the same block grant. Factoring 
in inflation, this small increase actually represents a cut of 
over one-third of the purchasing power of Tribal housing 
programs. If the program had kept pace with inflation, the 
Indian Housing Block Grant today should equal $994 million. In 
these same 20 years, the HUD budget has almost doubled.
    Despite the funding shortfall, Tribes support NAHASDA and 
have been successful through the program. According to HUD, 
since NAHASDA was created, Tribes have built over 40,000 
affordable housing units and rehabilitated over 100,000 more. 
Unfortunately, and also according to HUD, 68,000 units today 
are needed in Tribal communities to address substandard homes 
and to alleviated overcrowded conditions, which Native homes 
experience at nearly 8 times the national average.
    You may ask what Tribes are doing with the block grant 
funds they currently receive. We ask Tribes to do a lot with 
that funding. Tribes are tasked with maintaining tens of 
thousands of tribally-owned housing units across the country 
that have been developed over decades and which are now aging 
and in need of constant repairs. Tribe are also asked to 
provide low-income rental assistance, as well as to provide 
student housing assistance, housing and supportive services for 
veterans and elders, housing counseling services for 
prospective home buyers, and paying the operating costs for 
their own housing programs, and we also expect them to build 
new homes each year.
    Nearly 600 Tribes receive funds through NAHASDA, and they 
are expected to carry out all of these services with only $650 
million in the block grant. Approximately 400, or two-thirds of 
those Tribes, receive less than $500,000 a year to do all of 
these activities, and 175 of these grantees receive less than 
$100,000 to do these housing activities. So, it shouldn't be 
hard to see why we are falling behind.
    The United States Commission on Civil Rights issued a 
report in 2018 entitled, ``Broken Promises,'' just 3 years ago, 
which found that since 2003, when the Commission on Civil 
Rights first reported on the housing crisis in Indian country, 
the situation had deteriorated further. The report stated that 
according to HUD, between 2003 and 2015, the number of 
overcrowded households without adequate kitchen or plumbing 
grew by 20 percent, from 90,000 households to 110,000 
households. The number of families with severe housing costs 
grew by 55 percent, to 65,000 families. That is all in this 
century. That is just in these past 20 years that we are 
letting things get worse in our Tribal communities.
    But we can change that. This Congress can change that. 
Let's celebrate the 25th anniversary of NAHASDA this year by 
recommitting ourselves to fully supporting housing development 
in Indian country. NAIHC stands ready to work with any and 
every Member of Congress to address these housing issues.
    The current draft of the NAHASDA bill has a lot of great 
pieces. It contains some program improvements that Tribes have 
been asking for, for years. It includes proposals that will 
make housing development easier, including simplifying 
environmental reviews for housing, and relaxing flood insurance 
program requirements that would place Tribes on the same 
footing as States. It would make the HUD-VASH program for 
Tribal veterans permanent and open to all Tribal communities. 
Currently, the program only serves veterans in 27 of the 574 
Tribes. The bill would also create substantial set-asides for 
USDA programs that seem like a perfect fit for Tribal 
communities that have historically had little impact.
    One area where the current draft falls short is the 
authorization levels. While NAIHC supports reauthorization, the 
draft bill would cap authorizations for the next 5 years, 
starting at current funding levels. This would essentially mean 
that Tribes will always be capped at two-thirds of the 
purchasing power that they originally negotiated for through 
NAHASDA.
    NAIHC, as a Tribal membership organization, also believes 
that provisions like Section 604, that target individual 
Tribes, should be discouraged from a larger housing bill 
without that Tribe's support. For the particular issue of the 
hearing today, it is also considered a membership issue by 
NAIHC, and thus should be treated as such and not directed into 
a housing program reauthorization.
    Prior to NAHASDA, Tribes were piecing their housing 
programs together with various grants and funding sources. 
Despite the original promise of the consolidated block grant, 
25 years later Tribes are again piecing their housing programs 
together. While Tribes can and are leveraging resources from 
various Federal programs, it is not easy. Tribes are often 
confronted with a multitude of differing eligibility 
requirements, environmental views, and program rules.
    So what can we do, and what can Congress do? To end my 
comments, we can keep improving NAHASDA. We can reauthorize 
NAHASDA, and we can keep ensuring that national housing 
programs are also effective in Indian country. And we have to 
reverse the historic disinvestment and call on Congress, 
Federal agencies, Tribes, and the private sector to act. We 
must recognize that housing development in Tribal communities 
will rarely have the economies of scale that drive housing 
development in other areas, and we have to invest anyway, 
because it is needed in our Tribal communities and because it 
is a promise that the United States made to Tribal nations.
    With that, I will end my statement. NAIHC has submitted 
additional comments for the record. I look forward to answering 
any questions you may have. Thank you again for your support in 
improving housing opportunities for Tribal communities across 
the United States.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Walters can be found on page 
53 of the appendix.]
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Walters.
    Ms. Vann, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to give an 
oral presentation.

 STATEMENT OF MARILYN VANN, PRESIDENT, DESCENDANTS OF FREEDMEN 
            OF THE FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES ASSOCIATION

    Ms. Vann. Greetings, Chairman Cleaver, Ranking Member Hill, 
and members of the House Financial Services Committee. I am 
Marilyn Vann, President of the Descendants of Freedmen of the 
Five Civilized Tribes Association. I am a member of the 
Cherokee Nation of Freedmen Descendants. The organization 
supports enforcement of 1866 treaty rights of descendants of 
Freedmen who face discrimination in Tribal registration, and 
accessing federally-funded services.
    I want to thank the subcommittee for holding this hearing, 
and I want to thank Chairwoman Waters and her staff for support 
of the Freedmen in NAHASDA. Today, I request that the members 
support Title VI, Section 604, the compliance section in the 
final NAHASDA bill that is adopted by Congress. If adopted as 
written, the Secretary of HUD would be authorized to reduce or 
withhold NAHASDA for one of more of the five Tribes if such 
Tribe is found to be in violation of its 1866 treaty 
obligations to Freedmen descendants who were registered on the 
Dawes Rolls. I point out that none of these received degrees of 
blood. The rolls were approved by Congress in 1907. Currently, 
only the Cherokee Nation works to fulfill its treaty 
obligations to Freedmen descendants.
    Almost all of the Freedmen were Black slaves of Tribal 
members. Prior to the Civil War, the Tribes allied with the 
confederate States to protect slavery, and at the end of the 
Civil War, signed new treaties with the United States. These 
treated granted the Cherokee and Seminole Freedmen and their 
descendants the right to Native Indian citizenship.
    Many of the descendants of Freedmen today are impoverished 
and in need of housing, through no fault of their own. This 
began during slavery, when there were Black codes, slave codes. 
Blacks were barred from education and acquiring assets, later 
suffering race massacres like in Tulsa, Jim Crow laws, and 
redlining from the U.S. Government.
    Starting in 1979, Tribal Nations passed laws to exclude 
Freedmen and/or treat Freedmen descendants as second-class 
citizens. Blacks in Oklahoma have lower homeownership rates and 
lower income than Native Americans, and both communities, less 
than Whites.
    As a result of past and current systemic racism, 
descendants of Freedmen have substantial housing needs. Some of 
those in need of assistance include such Creek Freedmen 
descendants as Mr. Lovett of Okmulgee, a senior citizen on 
disability who needs rental assistance. He has had a double 
lung transplant. And Mrs. Wilson of Okmulgee, a widowed senior 
citizen who desperately needs a roof. She has a tarp on her 
roof, but needs housing repairs. And Ms. Rice of Okmulgee, a 
single mom who works a part-time job and is a student, and 
needs rental assistance that she tried to get from the Creek 
Nation, but was turned away.
    Now, will the Tribes change without Federal intervention? 
History says no. Cherokee Nation only came into compliance 
after Federal court decisions in the Cherokee Nation v. Nash, 
and Vann v. Zinke cases, and passage of the Freedmen protective 
language in a 2008 NAHASDA Reauthorization Act, and at great 
personal cost to the Freedmen descendants and their allies. 
This nation spent millions to exclude Freedmen in the previous 
Administrations. Some councilpersons and candidates for office 
still oppose Freedmen citizenship. I appreciate former Chief 
Baker and Chief Hoskins for what they have done to honor the 
treaties.
    Moving on to the Seminole Nation, they excluded Freedmen 
descendants from receiving services even after they lost the 
Seminole Nation of Oklahoma v. Norton case in 2001. They re-
categorized the Freedmen as citizens rather than members, 
reissuing the Freedmen Tribal membership cards to say zero, 
zero blood quantum and voting privileges only, and they tell 
other Tribes that Freedmen do not qualify for services, in 
spite of the DOI and HUD instructing the Tribe that Freedmen 
descendants do qualify for services.
    The Muscogee (Creek) Nation leadership stated that dialogue 
is needed about Freedmen but does nothing. The Tribe stresses 
validity of the 1866 treaty, Article 3, which confirms the 
Creek reservation [inaudible] Article 2 of the treaty, granting 
Freedmen the rights to share in national funds.
    In conclusion, the Tribal Governments receive money for 
housing programs, but the majority of Freedmen are excluded. I 
ask you to include the treaty obligation language in the final 
bill and support its passage in the full House. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Vann can be found on page 44 
of the appendix.]
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you.
    Mr. Kolerok, you are now recognized for 5 minutes for your 
oral presentation.

   STATEMENT OF CHRIS KOLEROK, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC POLICY AND 
        GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS, COOK INLET HOUSING AUTHORITY

    Mr. Kolerok. Chairman Cleaver, Ranking Member Hill, 
Chairwoman Waters, and members of the subcommittee, thank you 
for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Chris 
Kolerok. I am Cup'ik Eskimo, a member of the Native Village of 
Mekoryuk, and I am the Director of Public Policy at Cook Inlet 
Housing Authority, the tribally-designated housing entity for 
the Cook Inlet region of Alaska. I was unanimously voted as the 
Legislative Committee Chair of the Association of Alaska 
Housing Authorities, and unanimously voted as Board Member for 
the national American Indian Housing Council. My comments today 
represent all of the 14 regional housing authorities that cover 
every geographic corner and Native population group in Alaska.
    I and my Alaskan colleagues thank Financial Services 
Committee Chairwoman Waters for her respect of Tribal self-
determination and the goal of distributing funding without 
administrative burden or waste by allocating Indian housing 
funds through the NAHASDA formula in the Housing is 
Infrastructure Act of 2021.
    Why do we need investments in Indian housing and the 
NAHASDA reauthorized? We do not have enough homes, and the 
homes we do have are often decrepit. Nationally, we need 33,000 
new homes to alleviate overcrowding in Indian country today. 
The homes we do have are nearly 5 times as likely to have a 
physical deficiency as average, including lacking running 
water, or having electrical systems that are a fire hazard. 
Closer to home, in the Yukon-Kuskokwim region of Alaska, 40 
percent of homes are either overcrowded or severely 
overcrowded, and 35 percent lack complete plumbing.
    What does this look like, and what does this actually mean? 
I have seen, with my own eyes, in Brevig Mission, Alaska, an 
1,100-square-foot, 3-bedroom home, with 18 people living in it. 
With that many people, there are not enough bedrooms. There are 
not enough surfaces for everyone to sleep at the same time. 
Instead, they must sleep in shifts.
    In the hope that their children will grow up with a better 
life, some people sleep the day shift so that their children 
can sleep at night and attend school in the morning. Those 
people will never wake up in the morning for a job. Their 
children cannot learn at school if their home is too 
overcrowded to sleep or they carry the stress from that 
overcrowded home into school. Those children will face 
difficulty in getting a job forever if they cannot read, write, 
or do basic math. When 18 people share a home, and one person 
suffers from a substance abuse disorder, 17 other people also 
suffer from that affliction.
    There was at least one, and usually multiple homes like 
this in every village I served when I was the President of the 
Bering Straits Regional Housing Authority in northwest Alaska.
    How did we get here? It is an oversimplification, but true, 
that past Congresses and Presidents forgot about us. The Indian 
Housing Block Grant, 20 years ago, Fiscal Year 2001, was $640 
million. Last year, it was $647 million. HUD's budget 20 years 
ago was $28 billion, and last year, it was $60 billion. There 
is a long-running inequity in the distribution of new funding 
to HUD. Beginning to address this inequity is difficult, but I 
thank this subcommittee for doing this work.
    Second, there are no homeless people at 40 degrees below 
zero.
    So, what do we do going forward? I respectfully request the 
House and Senate to reauthorize NAHASDA. I also support the 
funding mechanism for Indian housing in the Housing is 
Infrastructure Act. I thank Chairwoman Waters again for her 
recognition and respect for self-determination in this Act.
    The NAHASDA formula works. It takes the many variables that 
quantify housing need and creates a single allocation that is 
noncompetitive and highly efficient to distribute. Self-
determination is respected by the formula because it is a 
consensus model that was negotiated amongst all Tribes and HUD, 
representing the Federal Government.
    In the 25 years before NAHASDA, the Cook Inlet Housing 
Authority was able to construct 267 housing units, and in the 
25 years after, we have constructed over 1,500. Competitive 
programs that change from year to year, that Tribes cannot 
count on, may be effective at achieving certain short-term 
goals, but they do not, however, provide for long-term 
operation of affordable housing units, and they take us back to 
pre-NAHASDA days when we competed with each other and had 
Washington tell us what we needed.
    I thank the subcommittee again for the opportunity to speak 
with you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Kolerok can be found on page 
38 of the appendix.]
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Kolerok.
    Mr. Brossy, you are now recognized for 5 minutes for an 
oral presentation.

 STATEMENT OF JACKSON BROSSY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIVE CDFI 
                         NETWORK (NCN)

    Mr. Brossy. Chairman Cleaver, Ranking Member Hill, 
Chairwoman Waters, and members of the subcommittee, my name is 
Jackson Brossy and I am the executive director for the Native 
CDFI Network (NCN). We are the only national member 
organization of community development financial institutions 
(CDFIs) that serves Native communities across the country. I am 
also a member of the Navajo Nation, and the subject of this 
hearing is near and dear to my heart, so thank you.
    At NCN, our member organization serves 27 different States. 
Our members provide access to capital for first-time 
homeowners, microentrepreneurs, consumers, and those who are 
often unable to get a conventional bank loan, and live in 
redlined areas across the country, and in Indian country, 
particularly.
    Yes, Indian country has been, historically, and currently 
is still being redlined when it comes to access to capital and 
housing finance. Redlining and underinvestment in programs like 
NAHASDA and the CDFI Fund, and the lack of access to capital 
contribute to the situation where Natives currently live in 
substandard housing, as this panel has wonderfully and 
explicitly described. It is a situation where no more than 30 
percent of members of the Navajo Nation have access to running 
water in their homes. It is a situation where there is severe 
overcrowding at a rate of 700 percent of what it is in the rest 
of the country. And this is unacceptable.
    There are also problems with financial literacy, access to 
credit, and the prices that indigenous people pay when they 
finally do get access to a loan. The Federal Reserve recently 
found that Native Americans living on reservations who want to 
buy homes are significantly more likely to have high-priced 
mortgages, and those mortgages often are up to 2 percentage 
points more than non-Native Americans get in the same house. 
This means that a Native American family purchasing a house for 
$140,000 on a reservation could pay up to $100,000 more over 
the lifetime of a 30-year loan.
    Problems of higher costs of homeownership and redlining in 
Indian country are unacceptable, and I am here to bring a 
solution to the table, and that solution is Native CDFIs. 
Native CDFIs across the country are doing our part to address 
the untenable situation, and we can use help and investment to 
make a greater impact on this problem. There are 69 Treasury-
certified Native CDFIs across the country, and they provide 
access to capital to those who are unbanked and underbanked, 
with financial literacy and technical assistance. These Native 
CDFIs operate a wide spectrum of organizations and include 
tribally-sponsored CDFIs, like the Citizen Potawatomi Community 
Development Corporation of Oklahoma, and the majority of Native 
CDFIs, which are nonprofit loan funds, like the Native360 Loan 
Fund of Nebraska.
    Native CDFIs can offer homeownership loans, down payment 
assistance, and home buyer training so that new homeowners have 
the tools to keep their home and build a solid foundation for 
their family.
    Aligned with the spirit of NAHASDA, Native CDFIs are self-
determination in action. They carry out the mission of NAHASDA 
and the CDFI Fund by increasing homeownership, and utilize both 
HUD opportunities such as the Section 184 Loan Guarantees, and 
HUD counseling, and other existing Federal programs such as the 
USDA Direct Loan Program, the Veterans Affairs Native American 
Direct Home Loan program, and the Federal Home Loan Bank 
System.
    However, these tools can be improved upon, and we make some 
detailed recommendations in our written comments. But one area 
I wanted to bring up was coordination between the Department of 
the Interior and HUD around the slow turnaround for Title 
Status Reports. We also wanted to highlight a great program at 
the USDA, called the USDA 502 Direct Program, that is really 
making a difference. In 2019, there were 6,194 direct loans 
made by this program. Of those 6,000 loans, only 2 of them were 
made on Tribal trust land. Thanks to a great pilot in South 
Dakota, Native CDFIs like the Four Bands community development 
are making a big difference, and we urge Congress to expand 
this pilot.
    And to wrap things up, the pandemic has pulled back the 
veil around the challenge of inadequate and poor housing in 
Native communities. I urge Congress and this committee to build 
upon the focus of this hearing and support the spirit of self-
determination in NAHASDA. It is time to provide the resources 
to fund housing efforts and to eliminate barriers to utilizing 
other existing housing tools. Native CDFIs stand ready to work 
and help in this progress, and I know that we commit fully to 
working with Congress to help alleviate this problem and making 
sure that Native people have fair access to housing.
    Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Mr. Brossy can be found on page 
28 of the appendix.]
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Brossy, for your 
testimony. And I thank all of you for your testimony.
    I now recognize myself for 5 minutes for questions.
    Mr. Hoskin, I would like for you, if you would, to describe 
any efforts that the Cherokee Nation has made to ensure that 
your members can access affordable prime mortgages, and what is 
the Nation going to do to help its membership overcome such 
barriers as limited credit histories, and how can NAHASDA 
reauthorization help address these barriers?
    Mr. Hoskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In Cherokee Nation, we 
are focused on building paths to homeownership. One way in 
which we do that is a mortgage assistance program, and we use 
some resources to help people with down payments.
    But I think more important than that, we create an 
environment where they can get credit counseling, build their 
credit up as they need to, to access mortgages, including the 
HUD 184 program, which has been a successful program for 
Cherokee citizens. Those programs have proven successful so 
far, and as we go into our next fiscal year, we are determined 
to commit even more resources to those types of opportunities 
for homeownership.
    At Cherokee Nation, we believe that everyone needs to have 
their housing needs addressed. There are different levels. For 
those who are on their way to homeownership or could be 
counseled in a way that could get them worthy of credit, we 
want to help them get to a mortgage, and the mortgage 
assistance program that we offer has been very successful.
    Chairman Cleaver. I am talking about prime mortgage 
financing.
    Mr. Hoskin. Through our prime mortgage financing, we do 
work with a number of banks in our region. We do have good 
relationships with our banks. There are barriers, certainly, 
but the mortgage assistance program does pair them with 
mortgages through banks, but we provide some cash assistance to 
help them with things like down payments and things of that 
nature, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Cleaver. We had the credit rating agencies here 
last week, I think it was, or the week before, I'm not sure. Is 
that a problem as well, the credit histories of those seeking 
prime mortgages?
    Mr. Hoskin. Certainly, it is. Certainly, those are 
barriers, and that is where our staff that works with citizens 
on counseling and identifying what has hit their credit 
history, that is where we address that. But certainly, it is a 
barrier to homeownership.
    Chairman Cleaver. I had questions for everybody, but I got 
into this. The credit history issue, are there alternative ways 
in which we could develop Tribal credit history? I know the 
system of measurement.
    Mr. Hoskin. That is an interesting concept, Mr. Chairman, 
and I think that it would be something to explore. There are 
some loans that we offer that are not, in fact, reported to the 
credit agencies, which is a double-edged sword. On the one 
hand, we can help some of our people get access to credit--I am 
not talking mortgages but access to credit--when they are in 
need of a non-predatory lender. But it also takes them out of 
building a credit history. So, we are sort of beholden to the 
credit history reports and exploring a way to expand that in 
Indian country would be of interest.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you.
    Mr. Kolerok, are there some unique housing challenges that 
you face in Alaska that perhaps we would not normally even 
think about?
    Mr. Kolerok. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When I think about 
housing in rural Alaska, I like to think about a community 
called Savoonga, which is 150 miles into the Bering Sea. It is 
closer to Russia than it is to the coast of Alaska. There are 
no roads to this island. And in this community, the ice only 
allows ocean transport from July through September.
    So not just there, but if you think about, how do you build 
a home, and you think about the distance across Alaska, 
logistics is one of our biggest cost drivers, and logistics has 
risen in cost faster than the consumer price index. So as we 
talk about the difficulty of building homes now versus 20 years 
ago, we have to remember that the funding has stayed the same, 
but the cost of getting the material to an isolated, very small 
community, has gone up over 70 percent.
    Chairman Cleaver. Wow. My time is up. I now recognize the 
ranking member from Arkansas, Mr. Hill.
    Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I thank our 
panelists for a really good set of presentations.
    Mr. Brossy, when we look at some of the many families who 
are living on Tribal landsz, we too often, as I said in my 
opening statement, see the staggering and persistent poverty. 
And I mentioned in my opening statement this 2019 Brookings 
Institution report which found that child poverty rates for the 
Tribes have consistently exceeded 40 percent over the past 30 
years. That is a staggering number.
    NAHASDA exists to help attack part of that problem on the 
housing side. I am interested in better understanding what can 
be done to fight Tribal poverty, more broadly. So since you 
represent the CDFIs working on Tribal lands, can you talk a 
little bit about how Tribes are leveraging private capital for 
both jobs and other economic opportunity on Tribal lands?
    Mr. Brossy. Thank you for the question. I am going to take 
a step back and maybe address, how does the generational wealth 
transfer, and how do we set up our Native students and children 
for financial opportunity and growth moving forward? I think 
the Native CDFIs are helping with that. The Tribes obviously 
are doing a part of that, and that includes financial literacy, 
building up credit so that they are able to transfer wealth on 
to their next generation.
    And when it comes to accessing financial markets, Tribes 
are doing great things. They are doing great things with Title 
VI of NAHASDA, and I think that is an area that our members are 
going to look more closely at; I think it is something that is 
underutilized.
    But bringing it back to CDFIs, I do believe that the change 
that can happen in a generation from now is around financial 
literacy, credit building for young entrepreneurs and young 
consumers right now, that will impact generations and families 
moving forward.
    Mr. Hill. Thanks. And going back to the housing issue, 
looking at this Section 184 Loan Guarantee Program, it seems 
that those programs are chronically undersubscribed. HUD says 
that the Title VI program has only generated about 100 loans, 
worth $252 million, over the whole history of the Act. And the 
Section 184 program has generated 46,000 loans over its 
history.
    Can you talk to us about why these guarantee programs are 
not more active and what barriers currently exist to getting 
them used? You referenced Tribal lands and access to Tribal 
lands, so if you can mention in your answer if there are 
bureaucratic issues at the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) on 
clearing land title, and just what are some of those barriers?
    Mr. Brossy. There are significant delays in the Department 
of the Interior and BIA turning around things called Title 
Status Reports.
    Mr. Hill. What should be reasonable there?
    Mr. Brossy. They should be able to get something done in 30 
days.
    Mr. Hill. What is typical?
    Mr. Brossy. I don't know, but I have heard 6 months. Where 
deals fall apart, obviously the housing market is going up and 
valuations change.
    Mr. Hill. Right.
    Mr. Brossy. And there also is an issue with coordination 
between the Departments of the Interior and Housing and Urban 
Development, and within this past year there was a brief stall 
of taking on Section 184 loans, and we think that is 
unacceptable. Also, in our comments, we say that there is an 
opportunity for Native CDFIs to be the lender right now. Many 
in the private sector, the large banks have backed out of doing 
the Section 184 loans. Native CDFIs are ready to step in, but 
we need to make--
    Mr. Hill. And what is the key reason why the banks have 
stepped away from it?
    Mr. Brossy. I can't speak to that. You may need to bring 
somebody from the banks in. But I guess designing this type of 
program for the market segment is cumbersome to the larger 
banks, and they are not able to take advantage of economies of 
scale, whereas Native CDFIs would serve our community and we 
would be able to do it right away.
    Mr. Hill. You referenced the USDA 502 Direct Loan Program 
in your remarks, and you said that you were pleased with that 
pilot. Tell us more about that.
    Mr. Brossy. It is a great pilot in South Dakota. One of our 
members, the Four Bands Community Fund in Eagle Butte, South 
Dakota, has been able to create a pipeline of loans in rural 
development on Tribal trust land, which, going back to the 
issue of getting these Title Status Reports, has been really 
challenging and difficult. And like I said, the year before 
there were only 6 out of 6,000 of these direct loans that were 
made on Tribal trust land. Flipped on its head, in South 
Dakota, we want to see it expanded. There is a great bipartisan 
bill in the Senate. We would love your support and we would 
love the committee to move it forward.
    Mr. Hill. Thank you, Mr. Brossy. And thank you, Mr. 
Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Cleaver. The Chair now yields to the Chair of the 
full Financial Services Committee, Chairwoman Waters.
    Chairwoman Waters. Today, we are here to discuss the 
chronic housing and community development needs of Native 
American communities and the reauthorization of Native housing 
programs. However, we must ensure that Federal funds are not 
used to perpetuate anti-Blackness and racial injustice.
    Not many are familiar with the history of those who came to 
be known as the Freedmen. The Freedmen were Black individuals 
who were enslaved by five formerly slaveholding Tribal Nations. 
The Freedmen were forced to walk the Trial of Tears alongside 
their slave masters, and at the end of the Civil War were 
guaranteed full Tribal citizenship under treaty agreement 
between these formerly slaveholding Tribes and the United 
States Government in 1866. While Tribes like the Cherokee 
Nation have begun to make good on that promise, after decades 
of litigation, others have not. To this day, there are 
descendants of Native American Freedmen who are denied the full 
benefits of equal citizenship in certain Tribes based on their 
African ancestry.
    First of all, I want to say thank you to Chuck Hoskin, Jr., 
Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Chief Hoskin, I want to 
thank you for your wonderful presentation here today and the 
way that you described what is right and what is fair.
    And I would hope that the other Tribes would follow suit, 
but my understanding is that they have no intentions of doing 
that. And once somebody said, ``We will let this issue be 
settled in the court.'' Well, there are some that have even 
started to talk about going to the courts. They just don't do 
it, and they just don't want to do it.
    And Ms. Vann, I would like to say thank you for never 
wavering on your fight for human dignity and equal recognition 
as a descendent of Freedmen, despite the complex layers of what 
it means to be both Black and Indigenous. I know that has not 
been easy. Your tireless efforts paid off when the Cherokee 
Nation finally began to recognize you and your fellow 
descendants of Freedmen as equal citizens of the Cherokee 
Nation.
    However, the fight continues for many other Freedmen 
descendants of other Tribal Nations that continue to 
disenfranchise and marginalize them. Your organization 
represents descendants of Freedmen from all of these Tribes. 
Can you tell us about the ongoing struggle for those 
descendants of Freedmen who continue to be discriminated 
against despite treaty obligations that should protect them? 
Are they in need of housing? Are they in need of health care?
    Or just as we are talking about reauthorization, and we are 
talking about how desperate it is for everybody, are the 
descendants desperate also? Do they need to share in these 
appropriations that they get from the Federal Government, with 
CDFI? Of course, we are responsible for CDFI funding right here 
in this committee, and we did a great job in giving COVID money 
to all of the Tribes. I will not go through the numbers.
    Ms. Vann?
    Ms. Vann. Greetings, Chairwoman Waters. Thank you, again. 
Yes, ma'am, the descendants of Freedmen people are in desperate 
need of housing as well as other programs. I really did not 
have time to get into the Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen, but 
yes ma'am, they also have great needs too. We have here two 
representatives of the Seminole Nation, the Freedmen bands. In 
the Seminole Nation, for instance, there are persons who have 
homes they can no longer afford to live in due to desperate 
poverty. Among the Freedmen people, you are talking about other 
services, medical services, within the pandemic, Freedmen not 
being able to get shots, and the Seminole Nation telling the 
Indian Health Service (IHS)--
    Chairwoman Waters. As I understand it--interrupting you 
just for a minute--the Seminole denied vaccination for COVID-
19, despite the fact that we had given the money to all of the 
Tribes. Is that correct?
    Ms. Vann. Yes, ma'am. They had told IHS, and gave them a 
list of people to not serve with vaccinations. And people died, 
including leaders of the Freedmen people. That is correct.
    Chairwoman Waters. I don't know what else to say.
    Ms. Vann. Yes, ma'am.
    Chairwoman Waters. The case is very clear. I thank you, Mr. 
Chairman, for holding this hearing. It is so very important. 
But I want to tell you, this issue is not going to go away. I 
am going to work on this issue until we get the right thing 
done.
    I yield back the balance of my time.
    Chairman Cleaver. I thank the gentlewoman from California 
for her prophetic comments.
    The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. 
Rose.
    Mr. Rose. Thank you, Chairman Cleaver and Ranking Member 
Hill, for organizing this hearing, and thanks to our witnesses 
for your time here today.
    As Congress considers reauthorizing NAHASDA, it is 
important to acknowledge which parts of the program have worked 
well. One of the core tenets of NAHASDA is the flexible nature 
of the block grant, which allows for self-determination by 
Tribes.
    Could each of you on the panel discuss how the 
flexibilities included in this program have allowed Native 
communities to develop units, compared to the number developed 
when they received multiple single-use streams of funding from 
HUD?
    Mr. Brossy, if you would start?
    Mr. Brossy. Taking a step back, the majority members of our 
organization are not tribally-designated housing entities, so 
most of ours do not directly receive the block grant. However, 
there are a few native CDFIs that are subsidiaries of a Tribal 
Designated Housing Entity (TDHE), and there is a great example 
in Alaska, the Tlingit and Haida. And they are able to work 
with the Treasury to create a program where they are able to 
provide financing for working-class members who might otherwise 
make too much money to participate in a lot of HUD programs, 
but still do not have the credit history to get a conventional 
loan. And so, they are able to find and finance that gap there. 
And I think that is also an area that a lot of folks on the 
panel might have some thoughts about.
    Mr. Rose. Sure. I will start with Mr. Walters, and work my 
way across the panel.
    Mr. Walters. Sure. Thank you. You are right when you talk 
about the flexibilities provided under NAHASDA. Each Tribe is 
submitting their own Indian Housing Plan each year that 
addresses their unique community needs. Tribes are different, 
based on their geography, where they are across the country, 
how urban they are, how rural they are. So, giving the funds 
directly to Tribes through a consolidated block grant has 
worked wonders over the last 20 years.
    In the beginning years of NAHASDA, they were outproducing 
the prior years under HUD funding and under HUD control of the 
housing programs. They were building more new homes under 
NAHASDA than before NAHASDA was enacted. That has gone down, 
due to the stagnant levels of NAHASDA funding. The Tribes have, 
overall, been very successful with NAHASDA, so they very much 
support the program and wish it to continue.
    Mr. Rose. And Chief Hoskin, would you like to address that?
    Mr. Hoskin. Certainly, briefly. The direct funding of 
NAHASDA and the ability to craft Indian Housing Plans has been 
indispensable for the Cherokee Nation. Indian country is not a 
monolith. You will find different needs on the Cherokee Nation 
than you will elsewhere, and our ability to craft those 
programs is important. So, we certainly support reauthorization 
and the flexibility that comes with it.
    Mr. Rose. Would any of the rest of you like to add anything 
there?
    Ms. Vann. I will go ahead and add something here. I 
certainly believe that NAHASDA should be flexible. I believe in 
Tribal sovereignty, only that Tribes need to follow the law. 
But each Tribe, for instance, as earlier said--geography, the 
needs of the Tribes--in some places, there may be more rental 
assistance needed or such. And I agree with that flexibility, 
but not in issues, for instance, say it is blood quantum or 
those kinds of things that are used to determine the services 
for the members of the Tribe.
    Mr. Rose. Mr. Kolerok?
    Mr. Kolerok. The Cook Inlet Housing Authority, in the 25 
years before NAHASDA, built 267 housing units, and in the 25 
years after NAHASDA, has built over 1,500. NAHASDA put control 
of housing where it should be, which is in the hands of the 
Tribes. Prior to that, there were strict limits on housing 
costs, there were design standards, and that legacy is still 
visible today. Homes designed in California and shipped up 
whole are sitting, decaying and decrepit, in our Alaskan 
villages right now.
    Unshackling us from HUD's mandates allowed us to get 
creative. The Cook Inlet Housing Authority was the first entity 
to mix NAHASDA funding with low-income housing tax credits. 
Getting away from the competitive nature of HUD's prior funding 
into the formula fund freed us from annual competition, and it 
allowed us to partner with our sister organizations in Alaska. 
For example, the AVCP Regional Housing Authority in southwest 
asked us to help them with their tax credits indication and 
modeling. We actually helped another organization develop tax 
credit property off the road system that would not have been 
possible when we were competing for every single dollar, in 
eight separate programs every year.
    Mr. Rose. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Cleaver. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now 
recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Vargas, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Vargas. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for allowing 
me to speak, and I appreciate all of the witnesses being here 
today. I do apologize that I missed a little bit of the 
testimony at the beginning, so some of my questions may be 
repetitive, and I apologize for that at the outset.
    I do want to say that I am very thankful about the 
conversation that has been going with respect to how successful 
NAHASDA has been, the flexibility that it has provided for 
Indian Tribes. In fact, as was just stated by Mr. Kolerok, I 
think you said that it placed the--I don't want to put words in 
your mouth--I think you said it put the control of the housing 
where it should be, with the Indian Tribes, although you did 
mention California homes rotting in Alaska. I am not sure about 
that. I may question that, since I am from California.
    But I did want to ask, Mr. Hoskin, you are the Principal 
Chief of the Cherokee Nation. I apologize that I missed your 
testimony. I was really anxious to hear your testimony about 
the Freedmen. I don't know if you spoke more extemporaneously 
other than your comments that you had here, but I would like to 
hear your view--you were praised by the Chair of the Full 
Committee--I would like to hear more of your testimony, and I 
apologize again that I was not here. I will let you add to what 
you said earlier.
    Mr. Hoskin. Thank you, Congressman, and I appreciate the 
kind words from Chairwoman Waters. Quite simply, this is the 
law of the land in the Cherokee Nation: equality. Equality not 
stemming necessarily from recent actions, but equality 
recognizing that we made a sacred promise 155 years ago. If we 
believe that treaties are the law of the land, and the United 
States should live up to their end of treaties, then we have to 
do the same. And if we look back to what our ancestors did, 
they agreed to equality. In the Treaty of 1866, they resolved 
that issue. But 155 years have passed, and it was not resolved. 
So, we are undertaking efforts for reconciliation today, not 
only legal equality on paper, but equality in action, making 
sure that every person who comes into a Tribal office building, 
or a program or service, is treated equally based on the fact 
that they are a citizen of the Cherokee Nation.
    And I would note, Congressman, that if you are a citizen of 
the Cherokee Nation, what signifies that is a card with your 
name on it, your birthdate, and your citizenship number. And it 
doesn't have anything to do with your descendancy. It is 
whether you are a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, and you are 
treated equal on that basis. We have to make sure that we 
practice that every day, so we have to make sure that any 
barriers that might have existed, historically, to access are 
knocked down.
    For example, my good friend, Marilyn Vann, has mentioned 
Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB) cards, degrees of 
Indian blood. That idea is not relevant to a Cherokee Nation 
program or service because that is contrary to principles of 
equality in the Cherokee Nation.
    So, those are just a few of the ways in which we are making 
sure we embrace the spirit of equality, and we are also 
undertaking efforts to look back at history and culture, 
artistic expressions of Freedmen descendants that for too long 
have not been part of the Cherokee story. They are going to be 
part of the Cherokee story today.
    So I could speak a great deal on the subject. It is 
something that I think has made the Cherokee Nation a better 
nation, a stronger nation. I can only speak to how the Cherokee 
experience has gone, and I think other Tribes may look at our 
experience, may look at our legal history, and they may find 
instruction based on what we have done and our experience.
    Mr. Vargas. Thank you very much for those comments. I do 
want to probe a little further if I could with you. You said, 
sir, that it has been difficult to resolve over time, and that 
although it has been difficult, obviously you have a better 
nation, a stronger nation. Well, what made it difficult? Why 
was it difficult, and why is it difficult for other Tribes?
    Mr. Hoskin. I can't speak for other Tribes, but I can, for 
the Cherokee Nation--let's look at the Treaty of 1866. 
Following that period of time, there was still a period of 
great change and tumult in Indian country. And then, you find 
the imposition of the State of Oklahoma. So for most of the 
20th Century, you find Indian nations--and I will speak really 
only to the Cherokee Nation, a nation not allowed by the 
Government of the United States to exercise its rights of self-
government. And it is only when we get to the 1970s, that we 
begin to pick ourselves back up.
    I think that interruption of many, many decades really 
arrested the development of the Cherokee Nation in terms of our 
civil society. And I think as we have regained our footing, and 
we had a century of, frankly, suppressing and denying the 
history of the Freedmen, that it took some time for the body 
politic to sort of understand that history. That history simply 
wasn't taught a great deal, Freedmen history, and I think as 
Freedmen activists and advocates have raised that issue in the 
1980s and the 1990s, and into the 2000s, I think it came to 
penetrate the consciousness of Cherokee leaders, not only me, 
but certainly including me.
    That process takes time, and I think it is just the unique 
history of Tribes, particularly within the State of Oklahoma, 
that caused some delay and difficulty in achieving that.
    There is something about a history that involves enslaving 
other people. I think the United States could relate to this. 
It just doesn't feel very good, and it's something that perhaps 
for generations, people don't talk about. But we are talking 
about it today at the Cherokee Nation. I think we are a better 
nation for having done it. But when you don't talk about it, 
Congressman, you don't take action to correct it.
    Mr. Vargas. Thank you very much. My time has expired. I 
appreciate the extra time. Thank you, Chief Hoskin. And thank 
you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
    Chairman Cleaver. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman 
from Wisconsin, Mr. Steil, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Steil. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Walters, 
I think you would agree that many Tribes still face pretty 
significant housing challenges. It was noted that one of the 
last committee hearings on this topic was a remote hearing in 
the State of Wisconsin, hosted by our former colleague, Sean 
Duffy. And I have spent time at some of the reservations in 
Wisconsin and I have seen this firsthand, that Native 
Americans, in many ways, are more likely to experience poor 
housing conditions and overcrowding than some other 
communities.
    And as we consider the NAHASDA reauthorization, I think it 
is important that we also discuss the regulatory and procedural 
issues in addition to the overall funding levels, that we are 
looking at process, not just dollars. And so, the question I 
would like you to expound on, if you would, is ways that we can 
streamline the construction process for NAHASDA housing so that 
each dollar can go further. And should Congress consider any 
national environmental policy act or other permitting reforms 
that would allow us to be more efficient with our spending?
    Mr. Walters. Thank you for the question. I think that is a 
very good place to start. I think the current NAHASDA draft 
bill includes provisions regarding the Environmental Protection 
Act. I think when Tribes are developing housing, they are now 
using multiple sources of funding, from different Federal 
agencies--Treasury, DOI, HUD, USDA. So, all of those agencies 
have their own rules and regulations, whether it is 
environmental or otherwise.
    Whereas the current draft bill, and to the extent now 
Tribes are undertaking housing projects with just HUD funding, 
they can control that environmental review process and all the 
other kind of administrative logistics work on their own. But 
when you start blending these other streams of funding in, you 
start running into that issue. Currently, the bill would allow 
the Tribe to keep control of an environmental review process if 
the NAHASDA dollars were the primary source of funding. That is 
not necessarily realistic for a lot of these housing 
developments. These housing developments are usually million-
dollar projects, and they don't always have the most HUD 
funding as part of that. They are going to blend a lot of other 
funding sources. So certainly, easing administrative burden 
will help a lot of Tribes build more home faster.
    Mr. Steil. I think you bring up a really good point that 
there are multiple streams of funding that are going into many 
of these projects. Each stream of funding is going to have its 
own rules and regulations. Is there an approach that you think 
would be successful in streamlining this, to create more 
efficiency, or as we look to kind of trying to streamline this, 
make this more efficient, and remove some of the regulatory red 
tape that you are facing?
    Mr. Walters. I think it is a recognition that Tribes are 
able to do this on their own. They are doing it now under HUD, 
under Indian Housing Block Grant dollars. So, where they have 
shown the ability to do that and carry out those processes, 
there is no reason to make Tribal housing programs jump through 
the hoops of other agencies just because the funding stream may 
have come from there. So to the extent possible, I would 
encourage where a Tribe is building housing and they have that 
expertise built up over 25 years, let them control the 
administrative processes under one process overall.
    Mr. Steil. I appreciate your insight on that, and I think 
there is a lot to be learned from your testimony there on the 
importance of local control, removing some of that regulatory 
red tape. We see this time and again here in Washington.
    Let me shift gears with my remaining time, if I can, to 
you, Mr. Brossy. I want to step outside the housing discussion 
just for a moment and look at some of the broader financial 
challenges that many Tribes are facing. We have heard from some 
of the witnesses here today about difficult circumstances in 
many Tribal areas. I think improving access to financial 
services can be a really important component of our overall 
strategy to create more economic opportunity for Tribal 
members. You noted some of this in your written testimony.
    Can you just comment on what you think are some of the 
clear impediments for financial inclusion that Congress should 
be looking to address?
    Mr. Brossy. Thank you for the question, Mr. Steil. Again, 
taking it back to financial literacy, financial training, these 
are things that are often not taught in schools. They are 
taught in homes, and when we are dealing with Native 
communities, we are talking about being in a cash economy for 
only a couple of generations. So, what Native CDFIs can do 
around financial literacy, financial education, and credit 
building is very important, and we want Congress to support it 
100 percent.
    One thought I had on the earlier question about 
streamlining dollars for construction and making sure that they 
go the furthest, there is a movement toward eliminating what we 
call dual or even triple taxation on development on Indian 
lands. And that deals directly with the States. I am getting 
outside of what the Native CDFIs do, but I do think that if we 
really want to make sure that there is an incentive and not a 
disincentive for doing projects on Tribal lands, States 
shouldn't be able to tax those operations at the same level and 
then not provide services there. There should be some sort of 
waiver. Some States are looking at this individually, but it 
also could be at a Federal level.
    Mr. Steil. Thank you very much. And thank you all for your 
testimony. I yield back.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you. The Chair now recognizes the 
gentleman from Texas, Mr. Taylor, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this 
hearing. And I will make a broad comment that the discussion we 
are having about whether or not to reauthorize a program that 
continues to be appropriated for really underscores the 
brokenness of the Federal budgeting process. And just something 
I have noticed since I have been here--this is only my second 
term in Congress--is that whereas virtually every government 
that I have ever seen has a single-bill budget, the Federal 
Government has an authorization process, technically a 
budgeting, and then a 12-bill appropriations process. That is a 
very unique budgeting process. It is the only place on Earth 
that this process is attempted to be tried. In 45 years of 
trying it, we have actually only gotten 4 budgets on time with 
this particular process.
    And, unfortunately, you are the victims, right? You are 
trying to come and authorize a program that keeps getting 
appropriated for, but the authorizations are kind of an 
extraneous political exercise rather than actually having a 
real, substantive policy thing.
    Anyway, that is a process comment. But you are here, and 
obviously, this is an important program for your communities.
    We have heard a lot of advocacy from the witnesses about 
the importance of flexibility, the ability to use this program 
as you see fit. And I was just going to throw it out--are there 
any other additional flexibilities specifically that you would 
like to see? If you want to raise your hand, I will call on 
you. But you all have already said it. It is in your written 
testimony. Yes?
    Mr. Walters. I think this goes to some of the other 
questions we have heard from other members, is the flexibility 
regarding getting private capital and investment into Indian 
country, a lot of the questions have kind of been geared 
towards, where can Tribal communities receive or reach out to 
private investment? But it is making private investment also 
work in Tribal communities. There are a lot of tax credit 
programs that encourage banks and other lenders to participate 
in development across the country, and there are a lot of 
programs that emphasize underserved communities. But Tribal 
communities are always the last group out of the underserved 
communities in this country--based on their geography, based on 
their land tenure, based on legal aspects.
    So, adding flexibilities there and encouraging that 
partnership between Tribes and capital and private markets will 
help overall development in Indian country.
    Mr. Taylor. Just to that end, as someone who was in the 
banking industry for a while--and I was reading a 2017 HUD 
report, and I will just read what it says: ``Mortgage lending 
in Indian country is made difficult by factors common to 
underserved markets and rural areas,'' pointing out that 
lending in Indian country is even more difficult because Tribal 
land trusts cannot be alienated or encumbered. In other words, 
if I put a lien on a property, the judicial process may not be 
clear, whereas in Texas, where I am from, you can foreclose and 
the bank can take the property if they are not paying their 
money.
    And so, that special legal structure, I think goes to the 
redlining that you referred to earlier, which is illegal. Under 
Federal banking law, we don't allow banks to redline, but if 
you create this special legal structure--and that is a choice 
that you are making; maybe I am incorrect on that and Congress 
needs to fix that for you--but the legal structure you have 
created then, in turn, made it difficult for banks to come in 
and encumber land. And that may be different by Tribe.
    I just threw out a ton of stuff. Yes, Mr. Brossy?
    Mr. Brossy. I have one more thing to add, and that is when 
we talk about bringing in outside investment and kind of 
thinking outside the box, one area that we wanted to touch on 
was bringing folks to the table with new market tax credits. 
This is something that is not new to the Financial Services 
Committee. Last year, the Committee on Ways and Means held a 
hearing, and they sent a letter to the Treasury asking them why 
there has been almost zero dollars invested, less than 1 
percent of allocations for new market tax credits going to 
Native-led operations, including Native CDFIs and CDEs. And 
there hasn't been anyone in any Native-led organizations in the 
past 4 years who has received allocations, despite need and 
capacity. And that is something that Congress has looked at, 
and I think it deserves additional scrutiny.
    Mr. Taylor. Going back to the question of encumbrances and 
foreclosures, the way property is structured in 50 States, but 
sometimes not necessary--do you want to speak to that, why you 
are structured that way, or should you change? Do we need to 
help you change that? Can you change that? Do you want to 
change that?
    Mr. Brossy. Yes, that is going to take us about an hour. 
Land title in Indian country, there are, I think, about 10 
different layers. Oklahoma is different than the Navajo Nation, 
where I am from. But the area that we focus most on, or that we 
think has been the most difficult to develop, is Tribal trust 
land. And we need to get folks from the Department of the 
Interior and HUD together on the same page, working with us.
    Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see my time has 
expired. I yield back the balance of my time.
    Chairman Cleaver. Thank you. Let me thank the witnesses for 
being here and I apologize--this joint where we work sometimes 
creates conflicts, and so we had five votes, and you were 
sitting here waiting patiently for us. So, we apologize for 
that. It happens all too frequently. Thank you very much.
    Under normal circumstances, we probably would have had 
another round of questions. We won't today, but I would have 
asked a question about whether or not it is true that some of 
the five Tribes actually inflate their numbers in order to get 
a higher allocation of dollars. I am not going to ask the 
question now or even bring it up, but I thought that it might 
have been a good question, if we had a little more time.
    The Chair notes that some Members may have additional 
questions for these witnesses, which they may wish to submit in 
writing. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open 
for 5 legislative days for Members to submit written questions 
to these witnesses and to place their responses in the record. 
Also, without objection, Members will have 5 legislative days 
to submit extraneous materials to the Chair for inclusion in 
the record.
    The hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 4:35 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

                            A P P E N D I X


                             July 27, 2021
                             
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