[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
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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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