What Are The Barriers To Native American Homeownership?

Several challenges make homeownership a distant reality for many Native Americans. Compared to white non-Hispanic Americans, there are staggering disparities in homeownership rates. NeighborWorks America is a non-profit organization seeking to close this gap. Started to create more opportunities for people to live in affordable homes, NeighborWorks America provides grant funding, technical assistance, and evaluation tools to support housing and community development professionals. Mel Willie is the director of Native Partnerships and Strategy for NeighborWorks America and sat down to discuss barriers to Native American homeownership and what NeighborWorks is doing to diminish these barriers.

Janice Gassam Asare: Mel Willie, could you share a little bit more about yourself for the readers who are not familiar with you?

Mel Willie: Sure. My name is Mel Willie. I am a member of the Navajo Nation. I was born and raised in northern Arizona on the Navajo Reservation in Window Rock, Arizona. I am currently the Director of Native Strategy for NeighborWorks America. I've been in this position since May of this past year. Previously to that, I had my own consulting firm where I worked with tribes on organizational development, communications, strategic planning, and just a number of variety of issues, and did that for the last 10 years. Before that, I was the Executive Director of the National American Indian Housing Council, which represented all the tribal housing authorities across the United States, and did a massive training and technical assistance program, as well as represented their interests to Congress and Administration.

Asare: Can you talk to us a little bit more about the work that you're currently doing with NeighborWorks America?

Willie: Sure. I'm excited to talk with you today about really how the playing field isn't level to allow Native American home ownership to increase, and the reasons why, and what NeighborWorks America is doing to help. NeighborWorks really is focused on building vibrant and sustainable communities throughout Indian country, and the ways that we are able to do that is, one of the things that we do is we do broad-based home ownership education, and we support home ownership education with our partners. Whether it's the National American Indian Housing Council or Oweesta Corporation, one of the organizations within our network.

We're also providing our training institutes, which also do some train-the-trainer sessions for folks in our network that provide these services back out to tribal communities. We also partner with tribal communities. We create a Native partnership program that encourages our network. [NeighborWorks America supports a network of nearly 250 nonprofits]. They make strategic partnerships with tribal communities to expand home ownership opportunities with those tribal communities, and that's basically my position, is to help in strengthening those partnerships.

Asare: I think there is a perception that there are Native American lands and that there are reservations, and that designated lands allow Native Americans to own homes. Can you speak more about some of the barriers that Native American face when it comes to land ownership and what is within their rights when it comes to the homes within reservations?

Willie: One of the things that NeighborWorks has [is the] NeighborWorks America’s 2022 Housing and Financial Capability Survey. From that survey, we're able to find that 52% of American Indian and Alaska Native adults own their own home comparatively to, I think it's on average 65% home ownership rate nationwide. Mortgage lending in Indian country can be really complicated because of the land type. There's different types of land when you're dealing with reservation land. You have tribal trust land, you have tribal fee land, fee simple land, you have allotted land. They're all different types of kind of land categories. Tribal trust land is the land that's held into trust by the federal government for tribes to use. That land type is a lot more difficult because it requires not only internal regulatory structures within the tribe, but external. And often, banks and regulatory institutions are unfamiliar with those processes. Many of these homeowners need help in building and correcting credit before they even can buy homes. That same survey, the 2022 Housing and Financial Capability Survey, found that 80% of Native Americans don't think that banks or credit unions would approve them for home ownership. 80% of Native Americans don't think they can even get a home ownership loan from banks or credit unions. 66% of those Native Americans who are non-homeowners say that they want to have guidance in acquiring and effectively using their credit...there's great interest within Indian country and especially amongst those Native Americans that are non-homeowners to receive home ownership counseling, create that capability and opportunities to establish their credit.

Also, housing professionals are in short supply. One of the things that when I worked as the Executive Director of the National American Indian Housing Council, there's no college degree that you can really receive for providing Indian housing. There's no specific kind of college degree, they don't teach you these things. So a lot of that effort is to be learned on the job when you're working with tribal communities. You could receive an urban planning degree, but that's for urban planning. And for those tribes that are in rural places and rural reservation areas, how does that equate? So, one of the things that we work with, with our partners is strengthening the training that's available for managing and operating housing within Indian country and helping to support lending and the lending infrastructure.

Asare: What are some things that, in your opinion, need to be done on a systemic level? And is there anything else that the readers can do to contribute to the home ownership rates among Native Americans?

Willie: On a systemic level, it's important to build those trustful relationships. Janice, at the center of the relationship with tribes, the federal government and the American people, is building trustful relationships for centuries...that trust had been broken down, and it's important for us to build that back up. In my work that I do, and especially within NeighborWorks, having dialogue and having space for addressing the challenges and talking about the challenges and sharing best practices and lessons learned. There's 570 plus Native American tribes across the United States. One thing I want the readers to understand is that Indian country is diverse. Each one of those tribes have a unique language, have a unique culture, and have a unique governance system for their people, land and government. We cannot expect to lay models that are going to help every single tribe. We have to create relationships and partnerships with those tribes to understand their needs, but to also work with them hand in hand. It's really about helping the tribes to help themselves. And this self-governance model of where they're taking local action to find solutions to home ownership—that’s where we can be supportive.

And to everyday Americans, they need to be supportive of local tribal actions. When tribes are governing themselves, then that's when they're most successful and that's where they're able to find the success that they need to move forward. And so, everyday Americans should learn more about building trustful relationships with their tribal partners, tribal communities. If you're in a border town, in a county, at the state level or things, or you're a business or institution, it's about building trustful relationships, and it's about learning about the tribes and also supporting their local decision-making authority.

Asare: Do you think that there is value to people acknowledging the land that they're on? And if so, how can people find out what specific Native American land they reside on or they're working from?

Willie: We'd be happy to share some resources that we have around the areas of land acknowledgement. But going beyond land acknowledgement...land acknowledgements are important. For one, it gives us a chance to remember the place where we stand and honor the earth, and to honor those First Nations people who govern that area, and that we're serving as stewards of that land so that we can use it today. But two, it's also a way of building education for us to learn how to be respectful with our neighbors and others who have come before us. And three, I think it's also this idea of understanding the precepts of where land acknowledgement comes from. It's also coming back from the movements to the Land Back movements where tribes are getting greater control over land areas. We see that within tribes, building partnerships with the federal government and managing and co-managing their land areas. But it's acknowledgement of where tribes have been able to be...self-governing and supporting those tribal relationships.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.