Native American Housing

Although the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has invested $4.3 billion during the past decade for housing and community development in Native American tribal areas, the Urban Institute recently reported that 40 percent of Native Americans in tribal areas live in overcrowded or physically inadequate housing. Providing safe and decent housing at reasonable cost is difficult in tribal areas because of (1) their remoteness and austere settings, (2) the limited human resources of many Indian housing authorities, (3) land-use restrictions, (4) the difficulty that contractors and Indian housing authorities have in complying with statutory requirements to give hiring preference to Indians, and (5) vandalism and neglect. New Indian housing legislation, set to take effect in October 1997, changes HUD's Indian housing assistance by requiring block grants to each of more than 550 tribes instead of categorical grants to each of 180 housing authorities that now exist. HUD believes that its initial workload could rise significantly.

GAO noted that: (1) from fiscal year (FY) 1986 through FY 1995, HUD provided $4.3 billion for housing and community development in tribal areas; (2) of this amount, HUD provided $3.9 billion to approximately 189 Indian housing authorities to develop and maintain affordable housing and assist low-income renters; (3) in this period, the authorities used the funds to construct over 24,000 single-family homes, operate and maintain existing housing, and encourage other development; (4) over the decade, HUD also provided direct block grants totalling over $424 million to eligible tribes for community development and mortgage assistance; (5) many factors complicate and make costly the development and maintenance of affordable housing for Native Americans; (6) these factors include the remoteness and limited human resources of many Indian housing authorities and the Indian communities they serve, land-use restrictions and the inhospitality of the land, the difficulty that contractors and Indian housing authorities have in complying with statutory requirements to give hiring preference to Native Americans, and vandalism and neglect, which draw on scarce maintenance funds; (7) HUD believes that, initially, its workload could increase as it monitors tribes' compliance with the new Indian housing legislation set to take effect on October 1, 1997; (8) the new act changes the way HUD provides housing assistance to Native Americans by requiring block grants to each of the over 550 federally recognized tribes instead of categorical grants to the 189 Native American housing authorities that currently exist; (9) moreover, to qualify for the block grants, tribes must submit housing plans for HUD's approval; (10) although the law requires HUD to conduct only a limited review of the tribes' plans, HUD officials believe that this activity will, for the first year at least, be a labor-intensive function for HUD field offices; (11) of the 356 Indian tribes in the continental United States alone, 177 operated 240 gaming facilities as of July 1996; (12) according to 1994 and 1995 data submitted by 85 of these tribes, their gaming revenues after expenses totalled about $1.5 billion; (13) HUD officials told GAO that they do not take gaming revenues directly into account when allocating funds because, in addition to these revenues, HUD would need to know other business revenues and federal assistance available to each tribe in order to determine a fair allocation; and (14) to the extent that HUD takes a tribe's general economic well-being and housing needs into account, it is indirectly factoring gaming revenues into its funding allocation decisions.