NHA head: NAHASDA good, more funds needed

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — Aneva Yazzie, chief executive officer for Navajo Housing Authority, testifying Thursday in Washington, told a Senate committee debating reauthorization of the Indian housing bill, that the Navajo Nation supports the use of tribal enrollment data to determine Navajo housing needs.

The Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act was passed by Congress in 1996 to strengthen Indian housing programs and address the lack of housing for Native American families. NAHASDA was reauthorized in 2001 and is set to expire this year.

Speaking before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on behalf of Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., Yazzie said NAHASDA is a good law, "but funding is too low for its real promise to be realized."

"We support the use of tribal enrollment data, not census data, to determine need under NAHASDA. Until terms of verifiable enrollment data can be agreed upon by federal government and tribal representatives, NHA urges a return to the use of single-race census data because, while imperfect, it is the better approximation of tribal enrollment numbers," she said.

NHA is the largest tribal housing entity in the country and the largest developer of housing on the Navajo Nation. NHA builds homes, maintains 7,000 rental units, and assists more than a thousand Navajo families annually in homeownership and lease-to-own programs.

"In the last decade the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act has been a useful tool in our Nation's work. The hallmarks of the law self-determination and tribal decision-making are what make it successful," Yazzie said.

NHA has worked extensively with the federal government and other tribes on the allocation used to determine funding.

"The most pressing issue facing Indian housing in the last few years has been the use of census data to determine funding allocations," Yazzie said.

Thursday's hearing centered on informal draft Senate legislation that proposes reauthorization of the original NAHASDA bill passed in 1996. When the Indian housing law was created, a rule-making committee was established to agree on methods for distributing housing funds to tribes. A concurrent allocation committee focused on the actual distribution.

U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., announced in June that NHA will be receiving more than $89 million in Indian Housing Block Grant funds from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The grant, totaling $89,260,522, will be used to support various tribal housing assistance programs.

In an effort to increase funding to tribes for housing purposes, Renzi introduced H.R. 797, the Native American Housing Enhancement Act of 2005, which was passed by the 109th Congress and signed into law by President Bush in December 2005.

Under this law, tribes are granted unrestricted access to new federal funds, even if they still retain income from previous years. The law removed a barrier that had been in place since 1996 which, in the past, prevented tribes from receiving badly needed housing grants.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs, in its summer session report to the Navajo Nation Council, said the Navajo Nation Housing Improvement Program was awarded $2,693,951 in June for Fiscal Year 2007 to construct or renovate about 40 houses for eligible Navajo families.

NNHIP is now accepting applications from eligible families for FY 2008 funding. The list of certified applicants is due Sept. 1 to the BIA Central Housing Office in Washington. Funding is based on a formula which considers the number of eligible applicants and the cost of housing materials in the region.

On June 20, tribal leaders were informed by BIA of tribal consultation on the methods to be used to allocate 2,000 Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers to federally recognized tribes. Tribal comments were due July 11.

The trailers, located in Arkansas and Texas, are free of charge but the tribes have to pay transportation and setup costs. The Division of Community Development is working on the project, according to BIA. In May, Housing/Tribal Operations and HIP staff met to discuss the Gillen Family Foundation assistance to Navajo families. The foundation is seeking to use HIP funds to leverage funding to purchase more mobile homes for young Navajo families. The foundation has assisted six families to date.

BIA said the Navajo Nation Office of the Attorney General also was informed in May that $160,000 of FY2007 funding is available for attorney fees, as well as funds left over from FY2004 and FY2006.