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Analysis & Findings
The following figures and key findings derive from case studies and interviews with Housing Directors of Pueblo TDHEs. Supplementary interviews from Indian architects/urban design consultants, Indian law lawyers, and a tribal bank CEO, non-Indian Santa Fe planners also help inform findings. Interviews from Pueblo TDHE - Housing Directors in addition to supplementary interviews allow for a holistic understanding of the challenges Pueblo tribes face conforming to the rules and regulations the Department of Housing and Urban Development has laid out.
From the case studies and supplementary interviews, I concluded five themes that speak to the challenges in housing development for Pueblo tribes: (1) HUD’s cultural misunderstanding of Pueblo tribes living arrangements, (2) leveraging funds to complete projects, (3) adapting to competitive housing programs, (4) access to credit, (5) internal management dilemma.
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Interviewed housing directors unanimously cited their biggest present challenge stemming from Indian housing policies, such as NAHASDA, leveraging enough funds together to complete a project. When questioned about the financial challenges of NAHASDA, Ohkay Owingeh TDHEs’ housing director - Tomasita Duran stated:
“NAHASDA was a step in the right direction for tribes, however it still can be improved. On one hand it enables tribes to develop housing types they want, but there is never enough money to complete a project [with NAHASDA funds] alone. On another end, it also forced tribes to learn how to leverage money which is needed in
Indian Country.” - Tomasita Duran (Ohkay Owingeh TDHE)
Francisco Simbana, housing director of the Santa Clara Pueblo TDHE, echo a similar sentiment of the difficulties of leveraging funds:
“NAHASDA [IHBG] is not enough to build new homes or maintain old homes that people weren’t prepared to maintain in the first place when HUD initially built them...the formula used to determine funds is poor and inadequate. Large tribes like the Navajo Nation get upwards of 18-22 million a year, while smaller ones like Santa
Clara get less than 750k.” Francisco Simbana (Santa Clara TDHE)
Prior to the passage of NAHASDA in 1997, HUD’s 1937 Housing Act program completely funded housing units in their entirety. Although all interviewed Pueblo TDHE housing directors agreed NAHASDA was a step in the right direction towards self-determination in Indian housing policy. They find NAHASDA’s IHBG financially restricting and increasingly difficult to utilize to fund new construction in addition to repairing 1937 housing units under the TDHEs authority. While experienced housing directors such as Tomasita Duran of the Ohkay Owingeh tribe and Andrew Martinez & Christina Brass of the Nambe tribe are finding
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success in leveraging IHBG funds with other Indian housing programs. They all expressed the extraordinary struggles and years of trial and error they went through early on to get to this point.
Nonetheless they all interviewed Pueblo TDHE housing directors still agree with each additional year that passes, leveraging IHBG funding grows increasingly more difficult. HUD’s reluctance to increase IHBG funds, despite rising inflation, and the conveyance of remaining 1937 housing units which decreases a tribe’s IHBG allocation. As a result, Pueblo TDHE must allocate more time to submit applications to competitive grants or opt to pursue LIHTC development. However, neither competitive grants or LIHTC is guaranteed and both options are difficult to obtain for inexperienced housing directors.
NAHASDA IHBG Funding Analysis:
Since the first allotment of non-competitive IHBG funds to TDHEs in 1998 of $592 million USD, the median disbursement for IHBG going up for 2020 has been $641,406,705 USD. According to construction analyst Ed Zarenski, total construction inflation (including both resident and non-residential) on average has been growing at a rate of 4.2% since 1993. 93 While the US average annual inflation rate has been growing at a rate of 2.02% since 1998. 94
If we were to use RS Means, the construction industry leading standard for approximating construction cost of buildings. RS Means construction cost historical cost indexes enables one to approximate the construction cost of a building in one year to in another year based on construction inflation rates, building material cost, and contractor and subcontractor fees. 95 We can use RS Means historical cost index to approximate NAHASDA’s IHBG initial allotment in 1998 and median allotment figure into 2020 figures, assuming we keep both figures constant over the years.
Minimum IHBG-2020 Estimation:
Using RS Means historical cost index - If we were to assume the non-competitive IHBG were to be used entirely for construction cost and use $592 million USD as the base cost to convert to 2020 cost, we get the following below:
Variables: 1998 Index: 115.1, 2020 Index: 239.1, 1998 Construction Price: $592M
93 94 95 Zarenski, Ed. (2020). Construction Inflation 2020. Retrieved from https://edzarenski.com/ OECD. (2020). Inflation (CPI). Retrieved from https://data.oecd.org/price/inflation-cpi.htm 2020 Building Construction Cost with RS Means Data. (2020) (78th ed.). Gordian.
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Median IHBG-2020 Estimation:
If IHBG were to adjust according to RS Means historical cost index from 1998 to 2020 using $641,406,705, the median funding allocation from 1998-2020, as the starting base in 1998, we will get the following.
Variables: 1998 Index: 115.1, 2020 Index: 239.1, 1998-2020 (Median) Construction Price: $641,406,705
Based on the RS Means construction cost indexes of the 1998 allotment of $592 million and the median $641 million derived from the past allotment figures of the past 22 years. If either figure were to remain the standard allocation standard and adjust annually to inflation, construction cost, and contractor fees. For 2020 HUD would need to allocate approximately $1.2 billion USD at minimum or $1.3 billion USD to be constant with the median. According to these figures this indicates NAHASDA-IHBG is approximately half the amount it should be. The lack of funding to support IHBG further reaffirms scholar Virginia Davis’ argument that historically Indian housing programs have always been vastly underfunded. Similar to Virginia Davis, Pueblo TDHE housing directors stated IHBG’s lack of funding heavily impacts their ability to produce adequate housing for tribal members. The last NAHASDA - IHBG allotment for 2020 was $655,449,938 USD, even with the additional $200 million competitive-IHBG offered to TDHEs in 2019. NAHASDA’s IHBG are still unfunded at a minimum of $400 million USD. Also, it is important to note, 52 of the 574 or less than 9% of the federally recognized Indian tribes were allocated funds from the competitive IHBG.
II. CULTURAL MISALIGNMENT & MISUNDERSTANDING - FINANCING PAST MISTAKES
Interviews with Pueblo TDHE - housing directors exposed HUD’s Indian housing policies misunderstanding of Puebloan customs and traditions posed not only a cultural challenge for Pueblo tribes but an ongoing finance challenge as well. Traditional Pueblo dwellings were composed of attached multi-generational housing that were spatially clustered around a village plaza(s). However, upon HUD’s arrival to Pueblo County, HUD used a one size fits all approach and developed detached single family units. Pueblo TDHE housing director and construction manager describe the introduction of the 1937 Housing Act units in their tribes.
“HUD believed a home was made up of a mom and dad, 2.4 kids, and a dog. HUD saw our multi-generational housing as overcrowded since we had three family cells in the home. Here [Pueblo of Acoma] we were never one family per unit”
- Floyd Tortalita (Acoma TDHE)
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“The [1937 Housing Act] homes looked like a copied and pasted American suburban home, they don’t look like a Santo Domingo home”
- Kevin Esquibel (Santo Domingo TDHE)
The arrival of HUD in the late 1960s helped spur an end to multi-generational housing and gave way to the adoption of detached single-family housing in Pueblo Country. The detached single-family houses built by HUD are commonly referred to as “scattered sites” by housing directors, due in part because they tend to be spatially dispersed throughout the land and away from the village plazas. Although HUD is no longer building 1937 Housing Act Units, these units still present major challenges for Pueblo TDHEs today. The dispersed geographic arrangements of the detached single-family units around the tribal land drives up infrastructure cost according to interviewed housing directors. As a result, TDHEs must allocate additional funds to build roads, sewer systems, and power lines across the tribal land to connect scattered sites and new development to a primary source. Secondly, as HUD built scattered homes throughout tribal land, tribal members neglected their traditional pueblo dwellings to resettle in new 1937 Housing Act units. Tomasita Duran, housing director of Ohkay Owingeh TDHE, notes that as families relocated to new housing units, they increasingly spent more time away from their traditional pueblo dwellings. As a result, pueblo dwellings began to rapidly deteriorate due to negligence and abandonment. Even more so, the introduction of 1937 Housing Act units brought in new building materials and housing typologies that Pueblo tribes were not accustomed to at the time. Initial limited knowledge on the maintenance and upkeep of the new units which led to dilapidation of HUD units as well.
Last but not least, the introduction of 1937 Housing Act units inadvertently heavily impacted the inheritance custom surrounding housing in Pueblo tribes and clans. In the case of the Ohkay Owingeh who is heavily invested in restoring traditional pueblo houses. Duran noted that one of her initial early challenges she faced was trying to figure out inheritance titles of the original pueblo dwellings, which were not properly recorded by either HUD or the tribe and/or clan. As a result, Duran spent months resolving a complicated web of pueblo dwelling inheritance claims who now reside in 1937 HUD housing units. Similarly, Floyd Tortalita, housing director of Pueblo of Acoma, has expressed internal family disputes of original dwelling ownership has stalled rehabilitation efforts.
While HUD believed at the time the development of 1937 Homes Act single family detached homes were the right thing to do for Pueblo tribes. HUD’s efforts to push Pueblo tribes to assimilate to nuclear single-family detached homes has inadvertently created a new host of financial and cultural challenges for Pueblo TDHEs. Lastly HUD’s coercing of Pueblo tribes to adopt detached single-family typologies follows the Wilkinson and Biggs’s theory of Indian housing policing tending to push tribes to assimilate.
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III. ADAPTING TO COMPETITIVE HOUSING PROGRAMS
Leverage limited non-competitive IHBG is an ongoing challenge for Pueblo TDHEs. Competitive housing programs such as LIHTC offer some TDHEs a way to leverage funds while for others it proves to be too complicated and costly to pursue. Since 2001, three years after the first allotment of IHBG funds to TDHEs. New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority awarded 133 projects with LIHTC funding; less than 9 projects or 6.8% of the awarded projects have been developed by a Pueblo TDHE. 96
Even for interviewed TDHEs housing directors that have successfully won LIHTC funding, such as Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo and the Pueblos of Acoma. Both housing directors, who have been in position for over 16-20+ years, have expressed the extreme learning curve it took to acquire LIHTC funding. Moreover, other TDHEs from the Pueblo of Nambe and Pueblo of Santa Clara, opted to forgo LIHTC funding. Both TDHEs expressed the difficulty in trying to find appropriate tenants in their tribe, who can afford to pay HUD’s regulated AMI rent levels. Even more specifically, finding tribal members that can afford rent levels that will make a project financially feasible to build and competitive enough to earn enough points from New Mexico’s MFA project evaluation. Christina Brass, co-director of the Pueblo of Nambe TDHE, in regard to LIHTC development expressed:
“At one point we applied [LIHTC application] and wasn’t successful. Our tribe is too small and getting the right people to fill units would be a disaster....looking back we’re lucky we didn’t win [LIHTC] because now we have a much more effective approach that works better for us where we don’t have to manage properties and
carry the [operation maintenance] cost.” – Christina Brass (Nambe TDHE)
While LIHTC has proved useful to some tribes such as the Pueblo of Acoma, where they were able to cover over 95% of their project cost through LIHTC. For several Pueblo TDHE, finding the right tenants and requiring them to pay more money for rent is difficult, because they are accustomed to paying no more than 30% of their adjusted monthly income. Even more so, attracting tenants who can afford to pay higher 70-79% AMI rental levels is hard to obtain, who might opt to construct a new house on tribal land or buy property off tribal land.
IV. ACCESS TO CREDIT
Access to capital and mortgage loans has been a serious issue plaguing Indian Country for decades. Internal BIA assessment reports going back to the 1960s, document numerous reported cases being denied mortgage loans for the Indian Relocation Act of 1956. 97 Similar to the Indian Relocation Act of 1956, following the passage of NAHASDA in 1996 and the creation of TDHEs. Tribal members and TDHEs experienced difficulties obtaining loans from banks, who were reluctant to finance housing projects due in part to not being able to repossess tribal/trust land as collateral and lack of understanding of Indian law. To encourage financial institutions to loan to tribal members, HUD developed the Section 184
96 New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority. (2020). 2001 - 2019 LIHTC Awards. Retrieved from http://www.housingnm. org/assets/content/pub2001-2019_Awards.pdf 97 Ibid. Ferrell, J. Susan. (1995) 59
Indian Home Loan program. The 184 program targets first time home buyers and guarantees lenders 95% of their initial investment if a borrower were to default on their loan.
While on paper HUD’s 184 program provides a viable option for tribal members to access loans to purchase and/or build homes. 7/7 Pueblo TDHE housing directors and staff proclaimed HUD’s 184 program is “very limited” and not really effective or utilized by tribal members for several reasons. First, banks’ metrics of credit worthiness is exclusive and not obtainable for most tribal members. Monthly payments are too high for the majority of tribal members to take on. Last but not least, according to housing directors the 184 program is not well known amongst tribal members, and so applications for the 184 program have been generally low. Upon further analysis, according to studies nationally more than 90% of 184 program approved applications occur off tribal land and more than 46% of on tribal land applicants are denied. 98
One interesting finding corroborated from all interviewed housing directors, was HUD never reported tribal member payments for 1937 housing units to the US Credit Bureau nor kept any records of payment histories that could be submitted to the US Credit Bureau. This is important to note because many tribal members are rejected from mortgage loans because they do not have an established credit history. Christina Brass, co-director of the Pueblo of Nambe TDHE expressed in regard to the constant rejection of her tribal members with no credit history from the 184 program:
“What bankers and backers of the 184 program do not understand is that we are working with low to moderate income people. Any monthly payment over 400 dollars would devastate someone here…early on a lot of [Nambe] people were discouraged trying to get a 184 approval, and we [Nambe TDHE] were losing too many people to
the fact they couldn’t get a bank loan.” - Christina Brass (Nambe TDHE)
Floyd Tortalita, executive director of the Pueblo of Acoma TDHE expressed a similar issue accessing credit on tribal land.:
“Prior to NAHASDA many of us who could afford mortgages weren’t able to get loan approvals to build new housing on reservations, so they ended up moving because very few of us had $250,000 laying around in the bank to build ground up. Then there was an issue with HUD not reporting housing [1937 Housing Act units] payments to
the bureau so people had no credit history.” - Floyd Tortalita (Acoma TDHE)
Despites HUD’s best efforts to provide tribal members access to credit through the Section 184 Home Loan program. Pueblo TDHE housing directors are still reporting tribal members are routinely being denied mortgages from private lenders. As a result, Pueblo TDHEs must find creative ways to provide access to credit to their tribal members through competitive grants.
98 Housing Assistance Council. (2018). Exploring the Challenges and Opportunities for Mortgage Finance in Indian Country. Washington DC.
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V. LACK OF INTERNAL SUPPORT
Beyond direct challenges imposed by HUD’s Indian housing policies and programs. A surprise finding derived from interviews with Pueblo TDHE housing directors, was the importance of having internal support from the tribal council. A good relationship and trust from the tribal council can play a significant role in a TDHEs success in housing development. Although tribes have greater self-determination in housing development through NAHASDA. Pueblo TDHEs abide by their tribes’ rules and regulations, in which they must get final approval on projects from internal tribal governing agencies. The typical chain of management of authority housing development authority is as follows:
Housing Entity → Executive Director → Board of Directors (or Commissioners) → Tribal Council
Before any project breaks ground, TDHE’s plans must also be approved by an internal tribal board of directors which usually consist on average 4-7 people. The board of directors are the legislative and policy making board, who have authority in managing the performance and operations of the housing authority and retain accountability to tribal members and the tribal council. After a plan is approved by the board of directors, the tribal council which can consist on average between 8-10 people, has ultimate say if a project is a go or not. The tribal council generally serves as the legislative authority of a tribe. That being said, it is important directors have a good working relationship with both the board of directors and tribal council, otherwise projects could be stalled or derailed. Pueblo of Nambe’s co-housing director, Christina Brass, described her early experience working as housing director:
“NASHADA is really big on networking and that was a learning curve we [Nambe TDHE] had to learn. One thing I had to deal with before Martinez got here was handling 3 toxic board members who were anti-housing and anti-building.
– Christina Brass (Nambe TDHE)
Andrew Martinez current acting executive director of the Pueblo of Nambe TDHE, affirmed Brass’s statement and added:
“.... What Tina had to deal with was ridiculous, those toxic board members who are now removed now, had her doing pointless time-consuming tasks and micro-managing
her.” – Andrew Martinez (Nambe TDHE)
Tomasita Duran, housing director of the Ohkay Owingeh, also reaffirmed Brass and Martinez’s experience dealing with toxic board members. Duran also added just how significantly harder it is being a woman housing director and trying to develop trust with her tribal council, who routinely second guesses her plans. According to Duran, till this day even after serving over 22 years as director, she still has issues earning the tribal councils respect despite her success and follow through on projects.
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VI. DIRECTOR’S LIFE: HIGH TURNOVER & INEXPERIENCE
Another surprising finding from interviews with housing directors, was the frequency of high turnovers of housing directors. Not having a consistent housing director can significantly impact a TDHEs’ efficiency in developing and providing housing units for tribal members. The overall nature of tribal housing development is challenging from leveraging funds, coordinating with contractors, analyzing policies, and managing internal relationships with the board of directors and tribal council, and outreaching to tribal members. According to Martinez of the Pueblo of Nambe TDHE, in conversation with HUD consultant representative was told:
“The life of an executive [director] is about 2 years. It is hard to come by directors
who have stayed past 2 years.” – Andrew Martinez (Nambe TDHE)
Furthermore, during my outreach process to Pueblo TDHEs. 6/16 Pueblo TDHEs who declined to be interviewed had within the past month just recently hired or are in the midst of searching for a new housing director to fill a vacancy, as of February 2020. The rapid turnover of housing directors produces a knowledge gap with a TDHE that is incredibly difficult to fulfill in tribal housing development. Housing directors such as Tomasita Duran, who has held her position since passage of NAHASDA and first allocation of IHBG in 1998, is extraordinarily rare and a testament to her impact and endurance to handle immense pressure.
