Grand Portage to receive funds to improve housing

Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa will receive $391,473 to help improve housing on the reservation.

The announcement came from U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.) who chairs the Senate’s Housing Subcommittee. Senator Smith said Minnesota Tribes will receive the largest ever housing investment as part of a key federal program to improve housing on Native land. All told, eleven Minnesota Tribes will each get a portion of $23 million to spend on housing. That represents a $4 million increase from last year’s IHGB housing appropriation, noted the senator.

“If you don’t have a safe, stable, affordable place to live, nothing else in your life works,” said Sen. Smith. “I’ve had the great privilege of visiting and meeting with Tribal leaders from Minnesota and heard firsthand how the affordable housing crisis impacts their communities. This funding will make a real impact for Native families who have been disproportionately impacted by the affordable housing crisis.”

Funds will come from the Indian Housing Block Grant. (IHBG), which is the largest source for funding for housing on Native land.

The increased funding comes after Smith pushed for more support in a letter last summer to leaders on the Senate subcommittee responsible for the program. “Funding for the Indian Housing Block Grant has remained mostly level since…1996, [yet] the need for adequate and sanitary housing has grown,” wrote Sen. Smith in her letter. Reports have found the number of Native Americans living in dilapidated houses or doubling up with neighbors has risen over the past two decades.

The grants are awarded to individual Tribes who administer and direct funding towards housing projects that best serve their community. Funds can be used for housing development, housing-related infrastructure, and home repair and maintenance in Indian Country.