Addressing the Challenges of Housing Insecurity in Urban Native America: Centering Affordability and Indigenous Values in Off-Reservation Housing

Approximately 87% of the American Indian and Alaska Native
population lives in urban areas. Yet urban Indigenous dwellers are considered
among “the most invisibilized populations in the nation,” are relatively
understudied, and experience pronounced inequities across a host of
socioeconomic metrics, including elevated risks of becoming unhoused. Against
a background of Indigenous land loss, displacement, and discrimination, this
Article will examine off-reservation affordable housing initiatives launched
primarily by federally recognized tribes, including several case studies that
consider the discrete origins, land use character, and financing strategies
pursued in developing these housing initiatives, and address how they respond
to economic, social, and cultural challenges that intensify housing insecurity
and homelessness risks for urban Indigenous people.
The Article discusses how these initiatives respond both to the challenges
of economic precarity and cultural dislocation. It examines how these projects
have adapted to urban contexts while engaging the relational dimensions of
land for Indigenous people, rooted in a sense of place, history, and collective
identity. These approaches–shaped by Indigenous stakeholders’ assessment of
needs and cultural supports, oriented to innovation and collaboration in design
and funding strategy, bolstered by the local governing institutions where the
projects are sited–offer potentially scalable housing development models centering affordability and Indigenous cultural values for underserved urban
Indigenous communities.