Lakota Funds CI Report – Interim

What has been most instrumental to your progress?

One of the critical issues that the SD Native Homeownership Coalition is seeking to address through our problem solving process is the availability of construction professionals doing business on tribal trust land in the residential construction sector. Having the flexibility to test possible solutions was instrumental in our progress. For example, one of our strategies was to assist Native constructional professionals to becoming certified residential construction inspectors. We had an overwhelming response to our first training with over 70 participants. We learned that even with the training, participants were reluctant to sit for the certification exam and, of those that did, only a few passed the exam. We have had to modify our approach, adding additional training and a peer mentoring component. We are also exploring with the certifying entity the possibility of offering paper-based rather than online exams which would be more accessible to many of our construction professionals. The ability to test these different approaches has helped us to make progress towards our intended results of increasing the number of certified inspectors operating on trust land.

As part of our communications strategy to address homebuyer readiness through a ‘Homeownership is Possible’ campaign, we took extra precautions to assemble a video production and communications team that understands the intricacies of Native homeownership. We also worked with local homeownership practitioners to identify successful homeowners who would be willing to share their stories. These efforts have resulted in a level of trust and openness that have moved the campaign forward in a productive and respectful way. We are looking forward to previewing our first messages and themes during our annual planning meeting next month.

Key lessons learned

An important lesson that emerged during this year was how difficult it is for the Coalition and our members to track homeownership data and measure impact accurately and comprehensively. During the Coalition’s first strategic planning session, Coalition members assumed it would be an easy, straightforward task to gather baseline Native homeownership data and then track trends annually in South Dakota. We learned that for several reasons, that was not the case. Lack of practitioner capacity, an absence of the same mortgage reporting systems available in the off-reservation mortgage market, and the complicated network of federal, state, and tribal partners and regulatory requirements all contribute to the challenges with tracking data and measuring impact. Even so, another important learning was how important it is to undertake this task. The ability to articulate the impact of the Coalition’s efforts is critical to report to policy makers, funders, and our members. As a result, the Coalition is continuing to refine our focus on building capacity and providing support to ensure our data tracking system is fully implemented and operational.

Reflections on inclusive, collaborative or resourceful problem-solving

Collaboration has been the most important element to our progress. Our Coalition has built on and fostered statewide collaboration among Native housing practitioners; collaboration between federal, state, and tribal officials; and collaborations that bring together private/public and nonprofit/for-profit entities. For example, Native community development financial institutions (Native CDFIs) have been encouraging their small business contractor clients to explore the supports the Coalition is offering to residential construction professionals including certification training and internship opportunities. Also, for our impact tracking work, we’ve collaborated with federal agencies to obtain loan data to assist our nonprofit providers to track their outputs and to measure impact.

Other key elements of Community Innovation

The flexibility of our Coalition structure has contributed to our progress toward innovation. Because we are able to remain nimble, we’ve been able to adapt our structure and resources to test our innovations. For example, when we saw an increase in demand for homeownership services from Native veterans, we created a new Veterans Homeownership Committee. This committee is now working with the Physical Issues Committee to assist with workforce development for construction professionals, including veteran contractors. Our Executive Committee has resisted the tendency to create bureaucratic processes and formal structures (incorporating as a 501(c)(3) organization). Instead, we’ve maintained a strong relationship with our fiscal agent, which has ensured we have the proper systems in place for safe and sound financial management and oversight. This has allowed us the freedom to focus on problem solving and testing solutions to overcome barriers to homeownership rather than building a new organization. It has also strengthened our ability and need to collaborate with our members who formulate and implement our strategies and action plans.

Understanding the problem

Yes, in the area of building capacity to track impact, we’ve recognized the need for more hands-on technical assistance. We have also learned that we need to be able to provide concrete reasons why it is critical to show results and aggregate impact data statewide. Our policy makers and funders want to see the impact of the Coalition’s work. That’s not possible without reporting from our local Coalition members at the community level, but it is hard for them to see the immediate benefits of the value of data gathering efforts.

In our work on the ‘Homeownership is Possible’ campaign, we learned that while positive homebuyer stories do exist and can be an inspiration, it can be difficult for that message to ring through the backdrop of negative experiences and amidst all of the challenges we face in Native communities achieving homeownership on trust land.

If you could do it all over again…

Our advice would be that this work takes time. Many of our Coalition leaders are action-oriented which has been critical to our success and has helped us to create momentum. While it is important to maintain that drive, test innovations, and focus on results, it is also important to recognize that the barriers to homeownership on trust land are complex and deeply entrenched, and will take time and innovative strategies to overcome.