Schatz: Native Communities Across The Country Set To Receive Record $1.3 Billion In New Federal Funding For Housing

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), chair of both the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, spoke on the Senate floor to highlight the record $1.34 billion in federal funding for Native housing programs as part of a six-bill Fiscal Year 2024 appropriations package that was passed by Congress and signed into law last week. The new funding is a 30 percent increase from last year. In addition to housing, Schatz secured $175.5 million in new federal funding for Tribal transportation activities.

“Working together, Democrats and Republicans, in the Senate and the House, included more than $1.3 billion for Native housing as part of the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development appropriations bill. This historic funding is a big deal. It means they can build more affordable housing, provide rental assistance, and get electricity and plumbing into homes,” said Chair Schatz.

Schatz continued, “Over the past few years, as a nation, we’ve begun to reckon with and address historic injustices against marginalized communities. It’s important, it’s necessary, and it’s long-overdue. But somehow, a lot of that work has glossed over America’s first injustice – the injustice towards Native people. It’s a brutal history spanning centuries and generations. Forcibly removing Native people from their homelands, pushing children into boarding schools, robbing ancestral remains and cultural items. The impacts of that colonization and forced assimilation are being felt to this day. We’re not going to reverse hundreds of years of injustices overnight. But it can’t be that remedying those injustices – and finally doing right by Native people – takes another few centuries. It needs to start happening now.”

The full text of Chair Schatz’s remarks as prepared for delivery follows. Video of his remarks are available here.

Almost nothing gets done in Congress on a bipartisan basis these days. We’re more than five months into the fiscal year and have yet to fund 70% of the government for the full year. And there’s even less hope for achieving bipartisan consensus on progressive priorities – whether that’s housing or climate or health care.

But in the appropriations package that passed two weeks ago was a rare product of quiet, good-faith, bipartisan efforts: a record amount of funding for housing for Native communities across the country.

Working together, Democrats and Republicans, in the Senate and the House, included more than 1.3 billion dollars for Native housing as part of the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development appropriations bill.

Tribal communities, as a direct consequence of perennial underfunding and neglect by the federal government, experience some of the highest poverty rates and worst living conditions in the nation. They’re 5 times as likely to live in homes without plumbing. 4 times more likely to not have basic appliances like a sink, a stove, or a refrigerator. And 1200 – twelve hundred – times likelier to experience issues with heating. So for them, this historic funding is a big deal. It means they can build more affordable housing, provide rental assistance, and get electricity and plumbing into homes.

The bill also includes a significant increase in funding for Tribal transportation which will help repair roads on Tribal lands that are in dire shape and improve transit access for people trying to get to work or school or the grocery store. The funding builds on the historic investments we’ve made in Tribal transportation infrastructure over the past few years with the infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act.

All of this funding came to be because colleagues on both sides of the aisle, in both chambers, said whatever our other differences, we agree this is important and urgent and worth fighting for. And then we got to work and actually did it.

Bipartisan victories don’t grab the headlines in this town. They don’t lead cable news or get tons of engagement on Twitter…because there isn’t a villain to ridicule or a controversy to editorialize on. But the federal government has a trust responsibility to American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians, which we’ve long fallen short of. For generations, Native communities were considered as an afterthought – if at all. Today, through steps like these, bit by bit, we’re saying: no more.

And so I want to thank everyone who worked for months quietly behind the scenes to get this done. That includes members and staff of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Housing as well as the Committee on Indian Affairs – both of which I chair.

I especially want to thank Ranking Member Cindy Hyde-Smith and Vice Chair Lisa Murkowski for their continued partnership on this and other Native issues. I want to thank the many committee members who advocated for this funding on behalf of Native communities in their home states.

I’m also grateful to our counterparts in the House, Representatives Cole and Quigley, who fought to include this funding despite difficult topline numbers and the many competing priorities.

And as always, none of this is ever possible without the incredible staff on these committees who patiently and painstakingly turn commitments and deals made at the member level into real dollars and cents on paper.

Over the past few years, as a nation, we’ve begun to reckon with and address historic injustices against marginalized communities. It’s important, it’s necessary, and it’s long-overdue. But somehow, a lot of that work has glossed over America’s first injustice – the injustice towards Native people.

It’s a brutal history spanning centuries and generations. Forcibly removing Native people from their homelands…pushing children into boarding schools…robbing ancestral remains and cultural items. The impacts of that colonization and forced assimilation are being felt to this day.

We’re not going to reverse hundreds of years of injustices overnight. But it can’t be that remedying those injustices – and finally doing right by Native people – takes another few centuries. It needs to start happening now.

That requires all of us learning and really understanding the long and painful history. It means addressing the many ways Native culture has been repeatedly robbed and harmed – which is something the Committee of Indian Affairs, federal agencies, and others are working on with things like the repatriation and language revitalization. And above all, it means supporting the everyday needs of Native people.

They need electricity. They need running water. They need reliable heating in their homes. They need safe roads and accessible transit. All of this work has to happen together.

The good news is, at least here in Congress, people in both parties recognize the urgency of issues affecting Native communities, and are committed to prioritizing them. And even if that doesn’t make for a splashy headline, it’s no small thing for the millions of Native people across the country.

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