Course Description

This course is designed to build on the Tribal Leaders Handbook on Homeownership developed by the Center for Indian Country Development and Enterprise Community Partners. Through 11 detailed chapters, a preface, and appendices, the Handbook presents key components of developing homeownership in Native communities, including engaging tribal leaders to support homeownership, navigating land issues, and making homeownership affordable. It explores the question:

What would it take to build new communities, and remake old ones, so Native communities move more positively toward meeting housing needs and bolstering economic development?

This course will enable practitioners to examine this question and delve into the components of homeownership to determine what assets they already have in place, identify gaps, and outline concrete next steps. The course combines hands-on, participatory activities, small group exercises, and large group discussions. Through modules that correspond to the Tribal Leaders Handbook on Homeownership chapters, participants will explore the nuts and bolts of homeownership, including needs assessments, homebuyer readiness programming, available mortgage products and subsidies, land processes, community planning, home design and construction, and enhancing affordability. Participants will also have the opportunity to define what homeownership means for them, to work with their peers to identify and address potential opportunities and challenges to homeownership in their communities, and to develop strategies and outline next steps.

Course Objective

Distinguishing between the governance role of tribal leaders and the implementation role of housing practitioners, this course is designed to enable housing practitioners working in Native communities to explore the different components of providing homeownership, in order to implement or enhance their homeownership programming.

Recognizing the Pathways Home: A Native Homeownership Guide as a vital piece of preparing Native families for homeownership in exploring the different components of providing homeownership, including preparing homebuyers, this course is not intended to duplicate or replace the information provided through the Pathways curriculum or training.

Core Competencies

Participants will be able to demonstrate the following competencies upon completing the course.

Competency 1: Explain the benefits of homeownership on the family and community levels and describe how homeownership has traditionally looked in their communities.

Competency 2: Understand the trust responsibility of the United States, the different types of land ownership status, and the process of obtaining a leasehold in their community.

Competency 3: Understand the importance of the needs assessment in effective homeownership efforts, describe the components of such assessments, and explain how their results can be used.

Competency 4: Understand the importance of partnering in providing Native homeownership opportunities and develop a list of potential partners to support efforts in their community.

Competency 5: Explain the importance of homebuyer readiness programming, describe the different types of such programming, and identify potential partners to provide programs.

Competency 6: Understand the mortgage lending process on trust land, describe the secondary market and the role of Native community development financial institutions (CDFIs), and be able to outline a range of available mortgage products.

Competency 7: Understand the basics of a planning process and timelines, identify essential planning process partners, explain the importance of community input and the charrette process, and be able to describe the comparative costs of neighborhood/subdivision vs. scattered site development.

Competency 8: Explain the importance of homebuyer input in the homeownership development process, the value of integrating green design approaches, the pros and cons of modular and manufactured housing, and the relationship between home design and cost.

Competency 9: Describe different strategies to make homeownership affordable to tribal members.

Competency 10: Better advocate for tribal leadership to support homeownership in their communities.

Competency 11: Identify potential challenges to homeownership development in their community, develop strategies to address these challenges, and outline concrete next steps to their homeownership efforts.

A Homeownership Framework

What follows is a checklist for developing a homeownership program in tribal communities. The checklist provides a framework of the various components of homeownership and the questions that should be addressed. Looking at the different components, the framework helps us identify:

• ◉Who is doing this work already in our community?

• ◉Who can we partner with on this piece?

• ◉Do we need to develop new programming, policies, or relationships to tackle this piece?

• ◉What areas do we need help in to provide homeownership opportunities for our tribal community?

We will be returning to this framework as the touchstone of our work throughout this training.