On Thursday. Bluestem had noted in Tales of two flag ceremonies? Scout, South Dakota Searchlight report different takes on tribal flag display in Pierre's Capitol Rotunda that our Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate neighbors seem more concerned with substantive legislative measures that deal with issues like housing than symbolic gestures like flags posted in the state capitol rotunda.
Certainly that was an observation in the last session when one of our District 1 state representatives observed to the South Dakota Searchlight:
. . . “Homeownership is a huge issue, housing is a huge issue on the reservations,” St. John said after the bill was introduced last week. “Those things are super important. So, we need to have conversations about these issues and not so much the prevailing cultural issues that take up the current [Tribal Relations] committee’s time.” . . .
Sadly, an oversight in another bill passed last session prevented tribal communities from participating in a $200 million housing infrastructure financing program created last year.
That oversight is being addressed in Pierre. From the South Dakota Searchlight:
Legislators endorse adding tribes to list of infrastructure grant-eligible entities
By John HultThe House State Affairs Committee signed off Friday on a bill that would open up a pool of housing infrastructure funding to tribal entities.
Rep. Tyler Tordsen, R-Sioux Falls, described House Bill 1041 as a “small but important technical fix” to the $200 million housing infrastructure financing program created last year.
That program has already awarded nearly $100 million to projects across the state to support the construction of things like streets, streetlights and water and sewer infrastructure for housing projects.
The issue addressed by HB 1041 revolves around the ultimate ownership of that state-supported infrastructure. In order to be eligible for a grant or loan through the program, a developer must pass along ownership of that infrastructure to a “political subdivision of the state.” Tribal governments are sovereign entities, not political subdivisions.
In practice, that’s meant developers could get money to build a street that later becomes the property of a city or county, but that they would not be able to get financial support for a street that would ultimately become the property of a reservation.
The Oglala Lakota County School District was able to take advantage of the program to build teacher housing, but only because, as a public school system, the district is a political subdivision of the state and took ownership of the streets and water lines.
Tordsen’s bill would expand eligibility by adding “any federally recognized Indian tribe” to the list of eligible entities.
Tordsen, a member of the tribe known as the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, said he’ll take “any chance I get to remind folks that tribal members are South Dakotans, too,” and that “certainly there’s some housing challenges in our rural communities and in tribal communities.”
“We think that this is super important,” Tordsen said.
The bill has an emergency clause, meaning it would take effect immediately if signed by Gov. Kristi Noem, instead of in July when most adopted legislation becomes law.
A lobbyist for three housing and economic development organizations testified in favor of HB 1041, and no one testified against it.
Rep. Roger Chase, R-Huron, echoed Tordsen, some of the lobbyists and a handful of other committee members when he called the exclusion of tribes an unfortunate oversight.
“There was never any intention to leave the Indian reservations out of the infrastructure funding,” Chase said.
The bill passed 12-1, with Rep. Jon Hansen, R-Dell Rapids, voting against it. Hansen voted against the infrastructure funding program bill in 2023.
Tordsen is the son of St. John, the tribal archivist.
I'd mentioned tribal housing in yesterday's post and it's good to see Tordsen leading the House to fix this problem.
Photo: Teacher homes on the Pine Ridge Reservation. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight).
Related posts
- Tales of two flag ceremonies? Scout, South Dakota Searchlight report different takes on tribal flag display in Pierre's Capitol Rotunda
- South Dakota Searchlight: Tribal leaders urge legislators to support reestablishment of Lake Traverse Reservation boundaries
- Education, taxes, crime: notable bills filed ahead of South Dakota’s 2024 legislative session
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