The Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund works to promote development in Indian Country. The CDFI Fund's work in Indian Country is born of an awareness that Native communities all across the Nation face extraordinary economic challenges and limited access to capital. Soon after the CDFI Fund's creation, it began a comprehensive, multi-year study of lending and investment practices on Indian reservations and other land held in trust by the United States. In 2001, the CDFI published the landmark Native American Lending Study. The study concluded that one of the key reasons...

It is often said that children are our most precious resource. Nowhere is this more visible than in tribal communities, yet some disturbing realities persist. Studies show that Native children suffer from high rates of trauma, abuse and exposure to violence. A 2008 report by the Indian Country Child Trauma Center calculated that Native youth are two-and-a-half times more likely to experience trauma when compared to their non-Native peers. The reasons are multi-factorial, related to recurrent abuse, accompanied with high incidences of alcohol and drug abuse, suicide, and violence. The death of...

Irrigation systems are vitally important for economic development on a number of reservations in this Country. Often these systems benefit both Indian and non-Indian communities. There are over 100 irrigation systems across Indian Country that are owned and managed by the Department of Interior. These systems range in size, the smallest may focus on only subsistence farming while some of the larger projects can span tens of thousands of acres of critical components for the tribal economies that they serve. All together, these irrigation systems reach about 1 billion acres. A smaller set of...

Throughout Indian Country, drugs affect communities in unfathomable ways. Both the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation and the Bureau of Indian Affairs have generally noted that drug abuse often leads to other crimes, including theft, burglary, assaults and even homicide. For far too long, the Wind River Reservation had one of the highest rates of violent crimes in Indian Country. In 2009, the Wind River Reservation was selected for the Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement pilot program to reduce violent crime. It was called the High Priority Performance Goals Program. According to...

In the late 1880s and early 1890s, the Department of Interior initiated irrigation projects across Indian reservations in the west. These irrigation projects were intended to be a central component for tribal economies. Construction of these projects ended sometime in the 1940s and many irrigation projects were never fully completed. In 2006, the Government Accountability Office found many of these projects were plagued by maintenance issues, structural deficiencies and insufficient funding for project operations. Many ranchers and farmers, both Indian and non-Indian, still depend on the...

S. 710, the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Reauthorization Act of 2015 or NAHASDA is similar to past bills introduced since NAHASDA's reauthorization ended in 2013. Reauthorization of NAHASDA has been an important priority for Indian Country. The United States is responsible for improving Indian people's housing conditions. Improved housing conditions empower tribes to take greater responsibility for their own economic condition. In 1996, NAHASDA consolidated Federal Indian housing programs into one law. NAHASDA also furthered principles of self-governance through...

Federal data shows that Indian communities face some of the highest victimization rates in the Country. Native youth experience violent crime rates up to ten times the national rate. Violence is pervasive and tied to 75 percent of deaths among American Indian and Alaska Natives between the ages of 12 and 20. American Indian women are murdered at a rate of more than ten times the national average on some reservations. Most tribes do not have emergency shelters for crime victims. Most tribes do not have facilities or personnel for the delivery of critical services, such as medical care and...