Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority has won a $2 million grant to help tribal citizens throughout Southeast Alaska become homeowners.
The housing authority’s Success Starts With Me program helps low-income tribal citizens qualify for mortgage loans and make down payments.
President and CEO Jacqueline Kus.een Pata said homeownership helps create stability and a sense of responsibility.
“It’s a shift in mindset,” she said. “When that father and that son lay that floor in their house together or paint the walls, they have a sense of pride and ownership. You don’t get that when you’re a tenant.”
Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority partners with 12 tribes in Southeast Alaska, including those in Petersburg, Wrangell and Skagway. In 2019, when they asked tribal citizens what they needed most, the most common answer was help buying a home.
COVID funding helped the housing authority kick off Success Starts With Me. Along with loan packages, the program also provides financial education and lessons on home maintenance.
Since then, the housing authority has built 10 homes in Angoon, Kake and Klowack through the program. Pata said some of the workers who built the homes then ended up buying them, with the help of Success Starts With Me. Four more homes are under construction, in Angoon, Kake and Kasaan.
The program also supports tribal citizens who want to buy existing homes. Pata said one tribal citizen has done that in Juneau.
“That was a better and more affordable choice than building a new home,” Pata said. “The cost of construction is sometimes higher than the homes you can buy off the marketplace.”
The $2 million grant comes from the Housing Affordability Breakthrough Challenge, a nationwide competition by the Wells Fargo Foundation and Enterprise Community Partners. The housing authority is one of six winners.
Christi Smith, who oversees the competition, said Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority was the only Alaska-based semifinalist out of 429 applicants.
“This is a program that’s the epitome of what the Breakthrough Challenge is all about,” she said.
The six winners form a cohort that will meet quarterly to discuss the successes and challenges of their projects. Smith said having Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority in that cohort will help the other winners have a better understanding of the housing challenges in Alaska, especially among tribal citizens.
“The Breakthrough Challenge is not about one idea in one place that only supports one community,” she said. “It’s about, how can we create new solutions for the broader field?”
Smith said having Tlingit Haida Regional Housing Authority in this year’s cohort means other winners will discuss expanding to Alaska.
“Those are the opportunities that this cohort brings to light,” Smith said. “If we were to bring our innovation to Alaska, what would that look like? What changes would need to be made so that it could be applied to these different communities that have very different needs from where the idea is originally being piloted?”
Other winners of the 2023 competition include a workforce development high school in Birmingham and a modular home manufacturer in Pittsburgh. Pata said she was inspired by other winners’ work on energy efficiency and shared equity models.
“There were a lot of really innovative, creative ideas,” she said. “I’m looking forward to ongoing dialogue and learning from them.”
