Investing where traditional banks won't: Building success and community in Indian Country


Rollin Wood, executive director, Native Partnership for Housing

Challenge: The Navajo Nation covers more than 27,000 square miles. Seventy percent of those living in the nation earn less than $15,000 per year. Many banks will not lend to residents of sovereign Native American Nations out of fear they will not be able to foreclose on delinquent loans.


Some community-development organizations think the foreclosure crisis is over, but there’s a new emergency now hitting the elderly hard, says Lou Tisler, who recently left Neighborhood Housing Services of Greater Cleveland after 12 years as executive director. That new crisis is tax foreclosures — the sale of a property due to unpaid tax liabilities.





America is in the midst of a savings crisis. Approximately one of every two American households are considered “financially fragile,” according to the Federal Reserve Bank, whose 2016 study found that 47 percent of respondents to a national survey could not cover an unexpected $400 expense without going into debt.