Alaska takes the largest state share of a national tribal housing round, and Chilkoot ties for the top direct-to-tribe award

Alaska took the largest share of any state in this month's national tribal housing competition: three of 18 awards, $15,742,590 of the $87,631,257 round, or 18.0 percent. The Chilkoot Indian Association in Haines received $5 million on Sept. 10, and the Louden Tribe in Galena $4.74 million the same day, both through the federal Indian Housing Block Grant Competitive program. Both awards run through Sept. 30, 2033, and no money has been drawn against either.

Most block grant money goes out by formula for construction, rehabilitation and housing services. Congress has required since 2018 that some be awarded by competition, which HUD says funds projects beyond what the formula provides. Only 18 were made nationwide, against 593 eligible tribes and housing entities, about 3 percent.

The third, $6 million to Cook Inlet Housing Authority in Anchorage, is dated Sept. 8. Over the federal year Alaska accounts for $171,398,642 of $1,204,457,247 in block grant obligations nationally, 14.2 percent, third behind Arizona and Oklahoma.

Most Alaska housing money moves through regional housing authorities such as AVCP, Interior, Tlingit Haida, Bering Straits, Bristol Bay and Cook Inlet. Eleven of the 18 winners were housing authorities or tribally designated housing entities, the organizations tribes set up to run housing programs, and seven were tribes, bands or pueblos applying directly. Chilkoot's ties the Pala Band of Mission Indians for the largest of those seven; Louden's is fourth, behind Quartz Valley Indian Reservation's $4,970,388.

At a Commonwealth North panel Aug. 28, Griffin Forster, executive director of the Association of Alaska Housing Authorities, said the block grant "allows individual tribes to determine their own approaches to meeting need, whether that's new rental units, whether it's homebuyer units and assistance, rehabilitation, weatherization, serving elders, that sort of thing."

HUD does not yet know whether the competition does what Congress asked. A May 27 Federal Register notice sought approval to survey all 593 eligible entities and interview up to 30 tribal staff and contractors, to assess whether the program is "spurring new construction of affordable housing and enabling smaller tribes to build sooner than would be possible with formula funding." The comment period closed July 27 and no follow-up notice has published, so no tribe has been surveyed.

The award records do not say what either tribe plans to build. This account comes from those records and the notice; neither tribe is quoted, and the only person who is speaks for the housing authorities.