The Obama administration is reaching out to Indian Country.
So if you have any doubt about the urgency or the value of investing in this community, I want you to just think about T.C. and all those other young people I met in Standing Rock. I want you to think about both the magnitude of their struggles and the deep reservoirs of strength and resilience that they draw on every day to face those struggles. Folks in Indian Country didn’t just wake up one day with addiction problems. Poverty and violence didn’t just randomly happen to this community. These issues are the result of a long history of systematic discrimination and abuse. So given this history, we shouldn’t be surprised at the challenges that kids in Indian Country are facing today. And we should never forget that we played a role in this. Make no mistake about it – we own this. [excerpt, Michelle Obama]
South Dakota remains the only state unvisited by President Obama though his team says he is determined to visit all fifty states by the end of his term.
A coalition, including representatives from South Dakota’s tribes, federal and state agencies, housing developers, and nonprofit organizations, is working together to support and increase native homeownership. According to Leslie Newman, who is a facilitator with Seven Sisters Community Development, the Native Homeownership Coalition works to educate and enable practitioners so that they may help more native families with home buying. [WNAX]
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