Cole, housing ocials meet with tribal leaders to strengthen housing access for Native Americans
OKLAHOMA CITY – With more than 523,000 tribal members living in Oklahoma, the meeting last week between the federal Housing and Urban Development agency and Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole wasn’t a big fight.
The meeting was, instead, held to solve a simple problem – finding ways to help more tribal leaders buy a house.
Held Thursday at the Chickasaw Nation Community Center, the meeting featured Cole and HUD Secretary Scott Turner and examined ways to increase affordable housing, better access to financing and ways to streamline federal requirements tribes encounter when they want to purchase a home.
Turner described the meeting as productive.
“Today we had a very productive discussion about some of the needs, some of the issues that the tribes do have, but also some of the victories that they’re having to promote self-sufficiency,” he said.
For Cole, who is a member of the Chickasaw Nation, the meeting was the chance to hear about the problems.
“We had a lot of tribes here talking about…