U.S. Sens. Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) recently requested a federal review of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Native American Direct Loan program (NADL), which allows eligible Native American military veterans to finance the construction, purchase or improvement of a home on federal trust land.
Specifically, Sens. Moran and Rounds, who serve as chairman and member, respectively, of the U.S. Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee (SVAC), joined a bipartisan contingent of their colleagues in calling on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct the review.
“Given the passage of time since your 2002 report, the findings from your report, program changes since 2002, and the current low levels of participation by Native American veterans in the NADL program, we are concerned that the program is not effectively serving Native American veterans as intended,” the senators wrote in a recent letter sent to Gene Dodaro, Comptroller General of the GAO.
The lawmakers are concerned that the NADL program is not meeting its congressional intent to provide Native American veterans living on trust land with an accessible home loan option, according to their letter.
For instance, since the GAO’s 2002 evaluation, there have been significant changes to the law establishing the NADL program, including amendments that made the NADL program permanent and that eliminated a standard cap on the principal for individual loans, the senators wrote.
“The number of tribes whose members are eligible to participate in this program has also increased, with the VA currently tracking 111 NADL Memoranda of Understanding with various tribal governments,” Sens. Moran, Rounds, and their colleagues wrote.
At the same time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Rural Development service is executing a pilot program for trust land home lending under its single-family housing loan program and USDA will not be making a direct loan.
Instead, according to the senators, USDA will make a block grant of funds for guaranteed home loans to a number of Certified Development Financial Institutions, which, in turn, collaborate with tribal outreach officers to provide credit and personal finances counseling, homebuyer education and application assistance to maximize tribal members’ chances for loan approval.
Sens. Moran, Rounds, and their colleagues want to know what practices USDA’s pilot program will use to provide education and application support and how such practices compare to those used by the VA.
The senators also requested that the GAO evaluation address several other questions, such as what steps the VA has taken to collect comprehensive data on Native American veterans eligible to participate in the NADL program and to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in serving them; how the VA has and could improve access to credit and financial literacy; and what appraisal practices need to be reviewed that specifically relate to Native American home buyers, including those on Native American reservations, according to their letter.