Pandemic pushes more S.D. reservation residents to seek homeownership
Nick Lowrey
South Dakota News Watch
The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed more Native Americans living on reservations in South Dakota to seek homeownership, a potential step toward greater family financial security and community stability in some of the state’s most impoverished regions.
But long-standing institutional, economic and geographic barriers continue to block some reservation residents from buying a home.
During the first six months of 2020, 193 people enrolled in first-time homebuyer and financial literacy classes offered by reservation-based community development groups as a prelude to buying a home. During all of 2019, 190 people enrolled in the courses, according to data collected by the South Dakota Native Homeownership Coalition.