Tina Smith

I first want to thank Senator Smith and this Committee for your efforts to enact the Leech Lake Reservation Restoration Act.

Thank you so much, Chair Schatz and Vice Chair Murkowski, for holding this hearing today and including my bill, the Leech Lake Reservation Restoration Technical Corrections Act of 2023.

These changes, though technical, are crucial for implementing the existing law and to fulfill our goal and our trust and treaty responsibilities of restoring illegally taken lands to Leech Lake.

I very much appreciated your testimony, as you reviewed some of the history of the illegal land transfers which is, of course, as you pointed out, part of the long legacy of taking land from the Ojibwe people in this place that is now…

We have a responsibility to support the economic development of Native communities.

You cannot have balloon payments. You cannot have rapidly increasing monthly payments that basically price people out of an ability to own their own home.

The seller keeps everything, and the person who has been paying in does not have any opportunity for any kind of redress at all.

So I want to just start out by clarifying a bit about what is happening here with these contracts-for-deed.

The reforms to Federal law that the Collaborative has accomplished with Senator Tina Smith and other allies on Capitol Hill means that not only Minnesota Tribes will have access to increased Federal funding support but hundreds of other…

I would like to thank the Chair of the Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development Senator Tina Smith and Ranking Republican Member Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming, for holding the hearing on housing for American Indians and…

The reform to the Federal law that the collaborative has accomplished with Senator Tina Smith and other allies on Capitol Hill means that not only Minnesota Tribes will have access to increased Federal funding support but hundreds of…

Native housing emerged as a top priority for both of us.

If you do not have a safe, decent place to call home, nothing else in your life works.

The reforms to Federal law that the Collaborative has accomplished with Senator Tina Smith and other allies on Capitol Hill means that not only Minnesota Tribes will have access to increased Federal funding support but hundreds of other…

I would like to thank the Chair of the Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development Senator Tina Smith and Ranking Republican Member Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming, for holding the hearing on housing for American Indians and…

The reform to the Federal law that the collaborative has accomplished with Senator Tina Smith and other allies on Capitol Hill means that not only Minnesota Tribes will have access to increased Federal funding support but hundreds of…

If you do not have a safe, decent place to call home, nothing else in your life works.

Housing challenges in Native communities stretch across the entire housing continuum.

Native housing emerged as a top priority for both of us.

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order. There being no objection, the Senate, at 6:32 p.m., adjourned until Tuesday, June 13, 2023, at 10 a.m. ____________________

The reform to the Federal law that the collaborative has accomplished with Senator Tina Smith and other allies on Capitol Hill means that not only Minnesota Tribes will have access to increased Federal funding support but hundreds of…

If you do not have a safe, decent place to call home, nothing else in your life works.

Native housing emerged as a top priority for both of us.

The reforms to Federal law that the Collaborative has accomplished with Senator Tina Smith and other allies on Capitol Hill means that not only Minnesota Tribes will have access to increased Federal funding support but hundreds of other…

I would like to thank the Chair of the Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development Senator Tina Smith and Ranking Republican Member Cynthia Lummis, Wyoming, for holding the hearing on housing for American Indians and…