Economic discrimination in housing

Economic discrimination in housing

By Joseph Budd

 Native Sun News Today Staff Writer

 

Sometimes discrimination is strong enough one can’t ignore it.

Other times, it’s a subtle effort, ingrained by the way a system works, and designed to punish people.

Rapid City, the largest city in the western South Dakota, is going through a painful growth period that seems to be getting worse as time goes on. Already stretched for housing issues, some places are looking outside the city to build, some are setting up apartment complexes, and Box Elder, where the Air Force will have a new bomber added to Ellsworth, is also building out where tall grasses once lined the landscape.

And both locations, are seriously behind the curve on what’s needed. Now, this affects a portion of the population that isn’t flush in liquid assets, have existing collateral or a history to draw from.

Now, this is a problem that does affect everyone. However, Native Americans carry the brunt of it, based on where they’re coming from. Take a single person, who is an enrolled Lakota, wanting to move to Rapid City. They have a job prospect, say to work at the mall. First they’d need to find housing, which for simple terms could be with a friend or family member who already lives here. Then, over the next couple months, they’d need to save up what they can, to meet a deposit on a place to live, be it an apartment, a house to rent, etc. Currently, the numbers show about 2 percent of our housing options have vacancies. Granted, these 2 percent might be over-priced for our market or are short term options.

So after saving say 3 months, this person tries to go rent a place. This would be their first rental, so they don’t have a previous landlord to contact, they might not have any credit to speak of. So the landlord will ask for a first and last month rent up front. This might not be bad, with older apartments that charge $800 a month. But some places now are at $2000 a month, minimum, an unheard of price just a few years back. Due to a number of factors, new construction, out of state owners and the market, affect these rates, which in turn, forces those who can’t meet the increases, to either move to lower priced apartments or move out of the city entirely. Some apartment complexes, are also geared to low income places locally too.

So, now we have a place to live, then comes the rest of the sticker shock. Moving up here, there’s additional costs that need to be paid. Phones, if not already being used. Electricity. Water. Garbage. Gas. When living down on the reservation, some of these were free of charge. It’s an extra item to take into consideration. Likewise for some, some apartments do run specials to combine costs into the rental costs, so shopping around, may be good. But currently, there is not a lot of choices period.

Now, it is a stretch, but the other option in this current day and age, is buying a home. Again, this is a long shot, give a person may not have the liquid assets or collateral to put up with a bank. The home markets, which divide up the city are pretty much basic as known to folks on the Reservation. North Rapid, and to its extension, has Lakota Homes. Robbinsdale, for all its size, also does have medium to low cost housing options, while homes on the west side, and tend to be more pricy. Now where it becomes a question mark, stems from how banks like to operate. Granted not everyone can go in and afford a down payment on a place, nor does everyone just starting out have a credit history or would qualify to receive a loan offer. But it does make one wonder, if a person is forced to shell out $2000 dollars a month, every month to keep a roof over their heads, why wouldn’t a bank offer a loan that at most, maybe $800 a month?

On the City side of issues, Rapid City is presently in its own glut of construction projects, ranging from apartment complexes going up on the outskirts of town, to a large tower in the middle of the city that will house both apartments and businesses. Sites outside the city limits, renovations and box elder is also looking to add housing to offset the large influx of people, as the new B-21 bomber could see the city add up to 40,000 residents.

Recently, the town had a press Conference, talking about how the bomber was going to affect the housing market here in Rapid City. Numbers were presented, and Elevate Rapid City President and CEO, Tom Johnson mentioned that the city sees an average of 2,500 people move here, every year. With the base expansion on the horizon, this number could grow by 7,000, giving the city a growth of 25,000 to 40,000 in a few years.

A housing study done about 5 year in the past, in 2017 had shown at that time the city was behind maybe 3,500, while Johnson said the area currently has a need for as many as 6,000 more housing units. Also of interest, 4500 of these households, were paying more than 50 percent of their household income for housing. To highlight the problem, the Mayor, Steve Allender mentioned that housing prices in 2 years had gone up from 271,400 in 2019, to 371,400 in 2021. Rental cost spikes also were highlighted, going up 10 percent in just the last year.

With only 2 percent vacancies, and scarce housing options availability, there isn’t a lot of options to look at in the market. Some folks have started looking at housing in other towns or locations out of towns. Rapid Valley used to be a good go-to option for folks, but with city annexation cutting up the suburb, folks are seeking further distant locations to move. New suburbs, off of Hwy 44 towards Scenic and north of town off Haines, are drawing interest, if money can be found to support projects. One project in the works, involving a company called CommonBond, is based out of Minnesota, is looking to build a 42 unit development on LaCrosse, with funds coming from the Strategic Housing Trust Fund, developed based off of data from 2017 study. Targeting to the need for affordable housing in the city, it may provide some relief to folks moving here. There is funding options available from a number of groups, such as the Vucurevich Foundation, the Dakota Charitable Foundation, and even the city’s Vision funds for groups to work with the Community Foundation. And there’s also the local group, COUP, which could help the local indigenous people seek housing.

How can this problem be addressed? The hardest part, is private businesses have done business this way for years. Standard answers, would usually range that you could seek out another bank, or try to find one tailored to your needs. Some places down on the reservation have actually started to do just that, with the Lakota Fund, First Peoples Fund, and the Lakota Federal Credit Union. However, the options there, are usually limited to on Reservation lands. Maybe it’s for the banks to expand into the Rapid City market. There’s Credit Unions up here that are tailored to teachers, the military and doctors. It’s a big market to explore and develop. Maybe then when said banks lose accounts and business, they’ll realize it wasn’t good business sense to discriminate against people trying to improve their ways of life.

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