Indians denied home loans

By: Mike Nowatzki

Willard Yellow Bird says he wanted to buy a home in his native North Dakota.

Yellow Bird, an Arikara from White Shield on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, ended up in Moorhead instead because he and his wife were able to get a low-interest mortgage through a program offered by her tribe, the Red Lake Band of Chippewa.

“The only stipulation was we had to live in Minnesota,” he said.

But Yellow Bird isn’t complaining. Many other American Indians who try to get home loans aren’t as successful.

A Forum analysis of home loan applications for 2006 found that lenders denied one out of every three applications made by American Indians in North Dakota and more than one out of every four in Minnesota.

American Indians are North Dakota’s largest racial minority, accounting for 5.2 percent of the state’s population in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Indians accounted for 1.1 percent of the state’s home loan applications last year.

“I think a lot of the Natives don’t even try,” said Yellow Bird, safety coordinator for the city of Fargo and a liaison to the city’s Native American Commission. “They’re just so used to getting denied.”

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