MORTON -- The Lower Sioux Mdewakanton Community has received a federal grant under the Indian Housing Block Grant Program.
The grant of $196,640 was announced by the office of U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn. The Indian Housing Block Grant Program provides direct grants to tribal governments to provide affordable housing for American Indian communities.
The community receives a similar grant annually, said Karen Bogan, housing director for the Lower Sioux Community near Morton.
A variety of programs benefit from the grants, Bogan said, and this year's grant will mostly benefit a new tribally based rental assistance program.
"I am really proud of this new program we're doing," she said. "It will help a lot of families."
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The funding will be used to help low-income Native Americans living on and near the reservation, she said.
Some of those to be aided by the program include American Indians who have completed treatment at a treatment center operated on the reservation. Participants come from all over the region and often remain in the area for a time after leaving the program.
The grant funding will also be used to assist American Indians families from other reservations who moved to the area to work at Jackpot Junction Casino.
"I am pleased that the Lower Sioux Mdewakanton community will benefit from this funding," Dayton said in a news release. "Affordable, safe housing should be available to all families."
The grant program, a program of the Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act of 1996, provides a range of affordable housing activities on Indian reservations and Indian areas. Block grant funds can be used for modernization and operating assistance for low-income housing, new construction, housing services, crime prevention and safety, and model activities that present creative approaches to solving affordable housing problems.
