Tribal Lands

This is envisioned as a recipe for developing tribal lands in places like North America. If you haven't already, please first read Development in Very Underdeveloped Areas as some of those ideas may still be useful, but I am assuming a situation with more resources and ability to incorporate modern amenities. However, I've never been to a reservation so I don't actually know.

I've been thinking for some years about How do you modernize when the tribe owns the land because tribal lands prevent individuals from getting a mortgage. In order to get a mortgage, the real property -- aka land and improvements on it -- need to be something the loan originator can take if you default on your loan. 

When the tribe owns the land, the bank can't take it, so you cannot get a mortgage. This is a significant obstacle to development.

I began trying to problem solve by first thinking about how tribes handled this historically. Historically, tribal peoples typically had small, portable houses not permanently attached to the land.

This actually served two purposes, not one. In addition to your house not being permanently attached to a particular piece of land so your home was a separate legal entity from the jointly owned tribal lands, it supported a mobile lifestyle.

Tribal peoples tend to have mobile lifestyles and Native Americans typically had a summer campground and a winter campground from what I gather.

So probably tribal peoples think of their traditional dwellings in terms of the traditional lifestyle of moving around and taking their home with them and this may leave a blindspot for them regarding the less obvious but critical detail that this practice separated the structure from the land not only physically but legally.

Legal and physical severance meant you could own your home even though you couldn't own the land. And it was a good quality home for their needs and for the era.

You can still build yurts or teepees or similar traditional portable dwellings from various tribal cultures. The problem is they are generally poorly suited to modernizing.

Perhaps someone with a significant engineering background could dream up a way to add things like electricity and Internet to a teepee but I cannot. That's not my forte.

We do have modern mobile dwellings, such as RVs, and people do live in them full time but they aren't really intended to be lived in full time. RV is short for recreational vehicle. It's intended as a vacation home for short stints.

Tiny homes are another option.

I began reading about tiny homes decades ago, back in the 1980s. I believe I began reading about them shortly after they were created, so I got to follow the origin story and development.

They were dreamed up as a cheaper housing alternative and then the creator learned it's not legal to build a tiny house. There are standards intended to protect people from slumlords which dictate minimum size and they don't make allowances for "Well, unless you own it and are being creative or something."

So he scoured the codes and learned that if it were on wheels he could get around that requirement. So rather than fight city hall, he stuck it on wheels.

Decades later, tiny homes remain sort of a fringe movement. They have not been embraced generally as a legal option for housing.

They aren't legal to build as a main dwelling in probably MOST municipalities. If you want homeowners insurance, you have to remove the wheels and put them on a foundation. Etc. 

And I think those annoying legal speed bumps are likely rooted in some practical realities that make tiny homes not actually realistic as a viable permanent housing option.

For most people, it simply is not enough space. People who live in them routinely have outdoor eating areas and other outdoor spaces to make their life work.

And they are prone to being too humid which can cause mold to grow. Mold in a home is a serious threat to health, doubly so in such a small space.

But tiny homes are portable and not tied to the land. They are small enough to be something you can build without a mortgage even if you aren't wealthy.

I think they are a potential means to modernize life for people on tribal lands. And if the tribe built shared bathroom and laundry facilities and removed the bathroom and laundry appliances from the tiny home, it would probably go a long ways towards resolving the moisture issue, making it adequate space for many people and further reduce the cost of building it. 

You can potentially do something like a revolving fund (everyone pools their money to cover the first house, they pay it back, rinse and repeat) or Habitat for Humanity model where people provide labor on other houses in exchange for getting labor on theirs.

A criticism I see from tribal peoples is that single family detached suburban development is unsuited to the social organization and lifestyle of tribal peoples. So looking at tiny homes plus some shared facilities is a means to revive some of the traditional pieces of culture, lifestyle and social organization valued by tribespeople without keeping them stuck in primitive housing unsuitable to adding things like electricity, Internet and plumbing.

I read an article years ago, something about tribal people in Africa I think and how modern life is negatively impacting them. A tribal person who had lived on tribal lands and in the big city said something like "I wish I could have a brick house on my tribal lands and other than that live my traditional life. That would be perfect."

Yurts are a traditional tent-like structure and not permanently attached to the land and are cheaper than a typical home, so that's one potential solution but tiny homes redesigned for tribal life may be a means to get "a modern home, but otherwise my traditional tribal life "

You can readily attach solar power or have a propane stove in a tiny home, which may not be compatible with a yurt. So modern amenities, like electricity and Internet, may be doable in adapted or redesigned tiny homes while providing a viable solution in the face of an inability to get a mortgage and the reality that the reservation may be remote and off grid.

Additionally, reservations in the US frequently have serious water problems which I've written about here and here. I will also recommend the books Salt Dreams and Water for a Thirsty Land, which are about water development and water issues and history in Southern California and Fresno County California respectively.

Footnote 

One possibility: A building with showers, toilets laundry and any other shared facilities you wish to include in the middle with a wifi hotspot surrounded by designated small lots. Run electricity, water and sewer to each lot with existing tech like you see in RV parks. 

Let people choose a teepee, yurt or tiny house as they see fit. Put a door in every side of the building and cross halls so no one is walking a long ways to the toilet.

You may need several such groupings to house the entire tribe. I don't have enough info to suggest how many people per grouping.

You may be able to put more primitive facilities elsewhere on the reservation, such as latrines and tree urinals, and let people pack up their small home and go there periodically if they feel like it. 

This may allow the tribe to begin reviving hunting and foraging practices to put food on the table. This plus documenting the equivalent dollar value of the food acquired can also help begin restoring the self respect and dignity of the people who are probably disrespected and underpaid in the White Man's world.

If the meat from one deer is, say, 100 pounds, you can calculate how much it would cost to get 100 pounds of beef or 100 pounds of game meat from a ranch ordered online. Then calculate how many hours you would need to work to buy that after taxes, gas and maintenance on your vehicle for getting to work, etc.

Odds are high your traditional diet will be better tolerated ("healthier") for your people, so then you can calculate the savings in medical expenses for reduced disease compared to Natives living on whatever garbage diet you typically get from the White Man's grocery store.