Surveying the Geography of Opportunity for Indigenous Residents in Metro America

Indigenous Americans (including American Indians, Alaska Natives, Indigenous Latin Americans, Native Hawaiians, Chamorros, Samoans, and other Pacific Islanders under US jurisdiction and protectorship) have resided in the nation's largest metropolitan areas for generations. Many of these residents struggle to afford the basic costs of living, due to the long-term consequences of Western colonization and racial exclusion, current-day barriers to essential safety net resources for Indigenous peoples, and the broader housing affordability crisis that all working Americans face. However, Indigenous residents' housing challenges can be overlooked within housing justice circles, as Indigenous communities are often smaller than other communities of color in large metro areas.

This report — the third and final release in our series exploring the changing geography of opportunity in American metropolitan regions by race and ethnicity — surveys housing affordability challenges for Indigenous renters across the nation. It compares changes in market rent and median household income for Indigenous renters in 76 of the 100 largest US metros between 2013 and 2019. Our analysis reveals that very few communities in these metros were affordable for Indigenous renters, even as the number of affordable neighborhoods increased slightly over this period. In addition to affordability issues, Indigenous renters face a host of related challenges around housing quality, employment, and health.

To learn more about the growing gap in access to affordable housing and opportunity-rich neighborhoods for Black, Latinx, and low-income renters from 2013 to 2019, delve into the data and findings within the anchor report from this series. The second report explores the uneven access to affordable housing for Asian American and Pacific Islander renters in the nation's largest metros over the same time period.

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