Federal rule change could undo decades of progress for tribal communities

A woman walks into our building for the first time, carrying more than she will ever put into words — grief, distance from family and distance from the culture taken from her before she was old enough to hold onto it.

She is not looking for a program. She is looking for a place where she is not the first thing that needs to be explained. She is searching for commitment and stability. At the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (MIWRC) in Minneapolis, that is the work: showing up, repeatedly, and long enough for trust to become possible. It is slow work. It is also the only kind that heals anything.

That work is now at risk — not because it has failed, but because of a rule most people have never heard of. 

On May 29, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed the most significant rewrite of federal grantmaking rules in more than a decade — proposed changes to 2 CFR Part 200 (Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance). If finalized this fall, it will reshape how nearly every federal grant in the country is administered — including the ones that help make our work possible. 

We want to be honest about what that means in human terms, not just budget terms. For nearly 42 years, MIWRC has built relationships with American Indian women and families across Minnesota — relationships that took years to earn, rooted in a history where tribal communities have far too often been studied, surveilled and let down by systems that claimed to help. That history is why our work cannot be rushed, and why stability matters so much: staff who stay long enough to be trusted, programs that are still there next year and the year after, funding that does not vanish the moment priorities shift in Washington.

The proposed rule threatens exactly that stability. It would give federal agencies broad new authority to end grants early if they no longer align with shifting federal priorities — regardless of how well a program is working or how many families depend on it. It would eliminate simpler, lump-sum federal grantmaking structures in favor of reimbursement models that require organizations to front costs before recovering them. This shift would hit smaller, community-based nonprofits hardest. 

Related: How federal grantmaking changes under Trump affect Minnesota

MIWRC’s housing program could be in jeopardy if this rule passes. The program provides American Indian women and families with access to safe, stable housing and culturally grounded support to help residents build lasting stability. Our approach recognizes that housing is more than a roof over someone’s head. For many of the women and families we serve, housing stability is closely tied to safety, family reunification, economic security, healing and connection to community and culture.

This program matters because safe and stable housing is the foundation for nearly every other form of stability in a person’s life. It is extraordinarily difficult to focus on employment, education, health, family or healing when you do not know where you will sleep tomorrow. For our community, access to safe and stable housing means more than a permanent address. It means safety, dignity, consistency and the opportunity to reconnect with family, community and culture.

In looking at tribal matters, it would restrict the use of federal grantmaking funds for anything the rule defines as promoting diversity, equity or inclusion — language broad enough to cast doubt on the very idea of culturally specific care, care that exists because generic, one-size-fits-all systems have never truly served American Indian communities. 

We say all of this without anger toward the goals OMB has named — transparency, accountability and less waste. Those are worth wanting. No one benefits when public money is mismanaged, including us. But accountability and erasure are not the same thing, and a rule broad enough to sweep away decades of hard-won, culturally grounded trust in the name of efficiency is not accountability. It is a failure to see the people on the other end of the funding line.

The public comment period on this rule closed on July 13, but the story is not finished. The rule is not yet final, and the version that eventually takes effect — expected Oct. 1 — can still be shaped by attention, by funders asking hard questions and by communities insisting on being seen before a decision is made about them, not after.

We are telling this story because so few people know it is happening, and because the woman who walked through our door deserves a country that notices before it acts, not after. American Indian communities have always found ways to persist through changing policy. We will keep doing exactly that, together. But persistence should not have to mean doing more with less, again, especially when the people most affected were never given a seat at the table where these rules were written.

We are asking funders, policymakers and neighbors alike: Pay attention to this rule now, while there is still time to be heard — not later, when the only thing left to do is mourn what is gone.

Ruth Buffalo is president and CEO of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (MIWRC) in Minneapolis.

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