The Yurok Tribe will turn nearly $7 million in federal tax credits into new and remodeled homes, part of the tribe’s effort to address what officials describe as a desperate situation for tribal housing development.

The plan includes a constructed four-plex of seven single-family homes and renovation of six additional homes in Tulley Creek. When finished, the new complex will include a community building with a meeting area, smoke houses and laundry rooms.

It will be a boost for the tribe’s housing availability, which Chairman Joe James said Wednesday has been a continuing struggle. Homelessness on the tribe’s reservation in Weitchipec has stemmed from its 80% poverty rate.

“Our extremely rural area of the Yurok Reservation has a high need for family housing opportunities,” James said in an email.

In order to curb the housing struggles, the Yurok Tribal Housing Authority, developed in 1995, has spent the past few years securing federal grants and launching community-building projects for low-income homes. Developing larger-scale housing plans has come with obstacles, the organization’s executive director Nicole Sager said Wednesday.

“Limited infrastructure (roads, water, wastewater and power) have meant that housing development comes at a high cost to the Tribe and without outside funders, the project would be impossible,” Sager said in an email.

With construction set for March, the Woo-Mehl “Acorn” project is the culmination of federal low-income housing credits the tribe secured through the federal government, as well as a private investment by Hunt Capital Partners, a low-income housing firm.

Tribal officials hope to finish construction by 2021. The units will also include tribal services to address some of the reservation’s social issues.

“Residents will have access to… adult education, health, and skill-building classes,” Hunt Capital Partners stated in a release. “There will also be a home-buyer education program as well as a program to assist tribal members that have experienced domestic violence or sexual assault.”

Shomik Mukherjee can be reached at 707-441-0504.