GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The federal government announced Friday that a guaranteed home loan program for American Indians has been expanded to include tribal members in Indiana, Michigan and Minnesota living outside their reservations.

In most states, the program was previously available only to those with reservation homes. Last month, tribes in Arizona, Florida and Wisconsin became the country's first to start using the expanded Section 184 Indian Housing Loan Guarantee Program.

Tribal leaders and representatives of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development held a news conference Friday in Chicago to announce the HUD program's expansion into the three Midwestern states.

"What it really means is it's going to allow greater access for our tribal members to secure home ownership through guaranteed loans," said John Miller, tribal chairman of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians.

The tribe is based in Dowagiac, about 23 miles north-northeast of South Bend, Indiana, and federally recognized in Michigan and Indiana. It was one of four Midwestern tribes that asked HUD to expand their "Indian areas" under the Section 184 program.

Reservation property is considered communal. Banks have traditionally been leery of offering loans for reservation homes because if the owners default, there's no way to foreclose on the property.