Navajo Housing Decried
Lawmakers Tour Life on Reservation

by Judy Nichols 
The Arizona Republic 
04 May 2004
   

NAVAJO RESERVATION - Marie Keams, 49, humbly welcomed members of Congress into the two-room house south of Cameron where she raised seven children.

One room held two beds, two couches, dressers and a wood stove. The other room had a propane stove and an U.S. flag taped over the door.

No electricity. No running water. And the well outside is contaminated with oil, so Keams is forced to get her drinking water from the Cameron chapter house several miles away.

"I've been to 48 or 50 different countries, and that housing is comparable to the Third World," said Rep. Robert Ney, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Financial Services subcommittee on housing and community opportunity.

"Those are the toughest living conditions I've seen."

Ney and members of his subcommittee were on a tour of housing on the reservation before attending the first housing subcommittee hearing ever held on Native American land.

The tour was arranged by Rep. Rick Renzi, who was appalled at housing he saw in his district after being elected about 18 months ago.

"I visited Kaibito and saw three children living in a mud hut with their grandmother," Renzi, a Republican who represents Arizona's 1st Congressional District, said. "Their stomachs were distended with dysentery.

"When I came home, I cried," Renzi said. "I thought, 'How can I call myself a congressman and not do something about this?' "

During a late-night hearing, about 2 a.m. in the House, Renzi asked Ney to come see the conditions himself.

He agreed and the tour and hearing were set up.

"Something is wrong," Ney said. "Some wire is crossed somewhere."

Housing on reservations is substandard because of poverty and the lack of infrastructure like water, sewer and electrical service. Because much of the land is held in trust for the tribe by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, individuals do not own it and cannot use it for collateral to secure loans or mortgages.

Because of the lack of employment, many tribal members cannot qualify for credit.

Another member of the subcommittee, Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said she represents inner city areas of Los Angeles, which contain large pockets of poverty.

"They're heaven compared to this," Waters said. "It's unbelievable seeing this kind of poverty in America. It's like South Africa."

In Bodaway Gap, west of Tuba City, the group visited the home site of Betty Wilson, 80, whose house burned down three years ago.

Because she lives in the area involved in the Hopi-Navajo land dispute, she has been unable to rebuild and is living in a 6- by 8-foot tent shored up with tarps and bits of wood she scavenges. A stovepipe sticks up from the front of the tent and a discarded school desk serves as a table.

Through an interpreter, Wilson, who speaks only Navajo, said she was depressed when her house burned down because she lost everything.

Asked if she stays warm, she laughed and said, "I'm outside with the sheep most of the time."

Last on the tour was a modern eight-sided hogan built with 9-inch pine logs.

The house was built with high-school labor and federal grant money through the non-profit company Indigenous Community Enterprises.

Annie Jackson, 58, said she has been waiting for the home since 1980.

When she finally walked in, stepping onto the smooth concrete floor and seeing the finished walls, she prayed.

"I was real thankful," said Jackson, who has raised 10 children and has 22 grandchildren, five of whom are in her custody. "I cried some tears. It's 100 percent better than the old hogan. That one, the roof was collapsing and the rain was coming in."

One of Jackson's sons and his children are living in the old hogan, which has an uneven concrete floor and walls held together with only a few nails.

At the hearing in Tuba City after the tour, the subcommittee heard from the heads of several Native American tribes, including Kathleen Kitcheyen, chairwoman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe; Joe Shirley Jr., president of the Navajo Nation; Chad Smith, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma; Johnny Endfield, vice chairman of the White Mountain Apache Tribe; and Wayne Taylor Jr., chairman of the Hopi Tribe.

The leaders said that, at the current funding level, it would take 123 years to meet the current need. And budgets are being cut each year.

Committee members vowed to return to Washington and work for improved funding and other solutions

They also said they were disappointed that representatives of the BIA did not attend, even though they were invited. The committee members said they would meet with them in Washington to discuss the issues.

"We are very patriotic, and many of our members have served in Iraq and we are proud of them," Kitcheyen said.

"But when we see billions being spent in Iraq to build their homes and infrastructure, we wonder why the United States is helping them while putting the issues of the First Americans aside."

   

    


Reprinted as an historical reference document under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law. http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html