*Reservations declare housing, health emergency FWD
Tom Boland (wgcp@earthlink.net)
Sun, 25 Oct 1998 08:12:35 -0400
http://www.ndonline.com/TribWebPage/oct1998/10219871551.html
FWD Wednesday, October 21, 1998
RESERVATION CECLARES EMERGENCY
Lauren Donovan, Bismarck Tribune
Tribal leaders declared a housing and health emergency on the Standing Rock
Sioux Indian Reservation Tuesday.
The declaration says conditions are reaching the breaking point at Standing
Rock. Half of the reservation's population of 10,000 lives in substandard
housing, nearly 3,000 are homeless, infants die at a rate 80 percent higher
than the national average and adults die 15 years sooner than the average
non-Indian.
Six other tribes, several of them Sioux, in South Dakota and Montana have
signed similar declarations in recent weeks.
Tribes in a state of emergency will send leaders to a White House-level
meeting in November to detail conditions on reservations in the three
states.
Wilbur Pleets, tribal contracting officer, said the Bureau of Indian
Affairs is not responding to real needs. The emergency declarations are
intended to force Congress to pay attention to conditions on the
reservation and activate federal agencies to respond.
"It's reached the point with our avenues with the BIA, nothing has
happened," Pleets said. He said Standing Rock gets $90,000 from the BIA
every year to improve housing, to serve 450 people who are on the list for
aid.
"At that rate, it would take an individual 35 years before we can get to
them. It's misleading for the tribe to give the applications to the members
and know we will never, ever get to them unless they're 5 years old when
they apply," Pleets said.
Pleets said Indians in every one of the Standing Rock communities are
suffering from housing conditions he describes as "deplorable, dilapidated
and substandard." He said there is a reservation member in his 40s who is
living in a shelter made of railroad ties, furnished with a stove and a
plywood bed.
While that's not typical, what is typical is housing with leaky roofs,
drafty windows and utilities in poor repair in which as many as 25 people
crowd in.
"The housing leads to health conditions. The two are in concert," Pleets said.
He said it is difficult for the head of the household to leave for work,
when those he leaves behind are suffering in the house. "It doesn't give a
good sense of well-being, because he can't take care of the daily struggles
that exist."
Tribal chairman Charles Murphy said Standing Rock needs $2.2 million, or
$5,000 each to repair the more than 440 substandard houses on the
reservation, but the BIA allocates less than $2 million for housing
improvements on reservations nationwide.
"The situation is urgent, life-threatening. This situation is totally
unacceptable," said Murphy.
Pleets said the federal government has treaty agreements to assist the
Sioux with health and housing in spite of the reservation's status as a
sovereign nation.
Advocate cites widespread crisis
A man who has emerged as one of the country's leading advocates for
American Indians is staging a conference in Bismarck starting today,
spotlighting state of emergency declarations by seven tribes in the Dakotas
and Montana.
Californian Phil Stevens, head of Operation Walking Shield, will talk at a
conference today and tomorrow at the Civic Center about what he calls
unprecedented declarations.
"They (declarations) are precipitated by two crises of extremely
devastating proportions, an extremely serious health crisis and an equally
destructive housing crisis," Stevens said.
He is calling for $150 million in emergency relief and a White House-level
conference in November among key administrative appointees and tribal
leaders.
Tribes that have declared a state of emergency are the Standing Rock Sioux
in North Dakota; the Oglala Sioux and Rosebud Sioux in South Dakota; and
the Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Assiniboine and Sioux in Montana.
Stevens started Operation Walking Shield to mobilize the federal government
to improve conditions on reservations.
Last year, the program resulted in moving surplus Grand Forks Air Force
Base housing to Solen and Cannon Ball. Eight more duplexes are scheduled to
be moved onto the reservation in the next several weeks.
Stevens said health and housing on reservations have deteriorated to a new
low. "They have now become a human tragedy and a blight upon the conscience
of America."
Statistics compiled by Operation Walking Shield indicate that deaths from
tuberculosis and alcohol are more than 1,000 percent above the national
average and deaths from diabetes and sudden infant death syndrome are more
than 300 percent higher. Housing statistics show that 29 percent of
American Indians are homeless, 60 percent live in substandard housing and
70 percent are severely overcrowded.
"American Indians have the worst health conditions of any group of
Americans, yet the government spends the least amount of money to address
the Indian health crisis," Stevens charges.
Tribal leaders, as well as appointed and elected officials and military
representatives, are expected at the conference. It is open to the public
starting with opening prayer at 9 a.m.
END FORWARD
** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. **
HOMELESS PEOPLE'S NETWORK <http://aspin.asu.edu/hpn/> Home Page
ARCHIVES <http://aspin.asu.edu/hpn/archives.html> read posts to HPN
TO JOIN <http://aspin.asu.edu/hpn/join.html> or email Tom <wgcp@earthlink.net>