Opinion

Jeffrey Whalen: Oglala Sioux Tribe operating as a slum lord

Friday, May 20, 2011

The following opinion by Jeffrey Whalen, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, appears in the current issue of the Native Sun News. All content © Native Sun News.

When Ellsworth Air Force Base made the donations of homes to the Oglala Sioux Tribe it seemed like a good day for us here on the reservation.

And when the FEMA trailers started to arrive from New Orleans that seemed like a good day for the Oglalas as well. The first message that we all got from the tribal administration was that these homes were to go to the needy of the reservation.

When the Ellsworth homes started to arrive they were stored in a field at Medicine Root District. The cost to move the homes was staggering to the housing authority here on the reservation. The administration held up the distribution of the homes while wondering how to recover some of the costs.

Then someone decided that the homes might be full of asbestos which is a material that potentially causes cancer. And the distribution of the homes was delayed again.

Finally, after an extended period of time and an extensive review for asbestos, they decided to release the homes provided individuals submitted $25,000.00 to the housing authority. Those who had the money could afford to put in basements, water, sewer and electricity.

One such home was delivered to Slim Buttes near the south western corner of the Pine Ridge rez. A full basement was built at the home site. The home was delivered and set up complete with water, sewer and electricity.

When I first saw it, I was thinking that it would be a good place to live for the homeowner. Then as I approached the home I could smell a stench from 100 feet away and wondered what it was. When I got to the threshold I could smell the stench so great that it made my nose burn. The owner and I started cleaning everything that we could to remove the smell and still couldn’t get rid of it.

It was mice. I don’t know if the homes were mice infested when they were at Ellsworth, (probably not) or if they were mice infested after they got here, (probably so). I know the homes sat in a field for a few years and that is more than likely where the mice entered the homes. In essence, the OST Housing Authority without knowing it set up hotels and motels for mice when the homes were unoccupied.

We tore out the entire kitchen unit, including the stove which stank beyond recovery and threw everything away. In the process we found a hoard of mice nests under the cabinets. The stench was coming from the nests and from the flooring where the mice urinated.

The only way to get rid of the stench now is to remove the urine saturated flooring. But we found that the housing authority did not remove the original tile which may contain asbestos. They simply covered it up. Now it is soaked with mice urine and was delivered to the home site that way. The owner has no choice to remove the flooring and has no choice to remove the covered up flooring which may contain asbestos.

We have subsequently found that we have to remove the walls and insulation because, guess what? The mice got into those areas and made nests, urinated, defecated and also got into the ceiling and did the same thing.

The stench is horrible and even though we already have to spend more money in removing and replacement of the kitchen cabinets and cooking stove, we are still stuck with removing the walls, ceiling, all the insulation and now maybe asbestos in the entire home.

What is this cost going to be? We are trying to figure out if it will be less costly to remove the entire home or to strip it down and rebuild it. Why couldn’t OST Housing take care of this problem before they delivered these homes? Why did they charge $25,000.00 for mice infested homes?

To me, this was one complete rip off by our housing administrators. What happened to providing for the needy? The needy can’t afford to pay $25,000 for a mice infested home in the first place!

In terms of the FEMA trailers, apparently those trailers were supposedly filled with some sort of material that causes cancer as well. But the main focus was to deliver those homes to the needy.

Then as with the Ellsworth homes, the administration during Two Bulls/Brewer decided to charge $3,000 for the FEMA homes as a delivery charge for the home movers. Again, who in terms of the needy could afford $3,000?

The answer is; none of them. So the homes went to folks who have jobs and could afford to get loans. And the real people who needed those homes are left out in the cold again.

This reminds me of history when the Calvary or BIA gave small pox infested blankets to our ancestors which wiped a lot of them out. Today, our own Housing Authority is making us pay for homes that may still questionably have asbestos, may contain hanta virus from the mice urine and the tribe is selling homes that could contain another chemical that causes cancer.

The homes are all accessed and delivered in the name of the needy, who didn’t get anything because they are too poor to pay the $25,000.00 for homes and $3,000.00 for trailers. Maybe that’s a good thing.

What about the OST Housing waiting list? I have been on that list since 1976, yes nineteen hundred and seventy six. If you don’t update, they take you off. I think there may be a Housing and Urban Development rule against taking folks off the waiting list simply because they failed to update their application. We’ll find out because I’m searching for that information right now.

OST Housing is actually a realty business. As a realty business they should have money coming out of their ears. This business is the most legally lucrative that anyone can get into. This is how Donald Trump made his billions of dollars.

Look at all the housing clusters on Pine Ridge. The value of those clusters alone add up to well over a billion dollars without even considering the individually spread out homes.

I challenge the housing authority to publish an asset value of the program and include all the money they should be making on their homes. If this program was operated properly as a business rather than something that is equal to slum lord housing, the tribe would be able to generate their own money for additional housing and our housing crisis will be over. And we won’t have to rely on the delivery of mice infested or chemical causing cancerous homes.

(Contact Jeffrey Whalen at Jeffrey.whalen@gmail.com)