DENVER—American Indian tribes have filed lawsuits challenging the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s plan to stop providing money to maintain lease-to-own houses on reservations after 25 years.
Housing agencies for 14 tribes filed lawsuits in federal court Wednesday alleging losses totaling about $46 million. Three other tribes filed similar suits the day before.
Congress reauthorized the Native American Housing and Self-Determination Act through 2013 with an amendment ending maintenance funding if homes aren’t transferred to individual owners in 25 years. President George W. Bush signed it into law on Oct. 13.
Friday is the deadline for tribes to file lawsuits challenging the change, said Cate Stetson of Albuquerque, N.M., who filed a lawsuit on behalf of Ute Indian Tribal Housing.
Stetson said tribes get about $1,500 per home each year for maintenance, which is far less than the need.
“We’re tremendously behind in Indian country,” Stetson said by phone. “There are people who go off to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, tribal members who come back and say, ‘We had better conditions out there.'”
In some cases Stetson said there are cinderblock homes on reservations that have no insulation to weather subfreezing winters and homes that have dirt floors.
HUD spokeswoman Jane Goin said it was inappropriate to comment because the lawsuits were pending.
One tribe, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation based in Okmulgee, Okla., put its loss at $16.7 million. Other hard-hit Oklahoma tribes include the Cherokee Nation Housing Authority ($14.1 million), Comanche Nation Housing Authority ($3 million), Housing Authority of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma ($2.1 million), and the Housing Authority of the Osage Nation, formerly Osage Tribe of Indians, ($4.9 million).
Stetson said the change is improper because the 1996 law does not specify a time limit on maintenance funding.
The lawsuits say they were filed in Colorado because HUD’s Denver-based National Office of Native American Programs’ Grants Management Office took many of the actions being challenged.
Plaintiffs in the suits filed Wednesday also include the Sicangu Wicoti Awanyakapi Corp. in South Dakota; Oglala Sioux (Lakota) Housing in South Dakota; Turtle Mountain Housing Authority in North Dakota; Winnebago Housing and Development Commission in Nebraska; Lower Brule Housing Authority in South Dakota; Metlakatla Housing Authority in Alaska; Spirit Lake Housing Corp. in North Dakota; and Trenton Indian Housing Authority in North Dakota.
