HUD: Housing conditions for Native Americans much worse than rest of U.S.
HUD's findings were similar to problems found by a recent Republic investigation into the Navajo Housing Authority, tasked with easing the tribe's housing shortage but has built few new homes.
Housing conditions are substantially worse among Native American households than other U.S. homes, but tribes across the country are building more places to live thanks to federal legislation passed more than 20 years ago, three reports released Thursday show.
The reports, prepared by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development with help from the Urban Institute, noted that the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996 has improved some housing conditions. But they also found:
- Physical deficiencies in plumbing, kitchen, heating, electrical, and maintenance issues in 23 percent of households in tribal areas, compared with 5 percent of all U.S. households.
- Overcrowding and other physical-condition problems were present in 34 percent of households in tribal areas, compared with 7 percent of all U.S. households.
- Seventeen percent of Native American households have at least one “doubled-up” person staying in the household because they have nowhere else to go. The number of people affected was estimated at 84,700.
The reports' findings were similar to problems found by a recent Arizona Republic investigation of the Navajo Housing Authority, the steward of more than a billion dollars in federal housing funds directed to assist the Navajo Nation. The housing authority is tasked with easing the tribe's housing shortage, but it has built few new homes in any given year. In some years it built none.
The agency also has built a handful of projects that never housed anyone.
INVESTIGATION: To build a home: The Navajo housing tragedy
The sprawling reservation, which touches parts of rural Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, is by any measure one of the poorest places in America. Studies have found more than 30,000 families need new homes to live by modern standards.
To ease those needs, the tribe has been allocated $1.66 billion in federal housing funds since 1998, the year the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act went into effect. It has received more than any other tribe in the United States.