Hope springs eternal, but solutions have evaded Navajo Housing Authority

Dennis Wagner Craig Harris
Arizona Republic
Construction on the Bluestone Development by the NHA has not begun near Houck, Ariz. May 23, 2016. They had a ribbon cutting ceremony in 2014.

// SOLUTIONS //

HOUCK — The Navajo Housing Authority’s next great hope lives in juniper-studded hills along Interstate 40, about 35 miles west of Gallup, N.M.

There’s nothing here yet.

But on paper, it’s a picturesque village of up to 200 units on 80 acres of private property. Drawings depict apartment complexes, group homes, special housing for seniors and veterans, and single-family dwellings for sale or rent. There’s also a park and play areas, trails, a community center, and businesses.

The concept for the planned development named Bluestone is illustrated in a glossy 150-page book prepared by the NHA’s partner and consultant, Scottsdale-based Swaback Partners. It is titled “The Sustainable Journey of Beauty,” a reference to the Dine cultural concept of hozro, or harmony.

Estimated price tag: $60 million to $75 million.

This is the latest vision for turning federal cash into desperately needed housing for members of one of the nation’s largest and poorest Native American tribes.

NHA Chief Executive Aneva “AJ” Yazzie and architect Vernon Swaback said putting the project on private reservation land avoids grazing leases, local politics and other obstacles that have long sabotaged developments on tribal trust lands.

An Arizona Republic investigation found that the NHA since 1998 has been allocated more federal housing dollars — $1.66 billion — than any other tribe in the United States. At the same time, The Republic found the Navajo Housing Authority has squandered more than $100 million on failed housing projects, and accumulated a nearly quarter-billion-dollar surplus of housing funds as Navajos wait for years to get into homes.

The Republic found fewer than 400 housing units were built from 2013 to 2016 — fulfilling 1 percent of the need for at least 34,000, according to NHA records.

Housing Authority officials say they expect Bluestone to lead a housing renaissance reflecting the tribe’s culture and needs.

NHA and Navajo Nation leaders gathered in Houck in August 2014 for an “unveiling event” that included a catered steak meal, speeches and a traditional blessing ceremony. Area residents, including some who live in hogans with no electricity or running water, were given applications to be among the first to move into Bluestone.

“It will be modern, yet Navajo. We want to showcase what can be accomplished in all our chapter communities,” Yazzie said at the time. “Common areas will flow from the design of a Navajo basket. ... I truly believe that if we effectively plan the efficient and sustainable use of our land, we can provide a home for every Navajo family.”

NHA originally said ground would break in summer 2015. Occupancy was projected for this year.

But not a bit of earth has been turned yet.

Yazzie blames development delays on political turmoil and a complete turnover of the NHA’s board of directors, with new members questioning the project’s viability.

“It’s been crazy,” she acknowledged, “(but) we are proceeding.”

Vernon Swaback (center), partner Jeffrey Denzak (left) and planner Rhonda Harvey with Swaback Partners in Scottsdale have been working with the Navajo Housing Authority on new development proposals. Behind them are renderings of various reservation projects.

Yazzie in early September said the design phase was 95 percent complete, and construction bids were in the works.

Locals claim Bluestone has other problems: There are no aquifers to provide clean drinking water, a problem many residents know all too well in this roughly 1,000-person community. More than half lack running water. One-third have no electricity.

Yazzie said a new electrical transformer will accommodate the new development, and existing water resources are sufficient.

Still, poverty here is rampant.

There are few local jobs. Houck’s only commercial center, the Fort Courage Trading Post, once boasted a gas station, pancake house and Taco Bell. Today, a 6-foot fence surrounds the shuttered complex.

 

There also may not be enough eligible applicants who can afford a new home, even if heavily subsidized. And some say they don’t want to give up their traditional lifestyle, regardless of modern conveniences.

Preston Ashley, a sheep herder, lives about eight miles west of Bluestone in a dirt-floor hogan with a view of rolling hills overlooking Arizona and New Mexico. A wood stove heats his circular home. With a pinch of Skoal tobacco in his mouth, he plays cards at night under the light of a kerosene lamp and small solar-powered bulbs.

About 50 yards away is a wooden outhouse. Not far from the outdoor toilet are 13 sheep that share a wooden pen with two herding dogs and a litter of pups. Ashley and his brother, Peter, who lives next to the hogan in a home also without electricity, truck water to their 1-acre homestead in a 250-gallon, hard plastic container. The brothers listen to Navajo music at night on an 1980s-era boom box powered by eight D batteries.

Ashley, a former welder, does odd jobs for a living. He said his Bluestone application has sat for a year on his nightstand.

“It’s like the old days here,” he said, as wild horses run by the property. “I love this place. There is no noise. It’s beautiful. They gave me an application, but I would rather stay out here. I’m very traditional. I like it this way. ... What I really need is electricity for my power tools.”

About two miles from Bluestone, sisters Patricia Yazzie (no relation to the NHA director) and Anita James live in an 18-by-32-foot home. They also get water by truck, transferring it indoors via 5-gallon jugs. The siblings say they have no desire to live in Bluestone because it would be too expensive.

“I stay here for free,” noted Yazzie, 73. “I don’t want to be pushed out of my house.”

Vernita Tsosie, manager of Houck Chapter House, said she has been skeptical of Bluestone from the start. NHA staff failed to involve Houck leaders in the planning process, she noted, and it is unclear who will live in what resembles a suburban subdivision.

“The only jobs here are the chapter house, and there are five of us,” Tsosie said. “It doesn’t make any sense if you don’t have any infrastructure. ... And, we don’t have the water.”

Tsosie said the NHA could better serve Houck-area residents by installing water and power lines.

Swaback, in an interview at his Scottsdale office, said Bluestone, the first of five demonstration projects, will be different from past Navajo developments. He and partner Jeffrey Denzak said they want to show tribal members that the NHA can create beautiful, practical and culturally sensitive housing.

Once the Housing Authority’s reputation is redeemed, they said, mistrust can be overcome and tribal members will embrace development on trust lands and grazing allotments. Then the NHA can spend its money and fulfill its mission to shelter the Navajos.

Swaback, once a Frank Lloyd Wright protege, specializes in homes for the well-to-do and once designed a futuristic-looking airplane hangar for Paradise Valley billionaire Bennett Dorrance. He declined to say, and NHA records do not disclose how much the NHA is paying his firm.

Swaback’s team began working for the NHA around May 2012 and spent three years visiting Navajo villages to develop a new concept in HUD-financed housing, and to sell a vision. They went to all 110 chapters, hired a translator, and met with 20 to 60 residents at each event. They even brought dog food to feed reservation strays.

Denzak said there were skeptics and questions at some of the gatherings, but plans are moving ahead undeterred.

“We’ve heard folks say this is too big. But you have to try,” Denzak said. “If you listen to all the naysayers, it will never get done.”

A second NHA project in the early planning stages is literally off the reservation — on a private ranch about 15 miles east of Flagstaff. If paper plans are realized, 300 or more apartments will be constructed for tribal members who work at Twin Arrows Navajo Casino Resort, and for Dine students attending Northern Arizona University.

The NHA acquired the property for $4.3 million. Yazzie said the Housing Authority, which has access to other funds, could not use HUD money, so the purchase won’t draw down the surplus of federal funds.

So far, the Twin Arrows project — like Bluestone — remains an unrealized ambition.

Swaback fretted that The Republic’s reporting on unstarted developments and the NHA’s history of failure could sabotage hopes for future success.

“We’re on a crusade here, I’m just admitting it,” he said. “No one has ever carried the ball this far. ... We’ve been dealing for years now with hardship and setbacks. If this thing doesn’t get to the finish line, I don’t know. ... The opportunities are very great; the needs are even greater.”

// WHO TO CONTACT //

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// HOW WE DID IT //

In February 2015, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a routine press release on the distribution of millions of dollars in federal funds to Native American reservations for their housing needs.

One grant stood out: $83.7 million to the Navajo Nation.

It was, by far, the single largest payout among hundreds of tribes.

It prompted Arizona Republic reporters Dennis Wagner and Craig Harris to ask why the Navajo Nation received so much federal money compared with the rest of the tribes, and how that money was used.

Using the Freedom of Information Act, the reporters in March 2015 sent several requests to HUD for financial records and other documents regarding the Navajo Housing Authority and other tribes. Some of those records dated to 1998.

HUD provided The Republic roughly 3,500 pages of records. HUD sent the records in batches on July 28, Aug. 11 and Sept. 17, 2015. Electronic spreadsheets of payouts and surplus funds for all tribes were obtained in March, May and November 2016.

The NHA provided more than 1,000 pages of additional records.

The reporters and photographer Michael Chow traveled to Oklahoma and made several trips to the Navajo Reservation, where NHA Chief Executive Aneva “AJ” Yazzie sat with them for interviews.

A mural at on a building next to the Old Red Lake Trading Post in Tonalea, Ariz., in May 2015.