Native Americans Back From Iraq Decry Cutback on Housing Funds

• Originally published by the Washington Post on Thursday, February 17, 2005; Page A23 [here]

By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer

 Saying that conditions in Indian country are worse than conditions in Iraq, two Native American war veterans spoke out yesterday against the Bush administration's plan to cut millions of dollars from a fund that helps build houses on reservations.

Former Army specialist Gerald Dupris, 22, described his mother's neighborhood inside the Cheyenne River Reservation in Eagle Butte, S.D., as "a lot worse than what I left in the military in Iraq."  Dupris said lawmakers reviewing the president's budget "should realize that a lot of Native veterans return home to worse than what they left. They should realize what we've done for this country, and give back to the Native reservation."

Native Americans represent less than 1 percent of the population, yet they make up about 1.6 percent of the armed forces, according to Defense Department statistics. Pfc. Lori Piestewa, 23, a Hopi Indian who served with the 507th Maintenance Company in Iraq, was the first female U.S. soldier to die in combat.

Between 2002 and 2004, the housing appropriations for Native Americans and Native Hawaiians hovered at about $650 million. But last year, budget cutters started chipping money away.

In fiscal 2005, the administration asked for $647 million and Congress approved $25 million less than that. For fiscal 2006, President Bush has asked for $582 million, alarming Native American housing advocates.

"The president's preaching fiscal responsibility, and in the same breath he's asking for $82 billion for Iraq," said Chester Carl, chief executive officer of the Navajo Housing Authority in Window Rock, Ariz. Indians "are over there sacrificing their lives to improve the lives of our enemy, yet they come back to conditions that are worse. There are no jobs, there's no housing."

Carl is also chairman of the National American Indian Housing Council, which sponsored the news conference with Dupris and another Native American soldier, Staff Sgt. Julius Tulley.

The Bush administration painted a more positive picture. During testimony yesterday before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Michael Liu, assistant secretary for public and Indian housing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said: "Tribes are taking advantage of new opportunities to improve the housing conditions of the Native American families residing on Indian reservations."

Liu acknowledged that the fiscal 2006 budget "is tight," but he said that it "also recognizes the low-income housing needs in Native American communities." The budget increases the budget authority for a loan-guarantee program, and HUD will work to leverage federal dollars with private investments for both rental housing and homeownership, Liu said.

But that good news is not apparent on the ground, said Tulley, who served in Baghdad with a reserve engineering battalion. During his first days in Iraq, Tulley said other soldiers griped about living in tents, hauling drinking water, eating tasteless food rations and not being able to shower, watch television or access the Internet.

But "it didn't take long" for Navajos to adapt to that life, said Tulley, 41, of Blue Gap, Ariz., the heart of Navajo country. "We were used to it. I thought, 'What are you complaining about?' . . . What they missed, it was nothing to us."

Blue Gap is "where you see a lot of poverty," he said.

 "I'm not here to bash my commander in chief," Tulley said. "Nor am I here to speak out against the military. I'm here to say that I've gone to war. I put my life on the line. My brothers put their lives on the line. I want to say, 'Look, I've done my part. My family's done their part. Now I want something in return.' "