Native Americans in Poverty


Written by: Hannah Braunagel



           In a post on the Program of Partnership with Native Americans, it was said that 28.2 percent of Native Americans are living on or under the poverty line. It states that this is due to the limitations of jobs on or near the reservations, with most of these jobs are tribal, local government or federal jobs. Many of which already have filled positions. These jobs take special skills and education which many of the people living on reservations have a hard time acquiring these positions due to the lack of formal education that is offered out of the reservation. If these jobs are not qualified for, then the person applying for the job has no hopes of getting one without furthering their education, which is very expensive.
            Another issue on the reservations is that 4-8 out of 10 Native Americans living on them are unemployed (Native 2018). These people are having to live off of unemployment or veterans income. This is not a fair way for us to treat Native Americans, they owned this land and are now in this horrible situation due to our own greed. Many Native Americans who can find work are payed below the poverty line for doing their jobs. So many of the Native American jobs are in the government and local governments. These jobs are not accessible to many Native American people and the other jobs that are available are lower level service jobs.
            Yet another issue that is tied to the Native American poverty crisis is housing. According to Huffington Post, “ The Pine Ridge Reservation needs about 4000 homes yet, only 1100 exist at this time.” More houses are set to be built to provide room for more Native people, but only 10 houses are able to be build a year because these houses are government provided housing and the money given to the community to help build it is not adequate enough to build the necessary amount of houses. This article also quotes, “about 90000 are homeless or under-housed on a given night” (Ludwig 2013.) This is an issue we can all help to stop being so prevalent in our Native American’s lives, we can petition our government and have them allocate more money for the support of Natives lives. Currently many Native Americans on the reservation are living in very crowded corders, sometimes up to three generations are living together in one small two bedroom house. These houses usually have many people living in them, poor water supply, and underdeveloped heating and cooling systems.
            These crises have been going on for decades, but there is change for the future being done right now. There are advocate groups who specialize in helping Native American housing get better without the need for government dollars, because it seems that our government is not currently interested in assigns the Naive people of America live in humane standards, The Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative is working on bringing together architects, community developers and other advocates to help with the housing crisis on many reservations.






Citations

Native American Living Conditions on Reservations - Native American Aid. Jan. 6, 2018 Accessed April 20, 2019. http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=naa_livingconditions.

Ludwig, Terri, and Terri Ludwig. "The Hidden Housing Crisis in Indian Country." HuffPost. July 02, 2013. Accessed April 20, 2019. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/native-american-housing_b_3193289.


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