Plains Tribes To Battle Proposed Housing Cuts

Northern Plains Indian tribes plan to present a united front in hopes of saving millions of dollars in earmarked reservation housing funds that are now included in proposed federal budget cuts.

Representatives of 29 reservations meeting in Billings decided that battling for individual housing allotments would be futile.

“It’s government versus government,” said Ed Long Knife, head of the Fort Belknap Housing Authority and director of the regional United Native American Housing Association (UNAHA).

Long Knife called the emergency meeting of about 80 tribal representatives to form a committee to lobby congressmen to stop the cuts.

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and Independent Agencies last week approved cutting $7.2 billion from the HUD budget. Montana tribes could lose up to $6.2 million in modernization grants and operating subsidies for fiscal year 1995 if the proposal now before the House Appropriations Committee becomes law.

The tribal representatives decided Friday to ask each tribal government to write resolutions describing to the federal government their concerns and their needs for housing funds. Each of those tribes will send the resolutions to their congressmen.

UNAHA then plans to meld them into one position paper.

On March 14, representatives of the tribal governments plan to meet in Rapid City and then form a lobbying committee to take the combined resolution to Washington, D.C.