Indian Living Conditions Lag Behind Nation Census Figures Show Reservation Has Low Percentage Of Indoor Toilets, Running Water, Electric Heat
About 18 percent of American Indian homes on reservations don’t have complete kitchen facilities, including a sink with piped water, a range and a refrigerator, according to a U.S. Census Bureau figures released Monday.
The studies were compiled by the Census Bureau based on data from the 1990 census.
They examined living conditions on trust lands and reservations with populations of at least 500.
Also, 53.4 percent of those dwellings have no telephone and 22.4 lack a motor vehicle.
Some New Mexico Indian tribes have fewer indoor bathrooms and telephone lines on average than do other tribes nationwide, according to the studies.
While 20 percent of reservation homes nationwide lack a complete indoor plumbing system, 49.1 percent of homes on the Navajo reservation do not have those facilities.
That compares to 1 percent of all U.S. households that use outhouses, chemical toilets or facilities in another building instead of public sewer, septic tank or cesspool systems.
On the Navajo Reservation, where 44.3 percent are without a complete kitchen, 81.6 percent are without phones and 27.2 without a car.
The largest reservation in the country, Navajo land covers about 15 million acres in Arizona, Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.
Other New Mexico tribes are more in line with the national averages for American Indians in these categories.
But when it comes to main heat sources, residents on the Acoma, Zuni and Navajo reservations all depend on wood at least nine times more than the country as a whole, which uses gas and electricity 77 percent of the time.
The studies said that although Indians’ living conditions lagged far behind those of the U.S., some of the conditions existed because many reservations are in rural areas.
They also showed a lower percentage of American Indians living in older homes than in the general public. About 8 percent of those on reservations live in houses built before 1940, compared with 18 percent for all U.S. households.