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Coalition wants Aneva Yazzie out

By Vida Volkert

Staff writer eastnavalogallupindependent.com

CHINLE — A coalition of local Navajo advocates wants to remove Aneva Yazzie as CEO of the Navajo Housing Authority and place the department heads on probation pending review of their work.

The coalition met in Chinle Saturday and has petitioned

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Aneva Yazzie

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the Navajo Nation Resources and Development Committee to issue a directive to the board of commissioners of the NHA to immediately remove Yazzie from office and to place the heads of the NHA department on employment probation pending a review of their performance.

"She is unaccountable," Nelson Toledo, president of the Dine bi Siihasin or Hope of the Dine People, said about Yazzie during a phone interview Monday. "We feel that she is not. ... She does not have unaccountability. We have a vote of no confidence in her."

The coalition includes Dine bi Siihasin, Dine' Bidzill, Dine' bi Cattle Growers Association, Dooda (No!) Desert Rock, Dzilth-Nageezi Development, Forgotten People, Inc., Idle No More, and Southwest Indigenous Uranium Forum.

At the meeting Saturday, there were also representatives of two Navajo community development nonprofit corporations and homebuyers with claims against the Fort Defiance Housing Corporation, according to Dine bi Siihasin's attorney James Zion.

Two Navajo Nation Council delegates who are members of the RDC, Leonard H. Pete and Leonard Tsosie, were also present at the meeting.

Toledo said the group is not pleased with Yazzie's and the NHA's departmental heads' performance over the years and believes they are not spending Native American Housing Assistance Self Determination Act funds wisely. The Shiprock fiasco is just an example, he said.

About 91 houses in Shiprock are scheduled to be demolished this year in preparation for construction of a new development. The houses have remained vacant since they were built in 2006 because they were vandalized or burned to the ground before NHA could fill them.

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NHA first allocated about $9 million from NAHASDA funds to build the Shiprock houses. It is now allocating another $9 million to demolish them. The NHA has plans to allocate yet another $9 million to rebuild them. In all $18 million has been wasted.

Aneva Yazzie

Yazzie joined the NHA in 2006, just months before former NHA CEO Chester Carl was suspended. Carl was accused of accepting gambling tokens from a construction company in exchange for $38 million worth of federal housing contracts. He was indicted and the case is pending.

In her defense, Yazzie has said numerous times that when she took Carl's job in early 2007 she had to spend a great deal of time and efforts "cleaning the house." When she started, the NHA had no internal control mechanisms and the federal government threatened with funding cuts. Under her management, various surveys have been conducted to address the housing problem on a large scale. One of the surveys released in 2011 revealed the need for 34,100 new homes on the Navajo Nation.

Most recently, NHA has been working with Swaback Partners pllc in a sustainable community master plan to build the needed houses in five to 10 years. The planning team led by Swaback has been conducting workshop style meetings on the Navajo Nation since the beginning of 2012 to bring community members and leaders together to help coordinate and collaborate in their local communities planning efforts. The main problem identified by Swaback is the lack of land available for development.

Every year, the federal government awards about $90 million to the NHA to address the housing problem on the Navajo Nation.

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