FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Why don’t you show pictures of the kids on your website?
We want to protect the privacy of our friends in Wanblee and protect the children from possible predators. If you were on public assistance, would you want your photo on the Mass. Dept. of Transitional Assistance website?
Why don’t they move?
Indians in the west are tied to the land, culturally and spiritually. Tribes haven't walled themselves off on their reservations. Their members frequently leave to go to school or pursue a career, then return. Meanwhile, they're also seeking to bring tourists and business opportunities to their reservations and expose them to their cultures. But they want to do this under controlled circumstances, so they can protect their traditions. Indians who want to retain their cultures generally want to stay on their reservations. That's because their reservations are tied to their cultures. These cultures are land-based, linked to specific sacred sites, burial grounds, and other spots. They cannot go back to Europe, Africa or Asia to replenish their culture, what is here is all there is. Leaving these places means leaving (or distancing oneself) from these cultures.
Why can’t they go on welfare?
While many Americans on public assistance receive help in the form of housing vouchers, food stamps and health care, the people on the Pine Ridge Reservation receive assistance in the form of $300/month per family, regardless of size. The also receive fuel assistance in the amount of $100 a year.
Doesn’t the government give them free housing?
The housing problem on Pine Ridge is one of the worst in the nation, 39.1 percent of houses are overcrowded. Many are living in substandard housing – with no plumbing, floors, electricity or running water. There are currently over 1,500 families waiting for housing to become available on the reservation. Over the last ten years there has been very little improvement in the housing condition. The primary constraint to building affordable-quality housing on Pine Ridge centers on the lack of access to credit. Families are not qualified to receive loans from banks because they lack sufficient collateral to guarantee loans. Nearly 80% of people on the Pine Ridge Reservation do not like where they are currently living, primarily in HUD Cluster Housing projects. Seventy percent of those people would move to their own land if they had the resources.
Why don’t they utilize their land better?
Currently nearly 60% of lands allotted to Lakota families are being leased out by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to non-tribal members for an average of $3.50 per acre. These rents are far below current market values. (The average rental rates in this region of South Dakota for nonirrigated cropland is $23.10 and $10.00 an acre for rangeland.) Despite the fact
that their lands have been in the leasing system for several generations, over 70% of families on the reservation would like to live on and utilize their allotted lands.
Why don’t they open a casino?
Most Indian casinos don't enjoy a semi-monopoly in a location near wealthy urbanites. In other words, most aren't Foxwoods Resort Casino or Mohegan Sun. Pine Ridge is 60 miles from nowhere, in a desolate area that is bitterly cold more than six months of the year. Basically, no one, not even outside casino promoters, want to build a casino on this reservation!
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