Is neglected Housing making our people sick?

Time and time again our leadership has shown they don’t care about our people. It’s become an obvious “Who you know” culture around LCO and nowhere has this become more apparent than with the housing situation. We have a major housing shortage at LCO and it doesn’t help when houses that are livable are in serious need of repair. These homes have been neglected despite the fact that HUD allocates money every year for upkeep of these homes. There are many stories across LCO about housing concerns, but here is one that gained a lot of attention in the past couple of months, the story about a baby named Aaron and the disrespect our leaders have shown this sick little baby's family.

On Monday at the regular council meeting, the council by consensus told the Housing director to put Baby Aaron and his family, which includes his parents and two siblings, into a different house on Gurno Lake Road after complaints of mold in their current house. The family also discovered that the previous residents of the home in Drytown were cooking meth there.

The baby was born in January and at five weeks old, became very sick and was transported to ICU in Duluth fighting for his life. The illness was respiratory. After a 9-day stay in the hospital they went home. Before too long, the baby was sick again. This has happened three times now in his short little life, poked with needles, prodded, hooked up to machines and struggling to breathe. Here is a Facebook post by Aaron’s grandmother, Sue Quaderer, after the second hospital visit;

“Our little one "Aaron L. Quaderer" is home tonight feeling a little better. We thought he would end up in Duluth again. He had a rough night last night, stopped breathing once! Thanks to Don C. and Deanna Baker for being on "stand-by" to help the family, if the baby had to be sent to Duluth again. The BIA Health Department is coming in on Tuesday to inspect Edwina's house for possible mold contamination that might be causing the baby to keep getting sick. The housing director was very ignorant when he was approached about the possibility, so we went to the Tribal Council with a letter and pictures. If the house is found not to be the source of the baby's sickness, I will face up to being wrong, but if mold is found to be the cause, ....hold me back..., I will be one mad grandma....There must be other homes on the rez with the possibility of this problem, come on people, take a stand, report it, and stand up for our right to live in a healthy environment and to keep our kids safe...”

There are in fact many homes on our reservation that are mold-infested. The home on Gurno Lake that our Housing director, Mark Montano, said was ready for them and they could move in right away, was in some pretty bad shape. It looks like it probably has mold problems as well. Sue Q. posted pictures of the exterior of the house and the siding was peeling away and all the windows were still boarded up. Rightfully so, the family refused to move into this home.

It is Housing’s responsibility to fix these problems but they have neglected to and why? Supposedly, it comes down to money. They don’t have the money to fix them properly, but they should. They receive HUD money for this but all the funds that come in from the federal government for Housing purposes is shipped over the tribal office and comingled with everything else. Federal dollars and tribal dollars all thrown together into 62 different bank accounts so that no one has any idea who or what department has how much or what funds. These Housing funds that should be used to repair homes are at the tribal office under the direction of whoever has been controlling tribal dollars for the past decade and mysteriously, the funds aren't there. It's the same story with the clinic...they are supposed to have money but they don't. It's the same story with the tribe's health insurance premiums...a large amount of money is supposed to be safely tucked away in a bank account for this, but the funds disappear supposedly used for other purposes. It's the same story with so many federal grant funds...money comes in for a specific project and then it disappears, used for other purposes, for example the Headstart construction which the Audit report revealed was misused.

Back to the tribal council meeting on Monday. Montano came to the meeting while Sue Quaderer fought for her grandson to be able to live in a mold-free home. Sue also told the council that she had heard in the community that the house had previously been a meth-house. Vice Chairman Rusty Barber then proceeded to ridicule here about the “Moccasin Telegraph” and we can’t rely on that, but come on people, our community is a small one and we all know each other, and we all know which houses are the drug houses. Montano continued to be rude to Sue and tell her that he didn’t believe it was mold or meth residues that were making Baby Aaron sick. Rusty Barber agreed with him and said council needed proof and documentation all the while the little sick baby is sitting in the council meeting room hacking away.

At one point, Sue was speaking about the meth in the house and Montano with a snide attitude said to her, “cooking, smoking, I don’t care what you are saying.” How our council allows this non-tribal member to come in here and talk that way to one of our Elders is beyond me, and he was backed up all the way by Mic and Rusty who continuously said they needed proof and documentation that it is mold or meth that was causing her grandsons illness, despite a poor little baby hacking away right there in front of them. For the sake of that baby, who cares about documentation... why take a chance? Would they take a chance if it were one of their grandsons? I'm sure we all know the answer to that.

In the end, Sue believes that Montano knew the other house couldn’t be moved into and had no intention of getting the family a different home. Right now the family is at the casino in a hotel room comped by the council. Sue reported this morning that the family is doing well and little Baby Aaron is doing much better now that he is outside the mold-infested home.

The argument at the council meeting centered on whether mold or meth residue was the problem and Montano didn’t believe it was. He said he sent over a health inspector to see. The health inspector sent a letter to council, which Mic was touting as his evidence, where the inspector said it wasn’t, but the inspector only did a visual inspection of the home. I know for a fact that black mold can be covered up and it doesn’t die. It will live in the heating vents and elsewhere. The home needs more than a simple cleaning to get rid of it. Many of our tribal homes have this mold infestation and it can make you very sick. Do some research on Black Toxic Mold and see for yourselves.

This week they are actually doing tests all over the home of moisture content where they stick the test into the walls. Sue said this morning that they will be at the hotel for another week while they await the test results.

Mic said that Housing had rules to follow and couldn’t simply put the family in another home, and yet, Sue presented a letter to the council that showed a list of violations of Housing policy. In her letter she stated Montano said absolutely not to the family’s request for a different home. Some of his comments included she’s lucky to have a house, some people don’t; if there is mold we’d have to tear down the house and build a new one; this matter could take months or years and there’s nothing we can do.

Here is the next part of the letter she submitted to council;

“Well on Thursday following this talk, I went to the housing office because the Board of Directors were meeting, and they used to have a 11:00 walk in during the meetings for anyone that might need their assistance. Well, wrong again. I got there a few minutes after 11:00 and I was told that a person had to sign up by 11:00 am in order to get into the meeting. The next day, Friday evening, my grandson Aaron was again sent to Duluth by ambulance for viral infection. He was put into ICU and an IV was placed in his head to combat the infection. At this time, he is doing better and hopefully will be released earlier this week. The parents asked the doctor if mold could be a factor in his sickness. The doctor stated that it could be possible, but to test children, they must be at least 2 or 3 years old. My grandsons are 1 year old and 9 weeks old, should their lives be risked until they are 2 and 3 in order to test them? Isn’t there anyone on the Housing board or council who can change the director’s way of thinking? This is about our LCO people and the health and safety of all of our children on this reservation. Does just one non-tribal person have that much authority to just say “absolutely not” because we are just numbers to him, he doesn’t know our tribal members or our communities and to me he doesn’t care, it’s just a job for him.”

In Sue’s letter she then highlights several instances of improprieties among some housing staff members who were able to move into homes without waiting on the list. Sue has posted some pictures of these houses on Facebook.

This is a very sad situation and it’s tragic that this little child will now suffer from Asthma for the rest of his life. There are probably many situations like this on the Rez with mold homes and sick families and we need to fix it immediately…for the health of our community.