Melinda Gopher is a paralegal, writer and Candidate for the U.S. Congress. Her philosophy is to democratize the law, so that the ordinary person can understand it. She is the Editor-in-Chief of Urban Native Magazine.
"I have a passion for social justice, and a lifelong commitment to the principle of equality. I worked in my early 20s on fair housing issues. In Montana, the principles of fair housing with the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, were slow in coming. By the late 1980s, Montana was one of a few remaining states lax in fair housing protections. We started out as a small organization, the Council for Concerned Citizens, in the south side of Gt. Falls, to work on housing justice."
CCC, under the leadership of Mark Good, began a controversial enforcement method called "fair housing testing." This involved using a white tester, and an Indian tester to apply for the same housing unit. The results were compared. The findings were pretty astounding; in 57% of all tests done, Native Americans experienced discrimination by housing providers. That is a high rate, far above the national average. The findings indicated that Native Americans experienced discrimination unlike any other racial group on America.
GOOD AND INCOMPLETE INTENTIONS FOR NAUGHT
As a result, CCC put in for HUD funds pursuant to the FHIP program. It took several years, but the funds made their way to Great Falls. By then, CCC had a gradual change in leadership. When the funds came down, CCC hired Toni Austad, who assumed direction of the organization as Executive Director. I had been hired as an Education and Outreach Coordinator, I worked the program in its first year.
What was significant about this time, in early 1994, mid-way through the first Clinton term, HUD sponsored a Fair Housing Summit in DC. I attended this and served as a panelist at the Summit. I spoke of the very issues on the right of this column; Hill 57. This is a timeless issue that never seems to have gotten better, it has never been addressed, always forgotten. I mention this time because it is significant to now. There was a lot of optimism in America-buoyed by the Clinton presidency, just as there had been this time last year.
It looked like things would be different back then, real changes would be made. I see this general timeframe of 1994 as a renewal in America's commitment for social justice. Maybe some things changed, but looking back I cannot help but think there was a Clinton dogma put in place in this nation's financial system with the clamour around the CRA, which was intended to provide fair access to credit. Instead, what became entrenched in this era, as far as I can see---was the subprime market. This marked the creation of a "separate-and-unequal" financial system in America. We must look at a general timeframe when the Federal Reserve failed to regulate lenders; paving the way for predatory lending. This became a significant issue toward 1998; the Federal Reserve initiated a quiet policy that ignored blatant discrimination by banks who charged higher interest rates to minorities. To put it bluntly, President Clinton either did not care or could not care; he was busy denying that he spent a good deal of time in November of 1995 masturbating Monica Lewinsky with cigars.
Financial apartheid; one market for the haves--mostly whites, and a secondary market for the have-nots; mostly minority. The secondary market by 2008 that consisted of home mortgages that were higher than the value of the home, and adjustable teaser rates that left the homeowner unable to pay their mortgage. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were major players in this system. The objectives may have been good, but the effort misguided. Whether this was intentional or just was not well thought out by the Clinton administration, remains to be seen.
We had a Grants Monitor come in from the HUD regional office in Denver, near the end of my first year. We had received positive reviews.After I had left the organization, it did not last beyond a couple of years. CCC thrived for a couple years, but after a while, things went awry.I do not know all the details, so I do not feel qualified to elaborate in great detail. There were issues with Austad's failure to pay unemployement taxes for her workers when the program expanded to North Dakota, this story appeared in the Great Falls Tribune. After a protracted intra-organization and staff war, and loss of HUD funds, CCC shut down.
Even though the official record of numbers goes back a couple of years, the trending in federal policy, or the lack thereof, predates the actual meltdown by several years. And we can see this taking root back to the Clinton administration. Now, in a companion non-profit site: http://loudthunder.ning.com/, we look in detail at the recent article done by Matt Taibbi, a reporter for Rolling Stone. Matt details how Obama's team of Rubinites, leftover from the Clinton administration have hijacked the Obama White House.The progressive, native urban/reservation, women, youth, people with disabilities, LGBTQ, all have a stake in this. Fair housing efforts must be resurrected in Montana; there is a need for protection on a state level, as well as the strengthening of Title 49, the Montana Human Rights Act. The Montana Legislature at some point in the past; watered down the state civil rights law, Title 49, resulting in loss of HUD funding at the state level. The Schweitzer administration, nor the state legislature has not reversed this. It is time to put the pressure on.
I cannot stress enough, of the need of the Indian voting electorate to stay engaged in the process; especially in off-election years. This tends to be when politicians think the voters are not looking; this is when the damage is done. One only needs to look at the mess that is the stimulus bill, now the health care bill. We can point to the Cobell settlement; the Echohawk's, John Echohawk in particular. This man is very much a wannabe member of the Team of Rubinites, he is a wannabe limo liberal who was part of the Obama transition team. His brother, Larry Echohawk, is now BIA Assistant Secretary.
The Cobell settlement is outrageously low, about 3.5 billion (in legal terms, outrageous has added weight, meaning conduct so bad as to be unconscionable to the normal person). This is a direct result of the Indian community treating the Obama administration with kid gloves. This settlement is a swindle, the settlement calls for 2.4 billion for "land consolidation" it will result in landlessness of the average tribal member. Again, at the bargain basement price of 2.4 billion, this is chump change in comparison to the TARP bailouts and the stimulus.
In summary, it matters if you are a white person, this is the great recession of 2009. Your 401 (k) tanked, your stock portfolio has taken a temporary hit, your credit is or near maxed out. You will recover, the stock market is steadily buoyed, just this weeks, after passage of the Senate bill, health insurance stocks ran up 52% in one day.
But if you are a minority, this is in fact the Great Depression of 2008-2009. Unemployment, even in major metropolitan black communities such as Detroit--tops 50%. The state of Montana does not quantify urban Indian unemployment, there is no way to tell for sure, there is no official estimate. Times are tough, it has been a couple of years tallying now, in urban areas people had been selling scrap metal to stay alive. Then the recyling business hit with high gas prices in the summer of 2008, cut back--scrap metal stockpiled.
The people at the bottom of the ladder were hit, no one could even sell their scrap metal. People donate their plasma to Bio-Life in urban areas to put gas in their tanks, buy food, and try to survive. This has become daily life and reality for urban Indians dating back to the early years of the Bush administration. This, like the health care bill, which puts profits over lives, has a strange Orwellian feel of the commodification of human life. Its scary and creepy. The help for urban Indians was needed several years ago. It still has not arrived.
Child and youth poverty is back in to what it was prior to President Johnson's War on Poverty. This is another failed legacy of the Clinton presidency. The Personal Work and Responsibility Act of 1996 cut welfare that was already annililating the poor, minority household. The Act time-limited life time benefits to five years--for many people who never had an economic lifeline, or was cut by the Clinton administarion that constantly was dogged by a Republican Congress--their lifeline ran out long ago. Welfare laws dictated that the poor and minority households MUST be headed by a single, female. This destructive policy has damaged the culture and fabric of Indian families.I urge the Indian communities, do not wait for anyone to throw you a lifeline. Organize yourselves and take action, be the change you seek, hold our local governments accountable, vote in any and all elections that come up. Run for office yourselves. We need leadership at all levels. If something is not right, take the time to voice your opinion. Organize for the Durbin - Dorgan Jobs Bill--the time to do it is NOW. Bring your ideas to Senator Tester, post them on our companion sites: http://loudthuder.ning.com/, and the Montana Jobs Coaliton, http://montanajobscoalition.ning.com/. We are staying abreast of this situation.
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