A Message from Our Leader
Hau, Mitakuyepi,
Welcome to the new Oglala Sioux (Lakota) Housing web site and the special site for the Makoce Na Mni Waste (Good Earth and Water) project under our Bush Foundation Innovation grant. We would like to thank the Bush Foundation for their assistance in developing and posting this site. OSLH is attempting to make all of our plans, operations and accomplishments transparent to the people. We will put news, history, contact information, low rent and home ownership information. We will soon put our applications and criteria on the site. We will also develop pages on home maintenance, energy conservation, landscaping, home ownership opportunities and dealing with issues such as substance abuse and domestic violence. We hope to have a special page with information and contacts for our youth between 12 and 24 to counteract the suicide epidemic.
We are proud of our accomplishments over the past few years. Through our Tipi Zannika (Healthy Homes) projects with funding through the HUD Indian Community Development Block grant program we have remediated mold and renovated bathrooms, basements and kitchens in 531 units and will be completing 225 more units over the next year. We have collaborated with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines Affordable Housing Program to renovate 15 low rent units for homeless and elderly and to completely renovate all 32 units at the Cherry Hill Elderly housing in Pine Ridge Village.
We obtained a $2 million HUD Rural Innovation Grant and designed and built 18 energy efficient low rent units ( 2 in each District).
We have set up 9 subdivisions for development of new houses and by early 2017 we will have 45 new low rent units occupied (5 in each district). We obtained the first HUD Title VI loan in South Dakota to do this. We also had assistance from the US Department of Agriculture and the State of South Dakota Housing Opportunity Fund.
We recently obtained the Indian Community Development Block grant 2015 to renovate exteriors (siding, roof, windows, and doors) on many low rent units and remediate meth effects in 20 houses. We obtained a USDA Waste and Water grant to renovate and expand the Wounded Knee sewage lagoon that has been condemned for a number of years.
We are collaborating with the Oglala Sioux Tribe on submitting applications to USDA to upgrade the water systems in all communities on the Reservation. The plan is called 7 Years for 7 Generations. Once the systems are upgraded they will be transferred in trust for the Tribe to the Bureau of Reclamation under the Mni Wiconi Act. BOR will provide funds to assist with operations, maintenance and replacement of the systems. We hope to work with the Tribe on upgrades of all the wastewater systems on the Reservation also to provide healthy systems for our tenants and capacity for housing expansion.
We are working on a Bush Innovation Grant to collaborate with the Tribe to develop an entity to operate, maintain and expand the water, wastewater and solid waste systems on the Reservation to provide for healthy communities, housing expansion and economic development. You can read more about this on the Makoce Na Mni Waste page on this web site.
Finally, I would like to thank the Board and employees of OSLH for working to provide housing and healthy communities for the Oglala people.
Hecetu, yelo, pilamaya yelo,
Paul Iron Cloud, CEO