Life on the Reservation

Today I was searching for some information about the current conditions of life on the reservation and I came across a short, but significant article on that.

The author of this article says that on some reservations the conditions of living are very poor, taking into account three out of many factors: employment, housing and health. As it is stated at the begining of the article : Living conditions on the reservations have been cited as "comparable to Third World," (May 5 2004, Gallup Independent) . That's what strikes me much. Today, I will present two of them: employment and housing.

To begin with, the unemployment is very high and as I read, four out of ten adults are unemployed. There are many numerous families or extended families living in the same house and the only money they get are social security, disability or veteran's income. If there are Native Americans who have a job, they usually earn below poverty wages. The percentage of poverty on the reservation is high and it forces heads of the families to seek job out of the reservation, which means that usually grandparents are rasing their children, what in addition, influences family relations.

Second important factor contributing to bad condition on the reservations is housing. As I mentioned before, many houses are overcrowded and less than 50% of them are connected to sewer. Except that, there are many homeless or underhoused families. What is shocking for me, is that when they are waiting for a housing, the wait is often three years or more, and overcrowding is inevitable. What is more, many reservation families live without running water, telephones, and electricity, which is kind of unacceptable in today's world.

These are only some facts about the conditions of life on the reservation, but I will try to improve this subject in the following week.