WASHINGTON, April 12, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — The Trail of Hope for Indian Housing is carting a house 1500 miles from South Dakota and displaying it next to the U.S. Capitol Building to highlight the terrible housing conditions on Indian reservations.
The facades of an actual house from the Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation will arrive by motorcade and be placed at Union Square (3rd Street NW) on Wednesday April 17, 2013. The site adjacent to the U.S. Capitol will be open to the public from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Senators Heidi Heitkamp (D – ND) and John Barrasso (R – WY) will both speak as will Kevin Gover , Director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Several tribal officials will also be on hand.
The dilapidated structures are typical of the overcrowded and sub-standard housing conditions where Northern Plains Indians are forced to live. Many Indian reservations have the worst housing in the United States. Tens of thousands of Indians often have to live three families to a unit with as many as 18 people crowded into aging two-bedroom houses.
“Since Washington cannot come to the reservation, we will take the reservation to Washington,” said Paul Iron Cloud , Executive Director of the Oglala Sioux Housing Authority. “Washington and America will learn of the current conditions on many of our largest and most preeminent reservations.”
More information is available online at:
https://www.facebook.com/TrailofHopeforIndianHousing