Native Americans Who Can't Afford Heat Take Desperate Measures To Stay Warm
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10/1/2018 Native Americans Who Can't Afford Heat Take Desperate Measures To Stay Warm | HuffPost
Native Americans Who Can’t Afford Heat Tak… 27k
EDITION
NEWS 01/13/2018 10:40 am ET
Native Americans Who Can’t Afford Heat
Take Desperate Measures To Stay Warm
“Out here, it feels like we’re in our own world. It doesn’t feel like the U.S. It feels
like a third-world country.”
By Eleanor Goldberg
As temperatures dropped below zero on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
earlier this month, one young girl felt she had had enough.
She was tired of feeling cold inside her home as temperatures plummeted, which they do
often there. She had enough of watching her parents constantly struggle to scrounge up
wood to heat the house.
The 12-year-old girl went to the bathroom and tried to kill herself.
“She was tired of waking up cold,” Jimmy Two Bulls, a Pine Ridge resident who’s helping out
the girl’s family, told HuffPost. “Reservation life is a hard life to live. It’s a struggle.”
Suicides reached record highs in South Dakota last year. Oglala Lakota County, which is
where the Pine Ridge reservation is located, was one of five counties in the state with the
highest rates of suicide. People who have experience dealing with depression and suicide
on the reservation say this is tied, in part, to the devastatingly difficult conditions residents
face.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/on-this-indian-reservation-locals-are-in-survival-mode-during-the-winter_us_5a54ddd0e4b003133ecca7bb 1/11
10/1/2018 Native Americans Who Can't Afford Heat Take Desperate Measures To Stay Warm | HuffPost
While there’s no indication that suicides increase during the winter, local experts say winter’s
Native Americans Who Can’t AffordA Heat 27k
Tak…conducted
relentless conditions can lead to feelings of despair. 2016 study through the
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs found that there’s a close correlation between poverty
rates and suicide rates in the U.S.
“It’s tough, and it all builds up,” Eileen Janis, 57, who co-runs Oglala Sioux Tribe Suicide
Prevention, told HuffPost. “And you say: ‘To hell with it. I just want to die.’”
NIKKI KAHN/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES
Pine Ridge, South Dakota: Youth suicide on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation remains a pressing concern. Oglala Sioux
Tribe Suicide Prevention, the reservation’s sole suicide prevention program, conducts outreach and collaborates with
health professionals and religious leaders to place those at risk into appropriate programs.
Janis’s organization is the reservation’s sole suicide prevention group, and she and just one
other counselor, Yvonne DeCory, serve the reservation’s 40,000 residents.
Both women keep their phones on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. DeCory said they
may get calls about three or four suicide attempts a night, year round.
Pine Ridge, which is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined, is in the third-poorest
county in the United States. It’s home to the Oglala Lakota, a tribe that’s part of the Sioux
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10/1/2018 Native Americans Who Can't Afford Heat Take Desperate Measures To Stay Warm | HuffPost
people. Per capita income in the county is $9,150, and 80 percent of residents are
unemployed.Native Americans Who Can’t Afford Heat Tak…
27k
The pervasive poverty forces residents to make impossible choices: whether to pay to heat
a home or buy enough food to feed the family, for example.
Suicide is the most severe risk advocates worry about during the winter. But it’s not the only
one. People living without heat are also susceptible to hypothermia, and older members of
the community are particularly vulnerable because their health could already be
compromised. Those who rely on space heaters run the danger of starting a house fire.
Children who don’t have access to sufficient heat struggle to sleep at night and then aren’t
able to concentrate in school, Alice Phelps, 47, principal of the Wounded Knee School
District, told HuffPost.
“The children act up at school. But when we talk to them one-on-one, the bottom line is they
didn’t sleep that night,” Phelps, who grew up on the reservation, said. “They’ll say: ‘I didn’t
have a blanket. I gave it to my little sister. I was cold.’ It just breaks your heart.”
Winter is also the time children appreciate school the most, because the building is heated
and they’re guaranteed at least one hot meal. Attendance is near perfect at this time of year,
Phelps said.
“They want to be in school,” Phelps said. “It’s warm. It’s safe. Their immediate needs are met.
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10/1/2018 Native Americans Who Can't Afford Heat Take Desperate Measures To Stay Warm | HuffPost
Native Americans Who Can’t Afford Heat Tak… 27k
FACEBOOK/WOUNDED KNEE SCHOOL DISTRICT
Attendance is near-perfect during the winter at the Wounded Knee District School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
when low-income children are desperate for a respite from the cold. At school, they’re guaranteed warmth and hot
meals.
Wounded Knee is working on building a “safe house,” a place where up to 10 children in
need of a place to stay for the night can come, whether because of abuse at home or not
having heat or other critical resources. The building is basically complete, but Phelps is
working on hiring a staff member to run it.
But even those on the reservation who can afford to buy propane to heat their homes
typically can’t afford as much as it takes to keep a house livable when temperatures are
drop below zero, said Bob Claussen, owner of Bob’s Gas, a company in Martin, South
Dakota, that makes the 45-mile trek to the reservation when it’s able. Claussen said he
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10/1/2018 Native Americans Who Can't Afford Heat Take Desperate Measures To Stay Warm | HuffPost
typically gets around 15 “small” orders for propane ― about $150 worth of propane at a
time. But thatNative
can lastAmericans Who weeks,
only about three Can’t Afford
he said.Heat Tak…
27k
JERI BAKER/ONE SPIRIT
Children who live in overcrowded homes without sufficient heat often have trouble sleeping at night and then can’t
concentrate in school, said Alice Phelps, principal of the Wounded Knee School District. The school works to provide the
resources it can to help support these students.
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10/1/2018 Native Americans Who Can't Afford Heat Take Desperate Measures To Stay Warm | HuffPost
A number of nonprofits work with fuel companies to get propane to households in need.
Native
Lakota Kidz, an Americans
organization Who Can’t
that donates Afford
supplies likeHeat
booksTak…
27k
and clothes to the
reservation, is one of the groups that works with Bob’s Gas. Lakota Kidz donates enough to
cover two months’ worth of fuel for about 30 families on the reservation.
Last year, the Oglala Sioux Tribe received $1.2 million in funding from the Low Income Home
Energy Assistance Program, a federal program that helps underserved families with their
energy bills and other needs. Those funds will drop slightly this year.
In addition to struggling to afford heat, many residents also live in run-down homes that
simply aren’t built for the brutal winters.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/on-this-indian-reservation-locals-are-in-survival-mode-during-the-winter_us_5a54ddd0e4b003133ecca7bb 6/1110/1/2018 Native Americans Who Can't Afford Heat Take Desperate Measures To Stay Warm | HuffPost
Native Americans Who Can’t Afford Heat Tak… 27k
JERI BAKER/ONE SPIRIT
Many of the homes on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation are nothing more than one room and aren’t equipped to withstand
freezing temperatures.
Some of these homes have only one room. In more than half the homes, anywhere from
three to four families are packed under one roof.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/on-this-indian-reservation-locals-are-in-survival-mode-during-the-winter_us_5a54ddd0e4b003133ecca7bb 7/1110/1/2018 Native Americans Who Can't Afford Heat Take Desperate Measures To Stay Warm | HuffPost
Faced with few alternatives, residents take desperate measures to stay warm. Some keep
Native
their ovens on. Americans
Others take refugeWho Can’t
in their cars,Afford Heatraises
which also Tak…the risk
27k
of carbon
monoxide poisoning.
Residents will wrap plastic around their windows to help insulate the interior, said Jeri Baker,
founder of One Spirit, a nonprofit that provides firewood to people in need.
The organization pays five workers to collect wood and deliver it to struggling households.
The workers get $100 to $150 per job. The nonprofit spent about $11,000 last year on
salaries and equipment, Baker said.
JERI BAKER/ONE SPIRIT
The nonprofit One Spirit hires five local residents to cut wood and deliver it to people in need on the reservation. The
employees earn $100 to $150 per delivery.
Jimmy Two Bulls, who’s employed by One Spirit, grew up on the reservation and still chokes
up when he talks about the conditions he’s seen. He’s been to homes that have gaping
holes in the floor. He recently visited an elderly woman who didn’t have a handle on her
front door and used a rag to keep it shut.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/on-this-indian-reservation-locals-are-in-survival-mode-during-the-winter_us_5a54ddd0e4b003133ecca7bb 8/1110/1/2018 Native Americans Who Can't Afford Heat Take Desperate Measures To Stay Warm | HuffPost
Outside of his work with the nonprofit, Two Bulls donates what he can, when he’s able.
Native Americans Who Can’t Afford Heat Tak… 27k
An older woman recently approached Two Bulls with a Mason jar filled with $67 in coins.
She asked him how much the loose change could buy her. Two Bulls handed over a load of
wood, free of charge.
“All around,” he said, “it’s a hard thing to witness.”
The reservation is preparing for a cold front this weekend and potential storm. Temperatures
are expected to drop to -5 with a wind chill of -19. Advocates and educators are taking
necessary precautions. Janis and DeCory said they are monitoring Facebook to see if there
are any children in distress, and they are giving their numbers to as many people as
possible. Others in the community are checking in on older residents.
“Everyone’s in survival mode,” Phelps said. “Out here, it feels like we’re in our own world. It
doesn’t feel like the U.S. It feels like a third world country.”
If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HELLO to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from
the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide
Prevention for a database of resources.
Eleanor Goldberg Suggest a correction
Business Reporter, HuffPost
MORE:
U.S. News U.S. Government Resources Huffington Post Suicide
International Association For Suicide Prevention
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