Women complain of housing discrimination> Pleasant Point protest organized

PLEASANT POINT — About 20 women who believe the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Reservation Housing Authority has discriminated against them intend to fight back.

The women, who for the most part are single mothers with one or two children, have organized to protest what they believe are unfair housing practices.

Their complaints include the authority’s refusal to sell new homes to single parents on welfare; refusal to sell homes to single parents who are not on welfare, and who meet the agency’s minimum economic guidelines; and refusal to sell a home to a person who is single and childless.

Last year, the tribe received a $2.2 million grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to build 20 houses on the reservation. The two-, three-, four- and five-bedroom houses are nearly finished, and eligible tribal members on a waiting list will be able to purchase them.

According to a statement released by the authority, the following people are eligible to purchase one of the homes:

Tribal members.

Families with minor children who are displaced either on or off the reservation through no fault of their own.

Families with minor children who live in substandard housing on the reservation.

Families with minor children who live in overcrowded conditions on the reservation.

Families who pay more than 50 percent of their gross income for rent.

A family can be a two-parent or single-parent household.

Several woman said earlier this week that the authority had discriminated against them because they were single parents. Others thought they were excluded because they were on welfare.

Margaret Robinson, who has three children, said she was discriminated against because she was unemployed. If she did not live in her mother’s home, she said, she and her children would be homeless.

Phyllis Kennard said she and her two children lived in a substandard house owned by the tribe. She said the house is not insulated, has holes in the walls and a septic system that overflows into a nearby field and sometimes backs up into her kitchen sink. The house has been condemned, she said, but she and her family have been allowed to live there rent free.

Kennard said she was afraid her complaints might result in her eviction. A substandard house, she said, was better than no house at all.

Several of the women said they live in tribe-owned mobile homes that had been condemned. They said the trailers have substandard furnaces and are not winterized.

When some of the women asked tribal officials about the issue, they were told that the Housing Authority was not under the jurisdiction of tribal government but is governed by a board of commissioners that includes: Lynn Bailey, Fred Moore III, Shirley Mitchell, Alberta Dana and Denise Altvater. The women claimed that three of the commissioners received new homes under the program.

Marla Dewitt, who works and has children, said she was turned down for a home because she did not earn enough money last year. She said she had reviewed the authority’s income guidelines and believed she had earned enough to qualify.

Dewitt, who also lives in one of the condemned trailers, said she had been told she might qualify for one of the apartments the authority intends to build. “They are not going up until next spring, so I will have to spend another winter in that trailer.”

Some of the women also charged that there was a subtle form of discrimination on the reservation against those who: having the wrong last name, have no husband, and against those who are married to or living with a non-native American. “You have to get pregnant or married to get a home,” Robinson said. “Or marry an Indian,” another woman said.

Jodi Yarmell, who is single, said her situation was different. She said she does not have children and was forced to live with family members because she was not eligible to own a home. She said she had applied for housing in March and was willing to take anything.

“I never received any word back about available housing. There was never a letter to me personally after the application was sent in that said, `we are sorry at this point there is no housing available,’ ” she said.

Yarmell said she had first lived with her mother, and then moved in with her sister and family. “I was told that according to HUD qualifications, unless I was married or had a child, I was not considered a needy person,” she said.

Yarmell said she worried about the message that that policy sends to teenage girls. “Do I have to go out and get married or pregnant? People have said that to me, otherwise I am not going to get a house. What is that saying to young women on this reservation who are just graduating from high school and don’t know where to turn?”

Robinson said the women intended to seek legal representation from Pine Tree Legal Assistance, Inc. She said the group did not blame their predicament on the tribal members who had been lucky enough to qualify for their homes. “It is the one picking them,” Robinson said.