HUD report clears Yazzie, clears up misconceptions

Posted by Bill Donovan | Aug 24, 2017 | News |

WINDOW ROCK

It took several months but both former Navajo Housing Authority CEO Aneva Yazzie and former board member Ervin Chavez are using the word “vindicated” after the Associated Press sent out an article about a recent report issued by the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Aneva Yazzie

HUD officials had been looking into allegations of corruption and mismanagement that had been published in the Arizona Republic in the first half of the year. Those articles, part of a special investigation that had taken two Republic reporters more than two years to complete, talked about million-dollar homes and sweetheart deals. They also talked of few homes being built on a reservation where residents waited for years to get into one.

The articles led to successful efforts by Navajo Nation President Russell Begaye and Speaker of the Council LoRenzo Bates to get Yazzie, Chavez and the rest of the NHA Board of Directors removed.

The HUD investigation found dozens of mistakes in the Republic stories – some small, some major – which gave readers the impression that NHA management didn’t know what it was doing. When these discrepancies were brought to the attention of editors at the paper – either by NHA officials or by the Navajo Times – the response was that the Republic stood by its stories.

No corrections or clarifications were ever printed in the Republic.

Probably the biggest disservice that was made to the leadership of NHA at the beginning of 2017 was the implication that Yazzie and the board of directors then in power had done nothing to correct past problems.

For example, one of the chronic problems NHA encountered before 2007 was the lack of construction oversight, leading to structural problems that would be discovered when the houses were completed or after they had been occupied.

The HUD study noted that “project performance requirements and monitoring have been significantly improved.”