New home sits empty as Chinle woman waits for utilities, keys
Special to the Times | Donovan Quintero
Judy Attson sits on her bed with a kitten in the converted shed where she lives in Chinle Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. Her new three-bedroom home stands nearby, but it remains without running water or electricity, and she has yet to receive the keys.
CHINLE
Judy Attson climbed the new wooden ramp, cupped her hands against the glass and peered through the blinds of the house built for her.
Special to the Times | Donovan Quintero
Judy Attson walks up the wooden ramp leading to her new three-bedroom home in Chinle Monday, Oct. 12, 2026. The home was built through the Navajo Nation’s CHID-ARPA housing program, but Attson has yet to receive the keys, and the house remains without running water or electricity.
The new home sits on her homesite, a short walk from the converted shed where she sleeps. It was built under the Navajo Nation’s $100 million CHID-ARPA housing program. Its power and water have not been turned on, she has no keys and no one has told her when she can move in.
“I don’t know what’s going on and they didn’t tell us. They didn’t tell me,” she said in an Oct. 12 interview at her homesite.
Attson’s son, Marvin Attson, recalled the family’s excitement about the new house during an Oct. 2 interview at the homesite.
“Oh, she was excited. I was too. We all were,” he said. “She’s been waiting a long time, many years.”
The three-bedroom home includes a ramp because of his mother’s health. Separate crews leveled the home and completed the skirting, plumbing and electrical work, he said.
To read the full article, please see the Oct. 15, 2026, edition of the Navajo Times.
Highway 264,
I-40, WB @ Winslow