Eleanor is always smiling and has many stories to tell. She is quiet, reserved and prefers to speak in Navajo. While on home visits, she is very kind and doesn’t hesitate to teach Navajo words and phrases to our Red Feather Staff. Her home needed weatherization work and Aging in Place adaptations. Red Feather programs were able to install weather strips, seal gaps, caulk priority air leaks, install a heat pump, a smoke detector, a water saving faucet and 10 LED light bulbs as well as a mini-split for heat and AC. Prior to the mini split, she utilized a wood stove and had no AC. Thanks to the mini split, she can now turn on the AC or heat with the touch of a button. Eleanor also has mobility issues that make it hard for her to get around easily. Thanks to the Aging in Place program, she got a toilet riser, shower tub handrail, and a kit that includes an ice pack, night lights, non-slip rugs and a handheld shower head. These products aid elderly clients to comfortably get around their home. “I am very thankful for the work that has been done” Eleanor says. “The (minisplit) unit that was installed keeps my home nice and cool… I no longer get headaches from the heat, I feel a lot better”. Thank you to Red Feather Partner Cozyhome for their work on this project. “I am very thankful for the work that has been done” Eleanor says. “The (minisplit) unit that was installed keeps my home nice and cool… I no longer get headaches from the heat, I feel a lot better”. 2020 Number of homes improved: 16 2020 Total Value of improvements: $64,639 Red Feather’s NHRN program provides case management services to families in need of critical home health and safety repairs. The importance of this program has become even more significant, as we have seen individuals with poor housing conditions suffer complications with COVID-19 at significantly higher levels than those living in well maintained homes. Sadly, our ability to implement housing repairs has been nearly halted to reduce the risk of spreading the virus between our housing repair contractors and families being helped. Additionally, for many months, our partner communities have had strict shelter-in-place rules, along with roadblocks keeping non-residents from entering. However, through strong advocacy and careful planning, we are now starting to get approvals for returning to work. Below are a few pictures from some of the projects we were able to complete prior to and during the virus. Sharon Granger Project: Sharon Granger’s project was first brought to you back in April. Her house was almost destroyed by fire. She is a single mom with a beautiful son who has special needs (wheelchair dependent). As you can see from the pictures below, the fire almost gutted the entire home. Construction work on the Granger home is still in progress due to the severity of the fire damage, but it is on schedule to be completely remodeled by the end of August 2020. Loretta Talas Project Dorothy Humetewa Project:
Your donations help provide critical case management services to families in need.Story by Shannon Maho, Program Coordinator I have known about Red Feather for more than five years, and have been the Program Coordinator for the last year. Prior to being a Red Feather staff member, I was a volunteer for small projects and during a straw bale house project at Hopi in 2014. Prior to coming to Red Feather, I completed degrees in sustainable green building and interior design, while gaining hands-on experience in the private and government construction industries. I truly enjoy having the opportunity to give back to my Navajo and Hopi tribal communities. I am proud of the positive impacts Red Feather’s programs have on the families we help. The team effort that exists among Red Feather staff, and the communities we serve to develop and implement solutions for local housing needs, ensures our work has a lasting positive impact. As the Program Coordinator, my responsibilities are processing applications for the programs, coordinating projects-both big and small, and working with independent contractors and the homeowners to ensure our work is effectively implemented. I’m especially proud of our efforts to develop the local workforce by hiring skilled labor workers and contractors from our partner communities, and providing them with the support they need to be successful. I believe deeply in program efforts to provide hand-ups and not hand-outs wherever possible, by encouraging families to get involved any way they can in their home repair projects. Even without asking, many offer to prepare meals for the workers and donate craft items as part of their gratitude. Red Feather shares many stories through social media, so please check our Facebook and Instagram pages to see how our services help to build ramps, weatherize homes, repair roofs, and educate and empower homeowners to maintain a healthy home. Red Feather regularly offers free workshops to Navajo and Hopi communities. Our Do-It-Yourself style workshops, including Healthy Heating, Women’s Home Maintenance, and Home Weatherization, are highly popular and often have dozens of names on a waiting list. In the past six weeks we’ve completed three Healthy Heating workshops at the Hopi Sipaulovi Youth and Senior Center. These workshops focus on wood stove maintenance and safety, teach fire safety presented by the Hopi Fire Department, and provide information on alternative heating sources and on-site visits. Here are two stories I’d like to share that highlight the positive impact of our work: ![]() An elderly lady living on the Navajo reservation applied for our NHRN program and we were able to get her qualified for weatherization services, as well as our USDA Housing Preservation Grant that enables us to provide extended health and safety home improvements. By the end of her project, she finally had a bathroom with working toilet, and to her relief no longer has to leave her home to use the facilities at neighboring convenience stores. Before, her primary heating source was a space heater, which was replaced with a mini-split heating and cooling unit that alleviates safety hazards, spares her from gathering firewood, and lowers her heating cost. She also had a ramp built to prevent falls for both herself and her daughter, who also has mobility issues. The homeowner said, “I had applied and asked for assistance from other organizations and programs, and Red Feather was the first to knock on my door". She was well deserving of our services, for she has raised many foster children and from the stories she tells, they are now doing well and attending college. ![]() Another elderly woman, from the Hopi nation, recently benefited from our weatherization program but still had many outstanding home repairs that we were not able to resolve with any of our current grant sources. However, through the means of a donor-sponsored fundraising campaign, she will soon be the recipient of a mini-split heating and cooling system and an indoor and outdoor ramp for safety measures. Currently, she has a wobbly plastic step that is so dangerous for her to use, she has told us, that she doesn’t leave her home. This woman is just the sweetest. We are all ecstatic that she will be given the help and services she needs. My experience working with Red Feather has been nothing but fulfilling. I am excited to go to work every day and often find it hard to pull away from work at the end of the day. My favorite part of what I do is visiting the families throughout the duration of their project. In the end we see how just knocking on their door from the very first visit made a difference in resolving their home improvement issues for a safer and healthier living environment. After that first visit, it’s not just a simple hello- hugs are given. At times it does get emotional for me; many of our clients are elderly and they deserve the ultimate respect and care. I am so happy that Red Feather can provide that in what we offer. Being able to go home to the Hopi and Navajo reservation as part of my job is an added bonus, and I am constantly learning who my relatives are. Now I can say I have so many more grandmothers and grandfathers. It’s important to care and respect our elders and veterans. Respect is what I teach my children, not only for the human race, but also for nature and the environment. Respect. Kyaptsi (pronounced kep-si). Thank you, Red Feather, for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this organization that has proven to help so many of my people. Askwali Ahéhee' NHRN:
Our Native Home Resource Network program was designed to help families address health and safety home repair needs. Our case managers work with home owners to assess their needs and available resources and then leverage our networks to gather the missing components to complete needed repairs. Often, it takes multiple resources in order to fully address the needs of a given family. One example of an NHRN resource is a Housing Preservation Grant we were recently awarded from USDA Rural Development to help Navajo families living in Cameron, AZ. We also have specific funding from Kendal Charitable Funds that helps us conduct aging in place assessments for tribal elders and provide them with simple home modifications like grab bars, anti-slip mats, toilet risers, and LED lighting. Currently we have over 136 families that have contacted us for assistance. Our policy is to give each family a minimum of an hour of our time, in which we provide them with advice and referrals. As our capacity allows, we then move these cases into an active management status. At this time, we are actively helping 19 families find the resources for their housing repair needs. The recent addition of Shannon Maho to our team has greatly increased our capacity to service more active cases. Professional Weatherization: We are now in our fourth year providing professional home weatherization services to Hopi and Navajo families that receive electricity from APS. Since the start of 2019, two Hopi professionals, employed by our subcontractor CozyHomes, LLC, have been able to make substantial improvements to the comfort and energy efficiency of 14 homes so far. Ensuring that the envelope of a home (roof, siding, windows, doors) and insulation are intact is often our first priority to ensure families have the basic framework for a healthy home. Many of the families that come to us through this program also require the help of NHRN to resolve health and safety repairs that are not covered under our contract with APS. We are grateful to have this case management program to help families find additional funding when necessary. Healthy Heating: Over the past year we developed a new healthy heating educational program with support from the University of Arizona Foundation’s Agnese B. Nelms Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice. Now with their additional support, we are developing a heating demonstration site to introduce two alternative heating technologies to the Hopi community and learn more about their performance. The driving need for this work is coal, the primary fuel source for many Hopi and Navajo families, is expected to become very scarce at the end of 2019 with the closure of Navajo Generating Station. Now, more than ever, healthy heating alternatives are needed, and Red Feather is working earnestly to respond to this need. Four Corners Stove Replacement and Weatherization Program: We are now helping to facilitate a project in the Four Corners region of New Mexico on the Navajo Nation that seeks to improve indoor and outdoor air quality by providing cleaner heating appliances and increasing home heating efficiency in 500 area homes. Many families burn coal and wood to heat their homes, often with older, inefficient appliances that can contribute to disproportionate rates of respiratory disease. The funding for the work is provided via a consent decree by Arizona Public Service, Southern California Edison, and other owners of the Four Corners Power Plant. Roy Hosteen has joined the Red Feather staff to coordinate this program. The duration of the project is expected to be about three years, and Red Feather is honored to have been asked to play a part in this important work. ![]() When we started sharing with Hopis and Navajos the relationship between home environment and occupant health, and empowering them to make their homes safer, we soon encountered families where the resources required to remedy their problem were far greater than the family could assemble on their own. This is why we developed the Native Home Resource Network (NHRN). This program allows us to help families assemble the missing resources that are needed to solve their own home health and safety repairs. ![]() The assistance we provided the Lomabalaquihoya family last winter is a good example of how the program works. Carolyn and Robert had taken our DIY Home Weatherization workshop and received a home weatherization kit that included a CO alarm which they installed. A few months later a cracked coal stove caused poisonous fumes to fill their single room home. Luckily their CO alarm woke Carolyn who was able to awake the other family members and everyone was able to escape safely. Desperately in need of a new stove, Red Feather called around looking for discounts on stoves and created a crowd funding campaign which many of you contributed to. Carolyn and Robert donated several pieces of their magnificent artwork for us to use as thank you gifts and raffle prizes in their fundraising efforts and to help other families. With a discount from Roof Dancers, a Flagstaff stove retailer and installer, and money raised from the crowd funding campaign, the Lomabalaquihoyas had a new energy efficient pellet stove installed before the end of winter. ![]() This year Red Feather donated 100% of the proceeds we earned from Arizona Gives Day donations to Lilly Miller, a Navajo elder and Vietnam Veteran’s widow, who is trying to build a new home for her and her family, who are currently living in an old trailer without electricity or running water. Thanks to your donations and the help of a volunteer carpenter who used only a hand saw and a hammer, Lilly has the walls up on her new home. Red Feather continues to help her fundraising efforts to hopefully get a roof, doors and windows installed before the year is over. ![]() Belva Ann Starkey, a Hopi elder from Sipaulovi Village, suffered severe roof damage in a storm. We are assisting her with assembling the resources she needs to get her roof repaired. So far we have mounted a fundraising campaign and are in discussions with Belva’s church and Hopi tribal agencies who may have some funding to help. Click here to help Belva with a new roof Through this program we also were able to connect volunteers and funding from Wells Fargo, Home Depot, BNSF Railway, Assist to Independence, and a group of students from University of Missouri to Navajo families in need of accessibility ramps. With their collective help and the help of Navajo Department of Veterans Affairs’ Western Agency, Tuba City Chapter and a number of hired local carpenters, we built 9 accessibility ramps. We continue to receive far more requests than we can fulfill and have a growing waiting list of families needing help. Despite our inability to help every family, for those that only need a little assistance, we have been able to help many by loaning tools, connecting them with donated materials, or providing counseling on funding or referring professional resources. We are very grateful to have the funding and support of Sunwest Bank Foundation and Wells Fargo to allow us to deliver this program. And we are very honored to have just been awarded a $35K grant from Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco through the sponsorship and support of Mohave State Bank. The funding from these large financial institutions, which have high standards to receive funding, is the result of our having designed this program with the help of the communities being served, and funders seeing the direct impact it is having. Wells Fargo volunteers present a check to Red Feather for $15,000 to build ramps for Navajo disabled and elders.
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