The elephant in the room 

We couldn’t jump right into the holidays with cheer and goodwill just yet, as the important issue of housing has popped back into the news.

This time, at least, it isn’t a huge fiasco with hundreds of thousands of dollars missing, but we can’t talk about new projects without reminding people what happened – and the fact no one was ever held accountable for that massive theft.

This time around a new renovation program was launched “designed to support owner-occupied households with children and youth by addressing substandard housing conditions that may pose health and safety risks,” according to a Mohawk Council of Kahnawake press release.

The event launches December 17 and offers grants up to $40,000 per family, helping 15 families as its goal in the first year.

That sounds great and we certainly need more good news on the housing front. It’s a step forward after everything that has happened with housing, which by extension affected the community drastically and dimmed hope for so many who rely on the program.

There is more good news regarding housing to come, according to MCK chief Jeremiah Johnson, and we welcome that news as well.

But we can never forget how much money was lost in such a blatant theft at housing, and we must never let it die, out of fear it happens again.

The irony (coincidence?) is this program has $700,000 attached to it – roughly the amount of money that went missing, or that was officially listed as missing, in the housing scandal years ago.

Who will be held accountable in the end? There was much finger pointing, HR movements (people leaving), and overall anger when it happened, but will anyone ever have their day in court to explain it all?

What responsibilities fall on the people who set up the old system that was in place, that allowed payments of all sorts (in cash) to be so easily vulnerable?

They played a role in this by making it easy to steal, and just like when similar incidents happened at the PKs and other places in town, this issue is being swept under the rug.

Blame eventually shifted from the powers that be to the ones who were delinquent on their mortgage, even though they were dealt a bad hand to begin with, with horrible interest rates on relatively small loans.

What kind of financial advice or proactive measures within the Housing Unit existed previously to help people pay their mortgages as efficiently and as quickly as they were able, and help to instill the pride that came with owning your house outright and not wasting money on high interest payments? Not to mention the helpful strategies and financial guidance that needed to come with all of a sudden being saddled with something that would take at least 25 years to pay?

Being successful as a Native community means helping the collective out as much as possible – in whichever difficult situation they find themselves in.

Proper financial accountability and management from top to bottom and then all the way back up again is sorely needed in more areas than just housing. And yes, this includes the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake itself.

The housing scandal clearly demonstrated the loopholes and the pitfalls of putting trust into a system that wasn’t properly supported, to guide community members out of debt, to help people who had nowhere else to turn, and we hope that’s changing.

Pride comes from individuals too, however, and with any new housing project, your responsibility is pretty simple. Keep your house safe and clean (black mold is a huge problem in our communities), pay your rent or mortgage on time, and always keep in mind you can’t take the house with you. A proper succession plan needs to be formulated so when you die, it is clear who your house is going to.

The last thing you want is an impasse where the MCK could (although it is rare) take your house back.

That’s a full circle moment no one wants to deal with.

Steve Bonspiel

The Eastern Door