Letter to the editor: No money for Chinle nursing home

To the editor:

Recent action by our tribal government is totally unbelievable, denying financial support to build a new increased capacity nursing home in Chinle.

I recently attended the Budget and Finance Committee meeting last week and was astounded when the committee blasted Wayne Claw, Chinle Nursing Home CEO, accusing him of raiding the Navajo Housing Authority of funds to build the new 120 bed nursing home.

The CNH Board of Directors was approved by Aneva Yazzie, NHA, CEO, last year and she agreed to give CNH $21 million to build a new nursing home for 120 tenants, which the CNH board accepted.

As you know, Mr. Claw was on the NHA Board at that time when NHA’s $400 million unspent funds were to be returned to the U.S. government. Mr. Claw resigned from NHA and requested the unspent funds to rebuild the nursing home, which was accepted by CNH and under no circumstances were NHA funds raided from the established building account.

It is also noted that the tribe received over a half billion dollars from the U.S. government. We requested $8 million from this fund to build a new nursing home. This was disapproval by the Navajo Nation Council.

With the decreased funding the CNH will revert to building a nursing home for 90 tenants instead of the proposed 120.

These funds would benefit Navajo families needing care for their loved ones greatly. Too bad the Council is more concerned with building casinos than helping their elderly.

Wallace Hanley

Window Rock, Arizona

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