More than 290,000 Navajo Nation members apply for Hardship Assistance Program

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — The Navajo Nation Office of the Controller is currently processing more than 290,000 individual applications for the Navajo CARES Act Hardship Assistance Program, which closed Nov. 30.

Of the thousands of applications, the tribe said many have issues that need to be resolved before they can be processed.

According to Pearline Kirk, Navajo Nation Controller, follow-ups will be conducted in the next several weeks with applicants. This process may require staff from the Office of the Controller’s call center to call or email applicants to confirm, verify or correct information on applications.

“It will take a significant amount of time to complete the initial processing of each application,” said Kirk. “More than 120,000-plus applications have some sort of error associated with them that needs to be resolved. Specifically, more than 30,000 applicants are not in the vital records database due to the database being incomplete. The errors could range from a mismatch between names, date of birth, CIB or hardship declarations. These exceptions must be cleared before payment can be made.”

When calling applicants, call center staff will identify themselves and will never ask for a full social security number. The call will come from the phone number (833) 282-7248. If you do receive a phone call from an unknown number, do not provide any information to them because there has been reports of fraudulent calls. Hang up immediately and call (833) 282-7248 to confirm the legitimacy of the call.

Hardship payments are expected to take place in January 2021 rather than December as previously reported. This is due to both the number of application errors that need to be corrected to ensure the maximum number of Navajo Nation members qualify and the need to determine the final amount of money that will be reverted to the Hardship Assistance Program pot before the end of the year.

Information provided by the OPVP