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Adequate housing should allow for the expression of cultural identity and cultural diversity. This means that the cultural dimensions of housing, such as the way housing is constructed, the building materials used, and he policies supporting these, should not be sacrificed in the name of development or modernization.
| Q. Who is suffering from culturally inadequate housing in the United States? |
| A. Native Americans in the United States have seen their traditional housing culture all but disappear. The federal government's approach to housing on Native American reservations has failed to consider the residents' culture or traditions. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in response to the severe housing crisis on reservations, has built "cluster housing" on many reservations, which has robbed the Native American people of their cultural norms of housing, privacy and husbandry. Cluster housing has, among other things, fostered overcrowding that is triple the national average, which has been linked to increased physical illnesses, increased alcoholism, and domestic violence, and decreased educational achievement. Today, clusters are often referred to as "reservation ghettos" and suffer from high crime rates and drug use. They have also been cited as a cause of the sharp increase in gang activity on reservations and a process of "multiple marginalization" which has weakened the traditional fiber of Native communities. |
Sources:
Public Broadcasting Service, Homeland; http://www.pbs.org/itvs/homeland/index.html
Website of the American Indian Relief Council, http://www.airc.org/res_pineridge.cfm; http://www.airc.org/livingconditions.cfm?ep=4
U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Aline Major, et.al, "Youth Gangs in Indian Country," Juvenile Justice Bulletin (March 2004). |
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