#inflation 2022

[lakotaboy605]

Healthcare for Everyone

As the winter season comes upon our state once again it makes me wonder about the people that do not have access to the proper health care or insurance hospitals require. People get left with huge medical bills from not having health insurance when they are referred out to hospitals from our IHS clinics on the reservation. I know this from my own experience I got stuck with a medical bill after being referred out and getting stuck with a medical bill from the Monument hospital. Having good medical insurance from my old job, I realized how fortunate I was to have this luxury, and people from my reservation do not have this to cover their health and medical bills.

            The clinics on the reservation do not offer the best health care to our members even though it was put in the treaties for our people to get free health care that is adequate. The tribal members see these issues when they have family members get sent home without proper care and pass away due to not getting the medical help from our clinic. Many families lose loved ones due to being misdiagnosed and not getting the proper health care when they go to the hospitals on reservations. When they do get sent out to hospitals that can give them the care needed this is when our members get stuck with expensive medical bills that they are stuck with and can ruin their credit score. Tribes in our country were promised free and adequate health care when we signed the treaties with the US government and are seeing these not honored with our health care that is provided on our reservations. The Pine Ridge Reservation sees the effects of these problems with our people not getting to the hospital in a timely manner due to our ambulance service being short staffed with workers and not having doctors at our hospital that treat members with the proper medical treatments.

            Even though we do not get the best health care, I am thankful it is free and makes me feel sympathetic for the people in our country that don’t have any access to free health care. We see countries that give every citizen access to free health care and this is an issue our country needs to address. Getting proper health care should be a human right to which every person is entitled no matter what country they live in. I am glad there are options like affordable health care being offered to people but this still doesn’t fix the issue our citizens face in the U.S.A of not having access to free health care like other countries offer to their people. Problems like our health care are issues that need to be addressed in the coming years and the reason why voting is important is to get elected officials in there that work for the people of this country.

[lakotaboy605]

Affordable Education in Indian Country

This was a good week for me as I am so grateful to be Native American and get an affordable college degree. I am currently unemployed due to taking a semester off to focus on my schoolwork and this grant and scholarship helps a lot. I pay roughly around $5000 a semester for my classes and without this grant I would think college would be unimaginable.

            The Pell grant has helped me out more than it will ever know, and I am thankful for this, or I do not think I would of ever went to college because I thought it cost too much and was impossible for someone like me coming from where I do. We have seen the negative impact student struggle with finishing their degree, but also having to pay back the outrageous student loan interest that comes with getting these predatory loans.

Many Native Americans grow up in poverty. Too often we must go in debt by getting these loans to afford a college education. The average poverty rate on my reservation is 53.75% compared to the USA rate of 15.6% Tribal members struggle on an everyday basis; this is compacted with the low unemployment rate. The Covid Pandemic made it even more complex and harder to get by.

All the challenging work I have been putting into my education has been paying off in a positive way by me getting scholarships that can get me by enough to pay my bills for now until the end of the semester. This semester has been a challenge financially because I quit my full-time job at our native clinic to focus on my classes this semester because they are all difficult courses. I am glad I did to be able to focus on getting homework done on time and doing the best work I can.

            I am glad for every student out their struggling to pay these loans are getting any form of help with the one-time student loan forgiveness that is being offered by the Department of Education. They are offering up to $20,000 if you received a Pell Grant and $10,000 if you did not receive one which to me is better than nothing considering the circumstances all of us have been dealing the past couple of years. Growing up our parents tell us we need to get a degree to have a successful life and get a decent job, but what isn’t told or explained to students is the effects these loans can have on a person from impacting their credit scores to having your wages garnished when working to pay off the insane interest rate.

            I hope every student, not just Native American students from poverty-stricken areas knows about these Pell Grants and uses them to their advantage. Also, I hope they find out about scholarships, and applying for them will go a long way also and knowing about the American Indian College Fund is another resource that helps Native Americans reach their goals of finishing their college education and helping with financial aid. We get told sometimes that we cannot break the stigma of alcoholism and being poor, but education is the key to breaking this vicious cycle and bringing hope to our people and tribes.

[lakotaboy605]

Housing Affordability Crisis

Last night I could not sleep because I had a dilemma on my mind thinking about my life and how easy it used to be for our parents and their parents before us. Thinking about this, I thought about the lack of affordable housing situation. I was thinking about what I need to do to get my own house and how I have been working on my credit, but it seems like I am getting nowhere. It made me sad and angry at the same time knowing that before, you could get an affordable house, but now you must deal with all the price gouging and inflation that is happening around us.

Inflation and high rent are so unfair to me now that I am old enough to have the ability to purchase my first house, but everything that has been happening around us the past couple of years has made owning a home almost impossible. It is terrible enough that rent is sky high, and property owners can charge whatever price they want to when first-time homebuyers could pay on a mortgage instead of sky-high rent. I am waiting and hoping that within a year or two, the housing market will go back to normal, and I will find an affordable home and not have to pay rent to these property owners who do not care and only want their money.

I know I am not the only person who feels this way and feels cheated out of being able to own our own houses and pay a mortgage like our parents and their parents did. Inflation has made it impossible for me and every other who dreams of owning their homes so much nowadays that it seems like purchasing your first home is out of reach when it should be your right to be American and work in this country. The past year I have taken a homebuyer’s class offered by Lakota Funds on my reservation and have been talking to my bank about what my credit score will need to be to secure a first-time homebuyer’s loan which is my goal. I am doing what I need to gain the knowledge and what I need to do to accomplish my goal of owning my first house.

The main reason according to articles I have read is it is not a housing crisis but an affordability crisis and this is what makes it harder now more than ever to buy a home. Mortgage rates are the highest they have been since 2008 and the racial homebuyer gap is also a major reason for this problem in our country. Also adding to this dilemma is the fact that median-priced homes are now soaring to new highs of more than $749 per month price increase and making it seem impossible for a person who is of a different race to own their first home.

[lakotaboy605]

My name is Clayton C, and I am currently a full-time student at Oglala Lakota College living in Rapid City and pursuing my bachelor’s degree in Leadership and Communications. Me being a 35-year-old Native American single parent made me think as I sat here and think about how the past couple of years opened my eyes to the world I live in now after the effects of the covid pandemic, and it made me miss how rent and prices used to be. I went to the grocery store with the last $50 that I had saved for groceries, seeing how little food it got me, I felt so bad for the other people who have a lot of kids to feed and how they must be struggling just to put on the table. The past two years and the hardships we have been facing put an idea in my head of how I want to learn how to be able to reach people. Get the knowledge I can get to give my best advice on how to budget for the food we put in our fridges and how to cut out unnecessary daily purchases that we tend to make without even realizing it every day. There is a sign of hope in my state with the promise of cutting the taxes on food costs; I hope this is just not a political stunt for the upcoming election.   The fact that rent prices have skyrocketed has also put a dent in all our pockets and is making it harder for regular hard-working people daily to get by and must deal with the stress of being broke or getting the worry of an eviction notice. We will see better days ahead. All we must do is stick with hope and the prayers we send out to our higher power; I hope everyone the best of wishes in these times of struggle and hardships.