From Norma Aldredge’s kitchen table, you can hear the cooing of her three-month-old granddaughter and the crying of another grandchild, just 6 months old, in the next room. Two more of Aldredge’s elementary school age grandchildren giggled in the living room before finding their way to the snack cupboard shortly after they were dropped off by her daughter. The smell of fried rice and hot dogs soon filled the air. The sounds of family coming and going, and smells of Aldredge’s food are regular occurrences in her home at the end of a cul-de-sac on the off-reservation Nooksack Indian Tribe allotment.
Tuesday, Aug. 20, was a little different. Aldredge sat at the kitchen table with her niece, Michelle Roberts, as they prepared for a virtual court hearing about whether she and her husband would be evicted from the four bedroom, two bathroom house they’ve lived in for almost 19 years. The same house and yard where her 11 Nooksack grandchildren and six great-grandchildren have grown up visiting and playing. Where Aldredge used to host gatherings for the entire neighborhood until she, Roberts, and 304 of their family members were disenrolled from Nooksack Indian Tribe in 2016.
And on Sept. 18, the families received devastating news. A ruling from Nooksack Tribal Court of Appeals in related to the nation’s efforts to evict Michelle Roberts, her father Micheal Rabang, and her uncle Francisco Rabang stated that after 15-years of tenancy, the families’ can take ownership of the homes, but the families were required to file an application to begin the process. The ruling explained that the families did not present any evidence of a transfer of ownership, a process they were unaware they needed to facilitate, because the Nooksack Indian Housing Authority changed the housing policy in 2021 without notice to the families.
In December 2021, after changing the policies, Nooksack Indian Tribe began working to evict the families. Before the policy change in 2021, the policy stated that each unit, not tenant, in the LIHTC Program has only 15-years in the program. After 15 years, the unit will be conveyed to the tenant who resides in the unit at the time of the 15th year regardless of the amount of time the tenant lived in the unit. All of the family’s homes were eligible for home ownership in 2020.
The ruling also stated that to be eligible for ownership, the tenant must be a Nooksack citizen.
Right to an attorney
The Aug. 20 hearing began promptly at 3 p.m. Roberts sat up straight and took a deep breath as she opened her laptop and prepared to represent herself, her father Michael Rabang, and her uncle Francisco Rabang, and grandmother Olivia Oshiro from eviction from their homes. This is the first of two hearings that week for seven households with 26 of her family members ages 5 to 88, who are facing eviction on Nooksack lands.
Over the years that spanned disenrollment through eviction, Roberts’ family has come to rely on her. She is their spokesperson and trusted matriarch.
Roberts has no legal background. But in March 2023, she was sworn in and admitted to the Nooksack Tribal Court Bar and has done her best to understand the legal jargon and represent her family. The Nooksack Court of Appeals refers to her as her family’s “tribal advocate.”
In 2016, Nooksack Tribal Attorney Raymond Dodge Jr. had Gabe Galanda, a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes and founder of Indigenous rights law firm Galanda Broadman, disbarred from practicing law within the Nooksack system. Galanda represented Roberts and her family and successfully blocked Nooksack courts from disenrolling the family from 2012 to 2016.
Once Galanda was blocked from practicing law at Nooksack, Tribal Court Pro Tem Judge Charles Hostnik went a step further and blocked Galanda from even helping his clients write their court papers since he was no longer able to represent them in court.
Nooksack Tribal Court judges have claimed since 2016 that Roberts and her family have the right to a new attorney. But when Galanda contacted the only two attorneys on the Nooksack Tribal Bar Current Advocates List in 2022 to inquire if they could represent his clients, both declined. The two attorneys said it would be considered a conflict of interest to take private cases against Nooksack since they are employed by the nation as tribal attorneys. But Nooksack has blocked the availability of tribal attorneys who don’t have that conflict of interest by refusing to allow a business license to any private practitioners or civil rights lawyers, according to Galanda and Roberts.
The Nooksack Indian Tribe declined to comment for this story.
Olivia Oshiro and Norma Aldrede were represented by Northwest Justice Project in 2023 through a grant to defend low income people from eviction but the funding for the program ran out and these families were left without representation again.
At the start of the hearing, Roberts asked the panel of judges, Chief Judge Rajeev D. Majumdar, Associate Judge Jennifer L. Tepker, and Associate Judge Charles R. Hostnik, for a continuance so that Galanda’s appeal to the court to represent the families, which was rescheduled for the end of September or early October, could be heard.
“For me having no legal background and having to navigate through the legal process is extremely difficult and emotionally draining,” Roberts said. “To have this all sit on the shoulders of someone that has no legal background is so stressful and each of the families have so much to lose. So, I am asking respectfully if you could find it in your hearts if a continuance can happen and see how that appeal turns out if there is a chance that our attorney may be able to represent us, it would be much appreciated.”
Chief Judge Rajeev D. Majumdar denied Roberts’ request and she was asked to start the hearing and “make her argument.”
Homeownership on Nooksack land
For the next 45 minutes, Roberts read from a document she had prepared. She started by addressing the passing of her aunt, Olivia Oshiro. Tenants are required to notify Nooksack Indian Housing Authority in writing of any changes to the composition of the household members within 14 calendar days. On July 3, five days after Oshiro passed away, Charles Hurt, an attorney representing the Nooksack government, submitted notice to the court of her death and suggested that “her death automatically terminates the lease and renders her appeal moot.”
“In most Indigenous cultures, recently deceased ancestors are respected through a period of silence that lasts weeks or months,” Roberts said in the hearing. “For tribal attorneys to have sought a dismissal of her or her estate’s housing rights appeal within two [business] days of passing shocks of conscience.”
Nooksack attorneys argue that Oshiro didn’t own the home, so there is no estate involved in this case. The attorneys say the lease was terminated with the tribe upon her death and the property should be remanded back to Nooksack. But Roberts and the other families argue that they own the homes, so her aunt’s family should be able to pursue her property rights and that Nooksack Indian Housing Authority (NIHA) cannot evict them without compensation.
After a brief recess, the three judges postponed Oshiro’s case for four months so that her family could obtain legal representation. The judges asked Roberts to continue with her argument for the other three families’ cases.
The arguments in Oshiro’s case are the same for each of the other six households. Nooksack Indian Housing Authority claims the houses are owned by the Nooksack nation and that the families no longer qualify to live in homes after disenrollment because the homes are intended for Nooksack citizens. According to Hurt, Nooksack currently has a waiting list with over 200 citizens who need housing.
But the seven households facing eviction were supported by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Native American housing dollars as well as federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program (LIHTC) assistance. This program was meant to create a pathway to homeownership for Native people across the state. After 15-years, they could receive the deed to their home under the Eventual Tenant Ownership (ETO) program. All seven of the homes facing eviction have exceeded the 15-year mark for transfer of ownership.
The Washington State Housing Finance Commission would typically enforce the rules of this federal tenant purchase program. State housing commissioners did tell the Nooksack housing authority that it was out of compliance with federal and state LIHTC laws. But on March 11, 2002 the state Housing Finance Commission Director Steve Walker said he wouldn’t stop the evictions.
Whether the houses were part of the LIHTC program is not in question. Both HUD and the Office of the Washington State Auditor confirmed that the homes were a part of the LIHTC program.
But Hurt argued otherwise in the August hearing. He argued that the families were simply tenants under a lease, pointing to the fact that the tribe managed the property. Under the 2005 LIHTC contract that each family member signed, Nooksack’s role was that of a property manager until the 15 year lease was up. But Nooksack hasn’t fulfilled that role properly either, according to Roberts.
She has lived in her home for 16 years now. According to the LIHTC contract, her home should have been conveyed but NIHA continues to act as the property manager, even recertifying the houses annually and raising rent but not assisting the families in important home repairs. There was a fire because of a candle in Roberts’ front room. The windows broke out and the fire caused damage to the wall. According to Roberts, during each inspection for the last three years NIHA has ignored it.
Hurt also argued that the spouse of a tribal member or a family member could step in as head of household, and the person could continue to reside in the house but the Nooksack housing authority hasn’t allowed that either. Saturnino Javier, one of the Nooksack 306 facing eviction, who signed LIHTC lease in 2008, tried to transfer ownership to his son, Saturnino Javier Jr., who is still a Nooksack citizen, so his family would maintain eligibility for their home. The nation’s housing authority denied requests to transfer head of household status to his son.
Hurt also claimed that there was no evidence of ownership and no document promising to convey but an August 2002 affidavit shows otherwise. Elile Adams, a citizen of the Lummi Nation and sister of Cathalina Barril, one of the disenrolled 306, worked for Nooksack Indian Housing Authority (NIHA) from 2006 to 2011. She detailed her work for those participating in the federal LIHTC program at the Nooksack Indian Housing Authority.
“The tenant/homebuyer was told by me that their homes would be conveyed on the 15-year anniversary date of when it was occupied,” Adams wrote in the affidavit.
Family without a country
These same arguments have continued since 2021. Over the years, Galanda and the families facing eviction have urged Senator Maria Cantwell, a former chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and champion of the federal LIHTC program, to speak up about the issue and urge Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to intervene and halt the evictions.
“We are desperately requesting your help in stopping these evictions from taking place in your home state,” a July 18 letter from Roberts and the six other heads of households reads.
In the letter to Cantwell, Roberts and the other 6 households pointed out that she introduced the bipartisan Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act: an attempt to improve “the housing credit program to better serve at-risk and underserved communities.”
“We are those at-risk communities, and you can help,” the letter reads. “We are entitled to civil rights protection, and we are begging you to urge Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to intervene and halt these evictions. Your public silence is threatening not only our livelihoods but the legitimacy of these two federal programs, which are administered across the country and in Indian country.”
Senator Cantwell’s office declined to comment for this story.
Roberts and her family hoped that the HFC, HUD, or DOI would intervene and while state and federal officials have called for an end to the evictions, they refuse to take any action, often citing Nooksack sovereignty or self-determination.
In a February 3, 2022 letter to then Nooksack Chairman Ross Cline, Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland, urged the Nooksack Tribe to treat its community members with dignity and respect. This was reiterated in a recent statement to UNN + ICT.
“The Department of the Interior has been engaged with the families and individuals impacted by the Nooksack Tribe’s planned housing evictions for the past several years through their attorney,” Bryan Newland, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs at the U.S. Department of the Interior, told UNN + ICT in a Sept. 28 email. “We have worked across the federal family to explore options for these individuals, including evaluating whether or not their civil rights were violated. After review, we determined and communicated that we do not have the authority to intervene. However, we continue to implore the Tribe’s leaders to stop their planned evictions. While we respect and commit to uphold Tribal sovereignty, we do not support the manner in which these actions are being carried out. There is still time for the Nooksack Tribe to treat its community members with dignity and respect, and it is our hope that it will.”
Housing authority leaders have also openly shared that they are looking to DOI for guidance. Leadership at HUD said in communication with Galanda that they “will continue to look for direction from Interior.”
“With the federal family looking to the Interior Department for leadership on this domestic Indigenous human rights issue, and our clients looking to America’s first Indigenous cabinet Secretary for morality, we hope Secretary Haaland will bravely answer the call,” a January email from Galanda to Joaquin Gallegos, an Advisor for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs.
Secretary Haaland’s office declined to comment for this story.
“It’s disheartening that the first Indigenous cabinet secretary in the country’s history would turn a blind eye to the Human Rights pleas of Indigenous people, especially when she has absolute authority to enforce civil rights in Indian country, and in this instance, to stop the evictions and the takings of the family’s homes,” Galanda said. “There’s literally nothing preventing her except herself and her own politics from doing the right thing here.”
As a sovereign nation, the Nooksack Indian Tribe has the right to determine who is a citizen of their nation. Also, when any sovereign Native nation chooses to participate in federal programs, for housing or other purposes, there are contractual agreements between the nations. The current court cases are not about whether the people who live in the houses are citizens of Nooksack. They are about whether the housing agreements between the two nations and the families who currently reside in them were honored, and if not, how to remedy that.
“Right now our family is feeling like a family without a country,” Roberts said during the Aug. 20 hearing. “Our birth right is being stripped and our very own tribe is forcing us out – all without due process. The U.S. is turning a blind eye to our plight and using sovereignty to not help us, we have nowhere to go for a fair process. The U.N. has intervened, a first in Indian Country, and has sent two unprecedented statements calling on the federal government to intervene. This should show how serious our situation is.”
In 2022, the United Nations called for action against the evictions. The Nooksack Tribal Chair at the time, Ross Cline Sr., called for a full retraction from the U.N.
“They never contacted Nooksack,” Cline Sr. said in a press release. “They never investigated the facts. They never even published a report. They posted a press release riddled with misinformation. We repeat our request to the United Nations to support the sovereignty of all nations, including the Nooksack Tribe. These two Special Rapporteurs did not visit Nooksack, did not speak with the Nooksack people, and they do not seem to understand or respect the sovereignty of Native American tribes. We again demand a full retraction.”
By March 31, 2023 U.N. experts Balakrishnan Rajagopal and José Francisco Cali Tzay penned a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterating concerns about the pending evictions and affirming that there is a shared responsibility between the States and Indigenous authorities to maintain international human rights. The letter asked for details about the ETO program and evidence of “measures taken” by U.S. and Nooksack authorities “to ensure compliance with international human rights obligations … including through exploring feasible alternatives to the forced evictions.”
The Nooksack council described the U.N.’s approach as “an insult to tribal sovereignty.”
Even with a United Nations inquiry, the evictions continue to move forward. So when Roberts heard that the state was evaluating the entire Eventual Tenant Ownership (ETO) portion of the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program, she hoped that might shed further light on their property rights and put an end to the evictions.
Eventual Tenant Ownership
Washington state legislators aware of the Nooksack housing issues contacted the Office of the Washington State Auditor. They wanted to know if the Housing Finance Commission, which oversees the LIHTC program in Washington, has been properly administering the tenant ownership option.
December 2023, the auditor’s office began evaluating the entire tenant ownership part of the LIHTC program. All but one of the developers that opted into tenant ownership are housing authorities on eight Native nations with a total of 603 homes, 83 of them for Nooksack Indian Tribe.
Although the Nooksack properties were part of the LIHTC program, and the eviction cases on Nooksack are the reason that the auditor’s office became aware of the potential lack of action by the HFC on the tenant ownership option, the state auditors did not look at any of the seven houses facing eviction.
The auditor’s office originally claimed that “as sovereign entities, tribal governments and their programs (with limited exceptions around tribal schools) are outside the audit authority of the State Auditor’s Office” and that “in Washington the overwhelming majority of LIHTC projects with purchase options are tribal projects.”
The auditor’s office didn’t respond to UNN + ICT’s question about whether that would make audits impossible for the majority of LIHTC projects.
The state auditor’s office also claims the seven households were not included because the evictions are the subject of ongoing lawsuits.
“We determined that we could answer the questions we have without entering into the Nooksack issues, thus letting any legal cases proceed without our involvement,” said Adam Wilson, external communications and legislative relations officer at Washington State Auditor’s Office.
But the lawsuit, which hangs on whether or not the tenants of the homes facing eviction should be homeowners through the HFC tenant ownership program, would be settled if it was determined by the auditors office that the HFC should have administered the tenant ownership option.
“We are not looking at the case of the Nooksack properties in particular,” said Wilson. “Instead, we are reviewing how the state agency administers the LIHTC program and the tenant ownership option for housing projects across the state. That will include determining whether the agency followed federal rules for the program and talking to both developers and tenants about their experiences with the tenant ownership option.”
Even though the Nooksack properties in question were part of the LIHTC program, the families will not be interviewed either.
Instead, three families are now facing eviction in the wake of a ruling issued Wednesday.
The Sept. 18 ruling from Nooksack Tribal Court of Appeals was issued by a three-judge panel that included Judge Charles R. Hostnik. On Aug. 29, Roberts requested that judge Hostnik recuse himself, since he decided a previous ruling against Olive Oshiro, Norma Aldredge, Alex Mills, and Saturnino Javier’s eviction cases and now he sat on the appeal panel. That request was in alignment with Nooksack tribal courts code, which says: “The judge who originally heard or decided a case is not eligible to sit on the panel which is hearing the case on appeal.” Since all seven cases are connected, Judge Hostnik sat on an appeal that involves the four cases he decided as pro tem tribal court judge.
Hostnik did not recuse himself and was not removed from the panel. The Sept. 18 ruling included pages of identical text to his February 2023 ruling. Roberts and Galanda believe Hostnik used his summary judgment decisions against certain members of the family to decide and write the appellate opinion against the others.
“This judicial misconduct would not happen in any other court system in the country,” Galanda said. “It is all so incredibly beyond the pale.”
Hostik is the judge that blocked Galanda from being able to help his clients write their court papers since he was no longer able to represent them in court.
The ruling also stated that to be eligible for conveyance, the tenant must be a Nooksack citizen. Prior to the 2016 disenrollment, Oshiro, whose case has not been ruled on yet, had lived in her home for 17 years by 2016. The 2021 policy change would not apply to Oshiro’s home since her home should have been conveyed prior to the policy change.
The Nooksack ruling went on to explain that the appropriate remedy for the evictions may be a breach of contract action against NIHA and HFC, instead of the appellate appeals court.
Future Reconciliation
Roberts hoped that things would change when Chairwoman RoseMary LaClair was elected in 2022. Before LaClair was elected, she said that she would meet with Roberts and her family. Once elected, that changed.
“We are not angry people,” Roberts said. “We told them we wanted to sit down and be respectful, just have a conversation, then maybe we can understand where you’re coming from. Maybe you can understand where we’re coming from. That’s all we want to do, is to have a respectful conversation with them, and nobody wants to do it.”
Nooksack leadership declined to comment for this story.
Roberts is concerned about the elders and potential harm that may come to them if the Nooksack appellate court rules that Nooksack has the right to evict them. Aldredge, who’s lived in her home for over 19 years, has a lifetime of belonging there, so even though she has been packing things over time, her home still looked untouched. Roberts is also concerned about how she’ll move the elders into small senior living centers with all of their belongings.
“We thought this would be the last home we’d have to move to,” said Wilma Rabang, wife of Fransisco Rabang, 83-year-old disenrolled Nooksack and Roberts’ uncle, who is also facing eviction. “Why can’t they just wait until he passes, and then I’ll move. It’s just putting us farther away from our grandkids.”
Their son and four grandkids are Nooksack citizens. Their family lives on the reservation just two miles down the road.
“They just wanted to be here together to sit around a fire,” Rabang said. “This was our forever place to be around family and just live out his years. Are they going to kick us out? Is the sheriff going to come and drag us out of our houses?”
Roberts says her grandmother, Elizabeth “Libby” James, would be devastated to see how her family is being treated. Libby escaped the residential schools and their family decided to move so their children wouldn’t be taken from them again. After the Nooksack Indian Tribe became federally recognized, Libby and her family were able to move back to be with their Nooksack people.
“She always said, ‘This is where we come from,’’ Roberts said. “She wanted to bring all of her kids back, and that’s why all of them ended up being back up here. The thought of all her work and all her wishes just thrown away is kind of heartbreaking. It is our birthright. It is where we come from and they just won’t accept it.”
The Sept. 18 decision was against Libby’s sons, Michael and Francisco Rabang, and granddaughter, Michelle Roberts, pushing them away from their family, people, connection to land and culture once again.
This story has been updated with a statement from Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs, Bryan Newland.
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