Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Navajo-Hopi Resettlement Program, focusing on: (1) program status; (2) problems faced by relocatees; and (3) Navajos resisting relocation.
GAO found that: (1) the relocation program was not completed in 1986, as anticipated, since more families than expected applied for relocation and the Navajo reservation had insufficient land to accomodate sufficient new homesites; (2) as of December 31, 1990, 68 percent of those eligible, or 1,894 families, had relocated; (3) 99 percent of the relocated families were Navajo; (4) of the remaining 888 families awaiting relocation, 54 percent lived in inadequate homes and 35 percent experienced home maintenance or repair problems; (5) less than half of the relocated families moved to off-reservation sites; (6) some of the families who moved to off-reservation sites experienced financial and adjustment problems; (7) 28 percent of the relocated families sold their off-reservation replacement homes primarily because they preferred life on the reservation; (8) to address problems encountered by families who had moved off the reservation, the Office of Navajo and Hopi Indian Relocation issued two program requirements to help families relocate successfully; and (9) the Office continued to work with the Navajo and Hopi tribes to avoid having to forcibly relocate Navajos resisting relocation.
