Our Nation's Poorest

More about Pine Ridge, the "Poorest of our Nation's Poorest"

South Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America. It is named after the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota Sioux American Indian tribes. South Dakota was carved out of the southern half of the Dakota Territory and admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889.

The Facts

In 1998, the suicide rate for Native Americans was 19.3 per 100,000, much higher than the overall rate (8.5 per 100,000).

Educate Pine Ridge

Read the orginal article here

The Pine Ridge Indian reservation, home to the Oglala Lakota Sioux, is one of the largest and most impoverished reservations in the United States. Located in the southwest corridor of South Dakota, the reservation is geographically isolated, resting approximately 100 miles away from the nearest metropolitan area, Rapid City. The reservation is home to approximately 35,000 people, most of whom (80%) reside in Shannon County, the second poorest county in the nation. The town of Pine Ridge, which lies within the heart of Shannon County, is the largest town on the reservation and is the location of the tribal government offices. The tribal offices and the nearby Prairie Wind Casino, an establishment composed of three trailers resting on cinder blocks, are virtually the only source of employment on the reservation. The land is infertile with little opportunity for agriculture and there is no other industry or commercial enterprises existing in the surrounding area. There is little development in the area, what development there is consists of a solitary gas station, grocery store and a couple of fast food restaurants. The grocery store, however, is so expensive that most people are forced to reduce their shopping to a single day a month, when they are able to travel 80 miles to the nearest town to purchase affordable groceries. The closest town, White Clay, Nebraska (population 22) consists primarily of three liquor stores that sell an estimated 11,000 cans of beer a day to inhabitants of the reservation. There is no public library on the reservation. No movie theatre. No recreation centers. Life on Pine Ridge offers few extracurricular options beyond school-supported athletics.

After more than a 100 years of 'development and progress' Pine Ridge remains in dire straits. With an unemployment rate that lingers around 85%, substandard housing (1 in 4 homes doesn't have an indoor toilet), rampant crime and drug issues, severe housing shortage (there are only 3,000 homes for 35,000 people) and health conditions that parallel third world classification, the Oglala Sioux are struggling to maintain their sovereignty as a people, culture and community. When you scrutinize the limited available data even a little closer, it is easy to see just how much of a crisis they are confronting:

On Pine Ridge, 63% of the population lives below the poverty line, that's 2 out 3 people. (USDA)

Average annual family income, not individual, is $3,700 per year (U.S. Census Bureau)

There is an unemployment rate of approximately 85% (U.S. Census Bureau)

Infant mortality rate 300% higher than the U.S. national average (United Nations and Peoples Organization)

Diabetes and Tuberculosis rates 300% higher than the U.S. national average; Fifty percent of adults over age 40 living on Pine Ridge have diabetes. (Indian Health Services)

One-third of the homes are severely substandard, without water, electricity, adequate insulation, and sewage systems (Indian Housing Authority)

The High School drop-out rate is 70%, compared to a national average of 11% average (United Nations and Peoples Organization)

Schools on Pine Ridge are in the bottom 10 percent of school funding by the U.S. Department of Education (Bureau of Indian Affairs)

Recent reports state the average life expectancy is 48 years old for men and 52 years old for women, the shortest for any community in the Western Hemisphere outside of Haiti (AIRC)

There is an estimated average of 12 people living in each family home; a house with only two to three rooms (National American Indian Housing Council)

The teenage suicide rate on Pine Ridge is 150 percent higher than the national average (Dakota-Lakota-Nakota). Alcoholism affects 8 out of 10 families on the Reservation, while the death rate from alcoholism is 9 times the national average (Dakota-Lakota-Nakota)

Pine Ridge is not the only American Indian reservation in the United States, suffering from this extreme poverty, poor health care and inadequate educational system, but it is the worst. We have no magical cure for these deeply burdening troubles, but we do feel that each and everyone of these individuals, especially the children and elderly, deserves the same access to food that the rest of our society is privileged to. We desire to provide access to this fundamental necessity, so as to allow these people to again become self-sufficient.