There’s a new home on the Pine Ridge Reservation, courtesy of a businessman from the state of Maine. The sixth-generation owner of Hancock Lumber saw how desperate the housing need is on Pine Ridge and decided to do something about it.
More than 4000 new homes are needed on the Pine Ridge Reservation, according to the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s Partnership for Housing spokesperson “Pinky” Clifford.
Having someone donate the materials for one house doesn’t make much of a dent in that number, says Clifford – but it’s a start.
“It makes a difference,” says Pinky Clifford. “You know, if you look at the whole housing issue at once….it’s overwhelming. It will depress you. It will depress you, it will suppress you…distress you. But I…I look at it one house at a time. And that’s how we can change the face of housing here on the Pine Ridge…one house at a time.”
Kevin Hancock’s family has owned Hancock Lumber, based in Maine, since 1848. Hancock says a lifelong interest in the American West, in general, and the Lakota culture, in particular, brought him to Pine Ridge last year to explore the reality of life on the reservation.
“I came out to Pine Ridge for the first time in October of 2012 and I just was really struck by what I saw in a very compelling way,” Hancock says. “I just kind of fell in love with the beauty of the place and the big hearts of the people that live here. And then I also was really struck by the lack of economic opportunity and some of the needs that local people have here. And I just wanted to do something to…to help.”
Hancock says no one person can solve the housing issue on the Pine Ridge Reservation. His goal is to bring awareness to the problem in hope that others will be inspired to offer help as well.
“I didn’t get caught up in the whole macro-challenge of fixing issues for everybody,” says Hancock. “It’s just doing something and being interested and paying attention and, hopefully, bringing more attention to the needs that are here.”
Pinky Clifford says the house Kevin Hancock donated should be ready to live in within the next week.