Housing
We have to be creative and flexible with our housing funds to ensure we are assisting more of our diversified housing needs including, elders care, rehab and re-entry and reintegration needs, and at the same time maximizing the growth of Lumbee communities. Single family, elder, veteran, and temporary housing programs will be a priority as we move forward. We will also work with our housing inspectors to ensure work completed on homes meet the homeowner’s expectations and the contract requirements. I am also committed to reviewing our housing programs to identify areas that can be utilized to help serve those outside of our four-county territory. We will also look at ways to incorporate our churches to assist with identifying and supporting those with housing needs.
Full Federal Recognition
As we move towards securing full federal recognition, we must utilize our connections with federal officials in Washington D.C., and our Lumbee members who have experience in Federal Indian Affairs, to educate our citizens on the “next steps” of this process. We will begin, or increase, dialogue with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Indian Education, Indian Health Services, and other federal agencies; well-informed office holders will allow us to keep our citizens updated on the implementation of federal programs. Realizing the total impact of full federal recognition for a tribe of our size will take time and we will do our due diligence to provide updates on the processes as they occur. We must also exercise all options when working to obtain full federal recognition. The legislative route along with legal options should be reviewed if full federal recognition is not obtained prior to the conclusion of the current congressional term.
Tribal Business and Economic Development
We will continue to expand our Tribal 8a footprint by creating additional businesses and partnering with other tribal 8a corporations to increase our ability to win contracts, with a special emphasis on creating jobs here at home for our citizens. We will work with education partners to ensure we have the right curriculum and trainings in place to provide credentials and certifications to our tribal citizens, so they are eligible for jobs with our 8a companies. I also believe financial literacy classes and entrepreneurial course work should be made available to our citizens who are interested in these areas and to ensure long-term stability to our economic development. Our tribe has a strong entrepreneurial background; thus we need to encourage those who seek to create their own business in order to help us grow our overall economy.
Cultural Outreach and Tourism
We need to focus on travel and tourism here in Lumbee Country by working to keep the Lumbee River clean and utilizing it as the natural wonder we all know and love. We will work with our elders and academics to document our long history with the River and its resources so that we can continue to preserve and restore those resources while better educating our surrounding community about its importance to the Lumbee people. We need to work with our local artists and craftspeople to promote and market their items at the local, state, and national level. We also need to work on a farming co-op to help our local farmers and ranchers sell market their products to a broader audience including other Tribal Nations and their economic development ventures. The work on the Culture Center must continue and the vision for an updated amphitheater and additional culture events need to become a reality. Continued cultural revitalization efforts are crucial for our people and traditional teachings and knowledge should be preserved and carried out in a manner that represents our ancestors.
Historic Preservation
We need to create an Office of Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) to ensure the protection of our natural resources and sacred sites. A THPO will have the ability to identify and document items and places that are relevant to our people so we may take steps to protect them from destruction and natural erosion. Also, a THPO can work with businesses to identify areas of concern to our Tribe prior to work being started to prevent disruption of sites and potential lawsuits. Consultation with our Tribe should become a standard operating procedure for business development in our territory. We must continue to document our history and our cultural practices using modern technology. Our ability to capture stories from our elders and to record our way of life will help us to teach future generations. We will also need to work with archeologist and historians to continue to collectively learn about our past as a Tribal nation; every family and community has had a role in helping us reach the twenty-first century, we will do our best to ensure we highlight that as we collect the information. Also, we must work to have a robust institutional review board process to ensure individuals doing research on our Tribe have approval to do so and the proper monitoring is put in place if needed.
Lumbee's Missing and Murdered
We must address domestic abuse and our missing Lumbee men, women, and children. Too much of this is going on and we must work to combat the mistreatment of our citizens. A working group/task force will be created to drive this effort to ensure we are putting the correct attention to these areas of danger that our citizens are dealing with and to work with our churches and local, state, and federal partners to ensure that our Lumbee Missing and Murdered are included in the national databases. Once again, partnerships with local law enforcement will be crucial to these efforts.
Youth
We will look at the establishment of a non-profit organization to act as the fundraising arm for our youth programs. A separate non-profit will allow for a consistent focus on fundraising and help generate additional funds beyond the normal yearly appropriations. The non-profit will also be used to increase the dollar amounts for individual educational scholarships for those attending college. We will also look at creating a youth commission which will allow them to help us draft policies to address the needs that they identify on a consistent basis. Our future leadership is among the current youth, we need to cultivate and encourage them by giving them a roll to move us forward as a Nation.
Strategic Planning
We will create a Planning and Development office to assist with future growth opportunities and to provide an outline for where we want to be as a tribe in the next 50 - 100 years. With additional funding coming in from our 8a companies, it is imperative that we develop a strategic plan for how those funds will be used to provide services to our citizens. Also, an annual economic development impact evaluation will need to be conducted to a assess our current reach throughout our territory and beyond.
Elders
One of the ways I look to better serve our elders is to have tribal employees get out into the communities. We will utilize our Boys and Girls Clubs, community buildings, and churches to set up remote work areas for tribal employees. This will allow our elders to cut down on travel time as they will not have to drive to and from tribal offices. I will also work to record the stories of our elders as they have a lot of historic and traditional knowledge we need to document, preserve, and have available for the many generations of Lumbee to come. I will also work with the Tribal Council to support and promote the Elder Groups that currently serve numerous Lumbee communities. Our Elder Groups are preserving our cultural ways and we need to ensure we are connecting our youth to these groups so those ways are being taught to our next generation of leaders.
Health Care
The Lumbee Tribe will continue to promote healthy living lifestyles by encouraging more exercise, better food choices, and helping to promote the importance of taking preventative steps to stop long term mental and physical health issues. These efforts will be focused on all of our citizens from newborns to elders. A healthier Lumbee Tribe allows our citizens to be more productive, creative, and allows for more memories and longer lives with those who we love. I will look at ways to allow our citizens to access better and quicker health care services by working with local providers and determining other avenues of service delivery. I also recognize the need to build a drug rehab center where our citizens can go to access help and get clean while remaining in our territory. Opioid abuse is strangling our communities and we need to be able to help our citizens right here at home while eliminating paperwork and wait times to get them into facilities in faraway cities.
Veterans
Our Lumbee Veterans have sacrificed a lot and the Lumbee Tribe’s Veterans Service office will continue to reach out and help those individuals who need our assistance. We will carry on our partnerships with others to help with employment, job training needs, educational benefits and housing services. I will also look to build new partnerships with other entities which will benefit Veterans with PTSD and provide support to spouses and caregivers. The mental and physical health of our Veterans is vital and helping them to receive quality care is essential. I will encourage the counting of our veterans and active duty service men and women which will help with future funding and programs. The safety and well-being of our Veterans will remain a priority during my tenure as Chairman.
Additional issue areas will be addressed in the future.
