New Shiprock apartments result of collaboration

For years, the Navajo Nation's largest town has been plagued by what seems euphemistic to call "a housing shortage."

Industries requiring a specialized labor force often chose to set up shop in nearby Farmington, where their employees could find a place to live. Navajos who already had homes in Shiprock had to commute the 24 miles to the border town to work, while Diné who did manage to find jobs in Shiprock usually had to live in Farmington. It was a vicious circle.

A unique new housing project may be the first step in reversing that trend - at least, that's what its founders are hoping.

"You wouldn't believe the stories we've heard," said Pat Ray, asset manager for the new Chaco River Apartments. "People living in their cars, whole families living in tents ... hopefully this will be the answer."

The 96 units of Chaco River, located north of the Northern Navajo Medical Center, comprise the first community-owned housing on the Navajo Nation. The nonprofit Shiprock Community Development Corp., a brainchild of then-chapter president Duane "Chili" Yazzie back in the 1990s, launched the project eight years ago. The corporation approached Farmington-based developer J.L. Gray, which put together a creative mix of public and private financing for the $14 million project.

The key was a New Mexico program that offers tax credits for private financiers to buy into housing projects that will serve low-income residents.

Explained Tom Andrews, project developer for J.L. Gray, "Large corporate entities are always looking for tax breaks. Under the program, they get a tax credit and the community gets housing. Everybody's happy."

In the case of Chaco River, the private investors included such well-known names as Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, and Key Bank.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Navajo Housing Authority helped fill in the funding gaps.

The result is a mix of subsidized units and ones that will be rented at full market value.

"Studies have shown that mixed communities work the best for everyone," Ray said. "At Chaco River, we will have very high income people living next to single heads of household."

Depending on income level and which federal program they qualify for, tenants will pay anywhere from $50 a month to the full market value of $895 for a two-bedroom unit, or $1,095 for a three-bedroom.

Predictably, there's a long waiting list for the subsidized units while the full-market ones aren't rented yet. But Ray expects that to change soon.

"We have two large East Coast universities looking at them as a place for their people to stay when they come and work at the hospital," she said. "Once people see how nice these apartments are, they'll want to live here."

The apartments, designed by Albuquerque-based architects Dekker/Perich/Sabatini, are laid out on a spacious floor plan that replaces hallways with "shared living space," according to Andrews. They're fully wired for computers and cable TV, and residents will have the option of hooking into a shared satellite dish so the building won't host an ugly proliferation of metal mushrooms. Two playgrounds are designed to keep older and younger children separate, and there are both indoor and outdoor common areas with cooking facilities.

"Our goal is to create a community within a community," Ray explained.

While they're not entirely green-built, the buildings have some green design elements like clerestories that allow enough light in that residents will rarely have to flip a switch in the daytime. They have forced air heat and air conditioning.

Another plus you won't get with commercial housing: training for tenants.

"A lot of Navajos aren't used to living in apartments," explained Ray. "We educate tenants to think about their neighbors. For instance, quiet hours need to be respected."

For tenant Marjorie Delgarito, originally from Casamero Lake, N.M., her new home at Chaco River is "like a dream come true."

Delgarito is a single parent raising a son, a granddaughter and a niece.

"We lived on somebody else's property," Delgarito said. "We had no running water, no electricity and we chopped wood for heat. Now I live in a three-bedroom apartment. I don't have to chop wood. I don't have to haul water around in five-gallon jugs ... My son goes, 'Dang, Mom, this is luxury!'"

Ray realizes the 96 units are just a drop in the bucket of Shiprock's huge housing shortage - the corporation had 1,400 applications for the 84 subsidized units. But Chaco River is a start, she said, and can serve as a model for similar projects all over the Navajo Nation.

"We definitely want to build more of these here in Shiprock," she said, "and now that we know what we're doing, hopefully it won't take five years to get off the ground."