Siksika Nation flood victims demand answers on new homes

Siksika band members forced into temporary housing after the 2013 floods are circulating a petition demanding the First Nation's band council explain where donation money is going and why it's taking so long to move into new housing.

As of Friday, 43 evacuees of about 1,000 who lost their homes had signed the petition that asks Chief Vincent Yellow Old Woman and band councillors to "open up the books and provide copies of all the expenses and income and everything else that has to do with the 2013 flood donation money."

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About 170 homes were destroyed during the flood, and evacuees have lived in three temporary trailer communities since June 2014.

"We haven't heard anything since we left ATCO trailers and moved into our temporary trailers, and we just want to know what's going on with our trailers or our houses," Ben Crow Chief, who began the petition, told CBC News on Friday.

"A lot of people are getting discouraged and given up already. These communities that we are forced to live in, there is no respect in there. There's so much crime, so much drugs going on that it has to come to an end.

"We want to take control of our communities, but the leaders and the province, they don't want to listen to us."

After the flood, housing was based primarily on need and getting families to temporary housing faster, which meant different clans had to move into the emergency communities together, Crow Chief said.

"They're making decision all based on finance, and in the long run, the taxpayers, it's going to come back to them again, because they're going to wonder why there's alcoholism, crime," Crow Chief said. "It's because these communities we are forced to live in. We don't want to live in these communities, we want to go back to our family clans so we can get our family values back."

Meeting planned

The Siksika band told CBC News that band councillors and the rebuilding team will meet with the evacuees on Wednesday to provide an update on the construction phase.

Reynold Medicine Traveller, project co-ordinator for the Siksika Nation, told CBC News those who lost their homes should get relief within the next two years.

"We're finalizing the first phase of 13 homes. Right now we're doing the infrastructure of a 44-lot subdivision south of the new Crowfoot School," he said. 

"Why is it taking so long? One, because of negotiation with the provincial government and then internal approval of house and location policies, development of proposals, selection of land for the subdivisions. The chief and council on July 13 approved the motion to approve the location policy for the rebuilt homes."  

The band must abide by regulations In order to get provincial funding, Medicine Traveller said, adding infrastructure such as roads, power and sewerage must fall within those rules.

"And if it doesn't and it falls out of the guidelines, they don't fund those things," Medicine Traveller said.

Medicine Traveller said $702,000 remains in the Siksika relief fund, including money from the Red Cross and private and corporate donations. About $25,000 was spent to build two playgrounds, and $12,500 to a school project for child evacuees.