Employment is an obstacle to home ownership for residents of the Acoma Pueblo, says Nelda Martinez. Photo: Marc Piscotty
Nelda Martinez is a home ownership specialist with the Acoma Pueblo Housing Authority, located 60 miles west of Albuquerque. She provides financial literacy training to clients seeking housing at Acoma Pueblo, home to about 3,000. Clients are counseled about finances, maintenance and the realities of home ownership as they progress from a low-rent to a rent-to-own program.
“The [clients] don’t understand you have to have a steady job. It’s very hard because there aren’t very many jobs,” she says.
Transportation is a big issue, with the nearest work centers 25 miles away in Grants, N.M., or in Albuquerque.
Martinez took a 50-percent pay cut to return to the reservation, where she could both help her people and care for her elderly mother. She’s working toward getting her social work license and says the tribe is planning to assume social services responsibility from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
A bureau representative comes to the Pueblo from Albuquerque twice a week, but Martinez says it isn’t enough. “We need someone every day. There are a whole lot of things that would be different.”