1 Photo
The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which opened the door for hundreds of impoverished Native American tribes to open gambling facilities as a means of economic self-sufficiency, is a murky topic for debate.
For a tiny percentage of the Indian tribes around the country, casinos have brought immense wealth and positive results. For many tribes, however, the gaming facilities have provided little economic benefit for tribal members and have often opened a Pandora’s box of new pitfalls.
For the Shinnecock Indian Nation, the need for economic stimulus is undeniable.
According to the 2000 U.S. Census, more than half of the approximately 500 people who reside on the reservation just outside Southampton Village live below the national poverty level. The median income for a family living on the reservation is just over $14,000.
Since the tribe began its casino quest, contracts with outside development interests have brought in approximately $1 million a year to the tribe, some of which goes to pay the salaries of the approximately 30 tribe members who are now employed by the tribal government. A casino, if near enough to the reservation, could potentially provide hundreds more jobs. It could also give a financial boost to the various programs the tribe, which is not yet federally recognized, now struggles to operate on meager government grants.
Tribal Trustees Chairman Randy King points out that the roadways on the reservation are crumbling. Houses are deteriorating, and since most tribe members can’t get mortgages or home equity loans—as almost no Native Americans living on reservations can, because the reservation land they live on cannot be privately owned—they struggle to piece together money for maintenance or repairs.
With minimal funding from grants, the Shinnecock education program labors to be much more than an after-school care program, and it shares a small building with an equally strapped senior citizens program that provides a few hot lunches to poor seniors and organizes a few activities. The reservation medical center provides remedial care and, recently, dental check-ups, with help from the state and Southampton Hospital. And various cultural programs are popular with the tribes’ young people but are limited by scant funds to broaden their scope or sophistication.
“They’re doing the best they can, but we’re living off grants,” Mr. King said this week. “We need to get computers for the education center. We need our roads repaired. Our houses need roofs and new windows.”
If the tribe is able to successfully navigate the labyrinthine federal and state processes that would allow them to open one, a casino could benefit members of the Shinnecock Indian Nation—but how it will provide those benefits is apparently still a topic of debate within the tribe. Some say a Shinnecock casino should be looked at as a potential source of jobs; other say it can be simply a source of income based on the revenue a casino would generate—possibly as much as $1 billion a year for a gaming facility close to New York City, according to one forecast. Deciding which option is best to provide the assistance the tribe needs likely will dictate where the Shinnecocks seek to build, when and if the time comes.
The Oneida Indian Nation’s successes upstate could well be looked at as the perfect role model for the Shinnecocks, both in terms of what a casino development could become and how the revenues could be put to good use.
The Oneidas’ 1,200-acre Turning Stone resort development, which includes several hotels, five golf courses, a concert hall, and numerous dining and nightlife venues, as well as a casino, is a supersized photocopy of the sort of development the Shinnecocks had originally envisioned for the Westwoods property in Hampton Bays, and one that is still a guiding vision for a development in other areas. Tapping into the revenue potential of family vacationers, concert attendees and culturally interested day-trippers to augment the massive revenues from gamblers has become increasingly important in lean economic times when casinos around the country are seeing their gaming income tumble.
But it’s how the Oneida have managed their casino wealth and what they have done with their newfound income since opening their first gaming hall 16 years ago, the first of its kind in New York State, that makes them the ultimate example of what Indian gaming was supposed to do for Native American tribes.
Perhaps most prescient to the Shinnecocks’ own internal debates at the moment is the tribe’s reliance on Turning Stone as an employer. Of the Oneidas’ 1,200 members, more than 400 individuals work somewhere on the Turning Stone property. There is no shortage of available jobs—the tribe employs more than 5,000 people in all.
“Basically, anybody that wants a job can have a job. There is zero unemployment,” said Keller George, the chief of the Oneida tribe, in a recent interview. “When we started our development, there were a number of large manufacturing firms in the region—Carrier, General Electric, General Motors. Those have all closed. We would have nothing, but we’re able to provide for our people, and the whole community.”
While Mr. George and other tribal officials would not discuss how much the tribe earns from Turning Stone, several area publications cited financial documents that were apparently leaked in 2002 that showed the tribe brought in about $70 million in annual profits. And yet jobs remain important to the Oneida tribe members, because, despite tens of millions of dollars in profits, there are no handouts for the Oneida people.
While some other suddenly cash-flush tribes have simply divvied up the massive revenues and distributed them to tribe members, no strings attached, the Oneida have instead used their income to build up social programs, aiding tribal members without letting them become reliant on tribal handouts.
“We have a responsibility to provide for our members,” Mr. George said. “But we don’t just give anybody anything. If you’re just given something, you won’t take care of it. If you’re just given a large per capita [payment], you wouldn’t work.”
Some money is given. If an Oneida wants to build a house on the tribe’s 17,000-acre reservation, he or she will receive up to $50,000 to cover a down payment from the tribal housing program. To overcome the difficulty Native Americans face in getting mortgages, the Oneida’s housing program also guarantees any mortgage loans to its members, effectively providing the collateral that most homebuyers gain when they purchase property. But the individuals have to secure the loans on their own. No tribe member has ever defaulted on a home loan, Mr. George said.
Turning Stone’s large revenue stream has meant that tribe members don’t have to contend with many of today’s most inflationary living costs. Paying for college education is not a concern. The tribe has set up a broad college scholarship program, which pays the tuition and room and board costs for any of its young people who go to college, as well as providing money for books and a living stipend for full-time students. Graduate degrees and doctorates are also paid for.
To date, Mr. George said, the tribe has put more than 260 of its youth through four-year colleges, many more through two-year or trade schools, and dozens through law school, medical school and master’s degree and doctorate programs. Many of those graduates return to the Oneida reservation to work for the tribe’s various social programs, tribal government or at the resort.
“The scholarships program is very important to us,” said Mr. George, a weathered 74-year-old with long, jet-black hair tied back in a tight ponytail. “It was a conscious decision by our people to go that route. If we had done large per capita payments to our people, we wouldn’t have the money to do the scholarships, and that was more important—to give our kids the desire to go to college and do for themselves. It’s like the old proverb: Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”
The Oneida also provide comprehensive health care for all its members. Medical, dental and vision coverage are all provided at no cost. The tribe runs numerous health services as well, from pre-natal care to nutrition guidance to drug and alcohol assistance programs.
“In the long run, it saves us money and makes our people happier,” Mr. George said.
The benefits the tribe offers has brought many of its members, who the tribal elder said were “scattered to the four winds,” back to the Oneida reservation, making it a bustling and healthy community and fostering pride in the tribe’s heritage.
He acknowledged that without the resort revenues, none of the tribe’s social programs could have been as comprehensive or successful. As a federally recognized tribe, the Oneida had been drawing from Bureau of Indian Affairs funding for many of its programs—a route Shinnecock leaders have said is their foremost interest in securing federal recognition.
That funding “never comes close to meeting the needs of a tribe,” Mr. George said. “So now we provide, through education and basic assistance. It’s worked well for us.”
