We now know just how devastating this virus, known as COVID-19, has been to the country, our communities and our people. As an organization whose constituents are the most vulnerable among us — the elderly, we empathize and mourn the knowledge, wisdom and insight that has been lost to this silent but deadly virus.

It is not a selective virus; it has also taken the lives of young people — young people who were destined to be the next generation of parents, leaders and repositories of the culture, language and traditions of their people. To the families and friends of those whose voices have forever been silenced, we extend our condolences, prayers and wishes for peace and strength. Let us remember them well and pray for their peaceful journey to their ancestors.

For those who are remaining, remember our elderly for they are our source of strength and resilience. Let us care for them, protect them and honor them not only during these trying times, but in the days and years to come. We can only ask that you remain hopeful and look forward to the day when we can once again live free of the fear of this deadly stranger; a virus that is not welcomed among us.

Like many people, I am concerned and at times fearful of this stranger. But I know those feelings are natural; what gets me through the day is knowing that this moment and this time will pass. It will pass.

I know I will see that day, but in order to do that, I must take care of myself, my family and those with whom I work. It is a personal responsibility that I have to you, my family, my colleagues and my community. During this time, please take care of yourselves, your elderly and the vulnerable people in your community. Listen to and abide by what your tribal leaders, health officials and traditional leaders are saying so you all can see that new day.

To those on the frontline: tribal leaders, healthcare providers, emergency medical technicians, community health representatives, law enforcement and Title VI program directors and staff — our appreciation and gratitude. Your dedication and love for your tribe and your elders are exemplified every day that you are in the field helping your communities. You are the warriors protecting your people and communities.

Sincerely,

Larry Curley

Executive Director

The National Indian Council on Aging is hosting weekly calls with all Title VI grantees to provide new information and updates about tribal programs. This is also an opportunity for tribes to ask any questions they might have, as well as discuss the impact that COVID-19 has had in their communities.

The Administration for Community Living will be on all calls, as will resource centers from the National Indigenous Elder Justice Initiative, the University of Alaska, the University of Hawaii and the University of North Dakota.

CALL DETAILS:

Weekly on Fridays at 3 p.m. EDT

Toll-free: 800-619-6520

Participant Pass-code: 1410635

NICOA’s Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) has been working very hard to keep all of its participants safe during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Participants, who normally go to a host agency for 15-20 hours a week to gain skills to become more employable and compete in the job market, are on paid sick leave. Participants will remain on paid sick leave until the governors of their states open their training sites and it is safe for them to return.

Staff have spent countless hours on the phone with participants, ensuring that they are at home and staying safe. NICOA provides all SCSEP staff with the most up to date information on COVID-19, so they can confidentially relay accurate information to participants.

During this time, program participants have stayed positive (although going a bit stir crazy). We have only gotten a couple reports of participants that have contracted COVID-19, so we feel that we made the best decision putting our participants on sick leave and having them stay home.

All our prayers go out to all our elders and their families as this pandemic takes its toll. We encourage you all to keep your heads up and to be patient until we can all return to some sort of normalcy.

Respectfully,

Sue Chapman

NICOA's SCSEP Director

Thank you, Marcy and Molly at the 405 Mask Makers, for your donation of 500 masks to our Senior Community Services Employment Program! It makes a difference for the elders we serve.

Thanks to you, instead of worrying about how to get required masks to return to work, our elders can feel safe returning to training.

Diane Martinez is the picture of a resilient elder whose journey and difficulties led to success. As a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, traditions are especially important to her. She attends the Weoguf-kee (Muddy Waters) Ceremonial Grounds in Hanna, Oklahoma, and has learned some of her native Mvskoke language through classes at the College of the Muscogee Nation, which she teaches to her grandchildren.

After surviving many challenges, she has finally found a place where she can thrive. As a participant in NICOA’s SCSEP, Diane now works 20-30 hours per week to supplement her retirement income. She has found a place with NICOA’s SCSEP to grow and learn additional employment skills.

NICOA's Senior Community Services Employment Program (SCSEP) partners with The Salvation Army Red Shield Kitchen to train program participants as cooks and kitchen assistants. During the process, participants learn the state guidelines for properly handling food, how to properly clean and sanitize, as well as train for food handlers license. The program was recently recognized in an article by Senior News & Living OK.

Check out our interview with former SCSEP participant and current Salvation Army Red Shield Kitchen employee Patricia Harrison (below, left), who talks about how NICOA's SCSEP changed her life. In the next video, former SCSEP participant and current Salvation Army employee John Hairston shares his experience with NICOA's program.

Membership with NICOA offers many valuable benefits. As a paid member you will receive NICOA’s online bimonthly newsletter, legislative updates on important issues and resolutions affecting elders, voting privileges for qualified members and discounted registration fees for qualified members to attend our biennial conferences. Be an important part of a national membership network and become a NICOA member by applying online or by mail.

There are 1.3 million people in the country’s roughly 15,000 nursing homes. More than 16,000 long-term-care residents and staff have died of COVID-19, according to a USA TODAY analysis of government data. And nearly 97,000 residents and staff have tested positive for the virus.

American nursing homes are not up to the task of protecting their older and infirm residents from COVID-19. Infection control and prevention problems were the most frequently cited violation in nursing homes last year, and one-third of Medicare beneficiaries admitted to nursing homes suffer harm within two weeks of entry, according to a 2014 report from the federal Office of Inspector General. The weaknesses in patient care and oversight at nursing homes are widespread and well known, and only intensify the risk that residents will not only die from COVID-19 but also from the erosion of care the pandemic is causing, increasing neglect and abuse.

And yet the federal government is considering rolling back infection control requirements in U.S. nursing homes — even as the long-term-care industry’s residents and workers continue to be overwhelmed by the coronavirus. A rule proposed last year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would modify the amount of time an infection preventionist must devote to a facility from at least part-time to “sufficient time.”

Although the implementation of social distancing is necessary to flatten the coronavirus curve and prevent the current pandemic from worsening, the stress of isolation can have an affect on anyone. With elders designated as “ high risk”, elders and those supporting them worry that precautions could further isolate this vulnerable community, exacerbating loneliness and stress.

Chronic stress is harmful to your health and can be particularly hazardous for elders. Although it’s difficult to determine the extent to which chronic stress affects the health of elders, there is undoubtedly a correlation.

The Department of Health and Human Services has announced $250 million in grants from the Administration for Community Living to help communities provide meals for elders.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act provides additional funding for the nutrition services programs authorized by the Older Americans Act (OAA) of 1965. These programs provide meals to more than 2.4 million elders each year, both through home delivery and in places like community centers. The need for these services, particularly home-delivered and packaged meals, has increased as community measures to slow transmission of COVID-19 have closed meal sites and have left many family caregivers unable to assist their older loved ones.

In addition to meals, OAA programs provide a wide range of services, such as help with bathing and dressing, rides to doctors’ offices, education on managing chronic illnesses, support for family caregivers, and much more. Provided by a network of community-based organizations, such as Area Agencies on Aging, local community and senior centers, faith-based organizations, and other nonprofit service providers, these programs work together to help millions of elders each year stay healthy and continue living independently.

Scammers are trying to profit from COVID-19-related fears. Their attempts can come in any form: emails, postal mail, text messages, social media messages, phone calls and voicemails. According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers have lost $5.85 million for COVID-19 schemes, and that’s just what has been reported to the agency. The average median loss to these scams for each consumer is about $600.

Do not respond to calls or texts from unknown numbers, or any others that appear suspicious. Never share your personal or financial information via email, text messages, or over the phone. Be cautious if you’re being pressured to share any information or make a payment immediately.

Scammers have technology that makes it appear they’re calling from a local phone number, a local business or even a law enforcement agency to trick you into answering or responding. Hang up, call the agency they claim to be from, and ask for the person who said they were calling you. Remember that government agencies will never call you to ask for personal information or money.

Lifeline consumers can receive up to $25 per month discount (and up to $100 reduction for first-time connection charges) in addition to the standard Lifeline benefit amount if they live on federally recognized tribal lands.

Lifeline customers residing on tribal lands are eligible for Link Up. Link Up is a one-time benefit per address; you can request Link Up each time you change your primary residential address. Link Up can reimburse the full cost of initiating service with certain phone/internet companies at your primary residence, up to $100. If the cost of initiating service is more than $100, the company will provide a no-interest payment plan for up to $200 for up to one year.

American Indians and Alaska Natives serve in the Armed Forces at  five times the national average and have served with distinction in every major conflict for over 200 years. Considering the population of the U.S. is approximately 1.4 percent Native and the military is 1.7 percent Native (not including those that did not disclose their identity),  Native people have the highest per-capita involvement of any population to serve in the U.S. military.

They also have a  higher concentration of women servicemembers than all other groups. Nearly 20 percent of American Indians and Alaska Natives servicemembers were women, while 15.6 percent of all other servicemembers were women.

To date,  27 American Indians have been awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor. American Indians have participated in every major U.S. military encounter from the Revolutionary War to today’s conflicts in the Middle East, yet no landmark in our nation’s capital recognizes this contribution. Thankfully, the  Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian is currently working on a  National Native American Veterans Memorial, anticipated for Veterans Day 2020.

Last month, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem threatened to sue the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Oglala Sioux Tribe if they did not remove highway stops within 48 hours. The tribes had set up the checkpoints to keep unnecessary visitors off the reservations. The chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe said the checkpoints are essential to protecting the health of the people on the reservation, especially as the state never issued a stay-at home order.

Noem backed away from her plan earlier this month, offering to negotiate on the issue if they would take them off U.S. and state highways. The Republican governor is now appealing to President Donald Trump’s administration, asking for help resolving the dispute.

The chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe told Noem in a letter that the tribe would consider her request to restrict checkpoints to tribal roads, but that their sovereignty allows them to operate checkpoints anywhere on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, in northern South Dakota.

A decision with implications for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s sovereignty over reservation lands is pending after a federal judge heard arguments in the tribe’s case on May 20, over teleconference.

In 2015, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, approved the tribe's application to take 321 acres of land into federal trust to create the Mashpee Wampanoag reservation; this included 170 acres of land the tribe already controlled in Mashpee and also gave the tribe jurisdiction over 150 newly acquired acres in Taunton, Massachusetts.

In 2016, a U.S. district court found that the Bureau of Indian Affairs had exceeded its authority, and in February 2020, the First Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the district court, maintaining that the Department of Interior lacked authority to take tribal land into trust for the benefit of the tribe since the tribe was not under federal jurisdiction in 1934 when the Indian Reorganization Act, which created the concept of trust land, was signed.

On March 27, 2020, the Trump administration announced it would remove the 321 acres of land from the federal trust and take away the designation of “reservation,” thereby removing the tribe’s ability to govern on its land and provide critical services to its members. This process has been done only one other time since the Termination Policy in the 1950s.

A group of Native American tribes are suing U.S. the Treasury Department for failing to provide billions of dollars in coronavirus relief allocated for tribes in the $2.2 trillion stimulus package. While the stimulus law mandated that $8 billion be provided to tribes by the end of April, tribal leaders say they have yet to receive any of the money, prompting the lawsuit which began in late April.

The tribes in the suit are: The Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation, the Quinault Indian Nation and the Tulalip Tribes in Washington state; the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians in Maine; the Akiak, Asa’carsarmiut Tribe and Aleut Community of St. Paul Island in Alaska; the Navajo Nation in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah; Picuris Pueblo in New Mexico; the Rosebud, Cheyenne River and Oglala Sioux tribes in South Dakota; San Carlos Apache in Arizona; and the Elk Valley Rancheria in California.

The delay stems in part from a dispute as to who is entitled to the aid. The Treasury Department is allowing corporations to apply for the aid, which many tribes are saying do not meet the definition of tribal governments and should not be eligible for the coronavirus relief as the size of the corporations could allow them to secure millions of dollars of the funding. The Trump administration has sided with the Alaska Native corporations.

Several lawmakers and aides involved in drafting the stimulus measure said that the intent was to allocate the money only to tribal governments, which were recognized in the Constitution and treaties that ultimately allowed the U.S. government to seize tribal land. A federal judge  ruled in favor of the Indian nations that contested the Treasury’s move to give Alaska Native Corporations money. The injunction ruled that Alaska Native Corporations did not meet the definition of a “tribal government” set out in the act.

However, the judge entered a preliminary injunction, which is not a final order.

Although the judge blocked the administration from sending relief money to the corporations, he did not order the government to distribute the entire $8 billion pool to the federally recognized tribes. The government could award money to Alaska Native Corporations and hold onto it until the legal fight is over. The Treasury Department recently sent a status report to the court, saying it “has not yet arrived at a determination” as to how to distribute the funds.