I don't know the details, but they are very very poor (Pine Ridge is often calculated to have the highest unemployment and lowest per capita income in the entire country; life expectancy is ~50 years), and I'm not sure how forrested the land is; most pictures seem to show grasslands.

The OP article suggested that many people ordinarily use propane heat, which normally can be delivered just fine. I don't know enough to say why not firewood, but I'd guess expense and convenience. Aha, this other article mentions a firewood shortage, but doesn't say details:

> In homes heated by firewood, there is another battle. Yellow Hair says there is a firewood shortage happening on the reservation, but communities are coming together to help one another. “Lending that helping hand, when they can and where they can,” said Yellow Hair. Keeping people warm is an issue across much of the Pine Ridge Reservation, with a firewood shortage and propane trucks jelling up from the cold.

—https://www.blackhillsfox.com/2022/12/22/one-natural-phenome...

And here's an article about life in Pine Ridge generally:

> Among the most impoverished of these reservations, Pine Ridge is plagued by an 80 to 90 percent unemployment rate with a median individual income of $4,000 a year, according to the Re-Member nonprofit organisation’s 2007 statistics.

— https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/11/2/life-on-the-pin...

Thank you for the context. It’s a little cringey to read all of the comparatively wealthy and privileged comments that boil down to “why didn’t they just spend lots of money on equipment and supplies.”

Another question is why they all still live there?

I guess you don’t understand how things work outside of your circle. They’re not software engineers on ridiculous salaries. Lots of people live day to day, not knowing where their next meal is coming from, never mind prepping a huge stockpile for storm events, or being able to spend thousands moving elsewhere & being able to afford said move/rent elsewhere/get work etc.

People’s biggest problems are mostly not how to pass a FAANG interview.

I can answer this as a dude that started off life at 11 homeless and went from there. Live in unquestionable poverty along with your support network of $4000 a year earners? Or take a bus to any random American city and get ready for your how many days can a green recruit last in Nam scenario?

>green recruit last in Nam scenario

How is it any different where you came from? Once you become a teenager the gangs and predatory "adults" start closing in on you to either join/serve or be an outsider they abuse for amusement.

I say this from similar situation as you but I was 16. Much easier since I could legally work in restaurants (which is what I did). I have no idea how you would make it without the ability to work. I'm not saying that I want anyone to go through what I or you did. However it was blindingly clear to me even as a child that staying was equal to dying. I don't see how these people stay in these places having been there myself.

Someone posted the average income at pine ridge is <$4k. You can work for minimum wage for almost a 400% increase in income by leaving.

Where are they going to go where they won't be at a severe disadvantage due to racism and lack of both money and connections?

Yes they’d be at a disadvantage. Wouldn’t you still make that choice? Why would you voluntarily stay in a place so poor? Can it really get any worse?

Anywhere else. You make it sound like racism is bad enough to keep them unemployed

> Where are they going to go where they won't be at a severe disadvantage due to racism and lack of both money and connections?

Mexico. This people needs the wisdom of a Mexican coacher.

Thriving despite racism, lack of money and no friends in town, but with a golden document of fully legal citizenship and speaking the same language? Yep, Challenge accepted.

I think the problem gets much more complex, and I would assume that moving from pine ridge (and similar places) - one would find that their rent increases more than 400%. I am assuming that living there grants access to transportation in some regard, as well as community mentors that help with how to live and what can be done when something tragic happens. Moving is more than the cost in dollars to get from point A to point B - and living somewhere in the states could yield a worse life for people even if they suddenly increased income by 400%. Last report I saw listed 8 counties (?) where you could pay rent on minimum wage (?) - I think it was a few in New Mexico and western Oregon - not sure this is still true - but you may need more than a job and rent if moving to these places - cars and other things may be necessary. I also don't know how many people could move to these last few places before all the available housing was taken and prices go up, and all the basic jobs are taken and people start working under the table for less, bringing the average wage down. The shortage of housing in this country is crushing so many, and that's without the other tough things being considered.

What about doing the opposite and going back to how they lived years ago, hunting and fishing, traditional housing.

I'm guessing however that the reservation was put in the most disadvantaged place for doing such traditional activities. A prarie is useless without it's bison. And bison are probably a protected species.

Many would call that poverty or subsistence but many long for it. It may be romanticised but it seems like the essence of life. Heimo Korth (?) In Alaska been doing it for 40 odd years.

For the same reason they cannot stockpile.

Moving is very expensive. Then how can they afford rent in a more expensive area? How will they find jobs?

We even have the first Gen Z Congressperson being rejected from housing due to low credit score, despite the fact that his salary as a future Congressperson is a known six-figure value.

Once society has deemed you too poor to be useful, it is hard to escape that designation even if you make it out.

Your salary has very little to do with your credit score.

Length of history + history of repayment.

Doesn't credit score also incorporate depth of payment (not sure if that's the term, but a history of paying back a large debt)? A financial adviser once told me, when I was three years out of university and had finished paying off my student loans, that my credit score was good (I'd paid off minimal bills ontime on credit cards for years and paid off a used car and student loans) but not deep - I'd never taken on a mortgage or any other high five-digit or six-digit debts.

So, though I'd been responsible for a long time, it didn't count like it would have if I'd engaged in a lot more borrowing. Problem was, I valued being debt-free sooner for the flexibility it gave me.

After all, look at the etymology of mortgage - mort gage (old French), literally "death pledge". Thanks, but I prefer life without that kind of constraint.

And if one is born into generational poverty, in a place highly dependent on government intervention, its probably really hard to access the mindset and opportunities for education and entrepreneurial examples that could start to break the poverty trend.

You are correct that history of repayment helps the score. Someone who borrows $5 once and pays it back once is less trustworthy (from a credit sense) then the person who borrows $5 every month and pays it back every month, as odd as that feels in the abstract.

Credit scores are intentionally a blend of elements. Generally the advice is to make one or two small credit purchases a month and pay them back - just enough to show consistent mild activity. Some people like using gas for this since credit cards are more fraud protected, but that may or may not be a "small purchase" for you.

When we talk about poverty, we want to seperate out the individual case (Bob is broke) from the group case (Mary's tribe is broke.) Fixing Bob's problems looks very different from fixing the tribes problems. (That doesn't mean the root problem is unrelated.)

Financial literacy education is unfortunately overrun with scams.

Of course, but also it is a little ridiculous that someone with $170k+ salary is totally unable to rent at most places due to automatic credit score rejection, despite pretty much everything being below the rule of thumb for rent and salary.

I have a relative who has generally been in and out of debt. Occasionally, she convinces someone in the family to give her a cash infusion - enough to clear the debts.

She goes back into debt right after.

In her youth, she didn't make much. She has since become a skilled professional though and now makes a very good salary.

She is still in debt.

I have friends who make mind boggling amounts of money and also have amazing debt. As they have made more their debt has gotten worse, not better.

A credit score says whether or not you have paid back your debts. Making more money does not fix the broken behavior - it often times makes it worse.

At the same time, being unable to rent an apartment in DC as a Congressperson effectively cuts out people who were, or are of, a certain income strata from ever serving as representatives and Senators. Is that actually desirable?

No. They can commute from Maryland or Virginia like everyone else.

Biden, when he was VP under Obama, commuted back and forth to Delaware on the weekends still.

Those states, and pretty much every state, also have apartments that run credit score checks.

Yes, and you can still get housing with a bad credit score, you will just be getting less expensive housing.

It’s a reservation and they’re the natives there. And the average is quite young, so I think everyone who can escape does (which can harm the remainder in other ways).

I spent time in ND, SD and MN matching online and phone wagering with receptive reservations. IMHO if you want to escape the res you gotta go far far away. Think 1000 miles. The racism in the Midwest is so entrenched that they solved the who!e uncomfortable mingling with people you hate thing by COMPLETELY excluding natives from society. The amount of times I saw natives bounced just for walking in to a bar in Fargo was disgusting. Its just assumed by race they are drunk, poor, vagrant and violent.

This also happens in Montana and around Four Corners, wherever there are reservations and non-native Americans mingling. The old bias against drunken Indians rears its head. Local characterizations propagate the narrative that the reservation is full of lazy drunks, dopeheads, or abusive and combative individuals.

I was able to work with members of the Ute and Navajo tribes in Four Corners years ago when our company worked on reservation lands and was required to hire a percentage of local laborers. Those guys worked as hard as the rest of us out in the July sun down in the hot canyons. They laughed at and with each other poking jibes at each other since their tribes were traditionally not allies. It was all good-natured ribbing and I'm sure they knew each other or of each other before working with us. They worked the length of our contract in the area and had few issues with attendance or effort.

Local whites always talked down about the natives but I found them to be as dependable as Mexican and central American immigrants (legal or otherwise) that I worked with in Texas and other states. These people needed jobs and were willing to work to keep a job and the quality of their efforts was on par or better than the quality of local labor.

In contrast, our company cycled through local non-native help. Many of those people appeared and worked long enough to earn a paycheck and then disappeared. Some even played the employment game where a group of friends hired out to each of the three non-local companies and on any given day your rolls would show all of them working with one of your crews, some of them with one of your crews, or none of them with your crews that day. They went where they thought the best pay opportunity of the day would be and had a friend sign them in where they were expected to be so they could earn a check there too. This went on for weeks until one of our crews had a problem in the field and in the process of sorting it out and looking for a scapegoat, they went through the rolls of potential crew members who should have had responsibility and discovered that several people listed as being present and working did not show up at all.

Since the three companies were in the same business and everyone knew everyone else our party manager had a talk with the other guys and they compared employee rolls and discovered all the overlap and the system of sign-ins. All of those people were fired immediately when they showed up for their next day's work. These were ordinary white guys who all lived in that area.

If someone doesn’t have the money to stock pile some food and fuel do you think they can afford to move?

Bus fare, then a homeless shelter until you find work in your new city?

Are you seriously advising them to leave their home to become homeless in a place they know nobody ?

So fight for space in a homeless shelter. Get robbed the days you find a bed. Get robbed or stripped of everything by the cops the days you don't and have to sleep outside. I've never been in the situation, but accounts from people who've survived it are a search away.

It's that easy folks!

Where do you want them to go? Rapid? Chadron? Scottsbluff? These aren't places with a ton of resources either. It's not like they can just pick up and go be homeless somewhere with good services at the cost of bus fare.

Places won’t employ you without an address. Homes won’t be rent to you without a job.

imagine a ghetto but instead of being in a major city like Venice it is 1000s of miles away from any real economic opportunity.

Thousands of miles? Check a map.

I grew up in North Dakota (where there are a number of reservations) and worked on a project in a First Nations village in Ontario. Comments here exhibit zero awareness of what crushing poverty (and reservation dynamics) can do to people. Or, for that matter, what enormous privilege and lucky circumstances can do to people.

>All you needed was to shovel like 20 meters of path and maybe a wheelbarrow.

According to the article some of the areas are getting 30 inches of snow and ice!

With drifts easily doubling that, I could see how 20 meters could quickly become near impossible to clear by hand, especially while it's still coming down.

Exactly. Nobody is going to be able to shovel that out by hand in that extreme cold. It was -30 with the wind here a couple days ago and it took my forever to shovel out the driveway because I had to frequently stop and go back inside to warm up. And that was just a small driveway with a few inches.

Also I'm not sure that every household has someone able-bodied enough to do that work.

Snow drifts can go 20 feet or higher with no place to shovel the snow to

Could they dig or melt a tunnel to the wood? If the snow were melted and then refroze as ice at the bottom of the tunnel, one could then slid the wood back to the tunnel entrance...

Hardship breeds creativity. Necessity is the mother of invention (except under excessive government intervention, which may be at the root of reservation problems).

Maybe if we could calculate the present day market value of all the land the US government stole from the Native Americans (I've heard we broke nearly every treaty we signed with the Native Americans... to our shame), that could be structural payments to encourage entrepreneurial activity on the reservation

This idea sounds like literal murder.

The odds of the snow caving in and being buried alive are far greater than the risks of waiting to get plowed out.

How much experience do you have in -30F with meters of accumulated snow? How much experience do you have digging tunnels? Because your comment reads like a literal Loony Toons episode, and I've never experienced below -10F or more than a meter of snow.

Sounds like bad idea. But assuming you have no choice and need to leave your house you still need to put the snow somewhere that you are digging out. Are you going to fill up your house with it?

The article mentions drifts as tall as houses. Even if you could get a shovel or snowblower under that, where do you put the snow? That's a ton of work!

That matches my experience. We'd typically have enough for the winter stacked at the edge of the woods behind the house, but maybe 1-2 weeks worth actually on the porch under cover to ensure it was dry by the time it was needed.

(This was back in the late 70s to very early 80s, on account of fuel costs, inflation, etc.)

This comment is peak HN contrarianism.

“How come they didn’t prepare better for a brutal winter”

Is the new “Dropbox will never work”

I suspect that most HN commentators do NOT know exactly how close to starvation and freezing and death they are (you can sit down and calculate it based on which assumptions could fail) but in the places where it gets cold you may be days or less if power fails. If your furnace can’t run without electricity how long does your house stay habitable? What backup heat do you have? If the gas lines are flowing you might be able to use a stove for awhile, or the water heater (both are often firable without electricity) - but how long will your food and water last?

I too appreciate your comment. Most folks here are probably less prepared than those in these rural reservations. NYC area has begun warning about blackouts to conserve power. They don't even have a fireplace or woodstove to burn clothes in.

You only have to look at that Texas cold snap a few years back to see how many people were forced to overnight in idling cars.

I really love your comment because it helps reframe the requirements gathering and solutioning process (as well as the constraints you're operating within) for an audience that, under the right circumstances, can effectively direct their engineering experience and knowledge to solve real world problems.

Yeah it’s actually kind of “fun” in a way. What will fail first? Ok let’s mitigate that. What now fails first? Can we mitigate that without ruining the first fix? It’s like a survival Gantt chart!

Same, upstate NY as a teenager. A couple cords stacked a few yards from the house, enough for the entire year. One problem we would never have is heat, except that if the power went out then some rooms would go cold with no way to run fans to move the air around. But no one would freeze because most of the house could be like a dry sauna.

I think in this case it must be more about a level of poverty so extreme they can't even pull together the years supply ahead of time, even if the community as a whole does have it all ready.

Maybe they don't distribute it except it tiny amounts for some reason? Maybe it gets stolen or sold?

I mean I can only assume that there is some reason they can't do the sensible thing. I couldn't imagine risking relying on daily or weekly deliveries of tiny armloads of wood. I can only assume anyone doing that has no choice or at least thinks they have no choice. I'm sure there are a few individuals who are just, let's say thoughtless, because there are always some, I'm not counting those.

The skid steers comments were about an organisation which stores and delivers wood to residents in the area. Individual households / residences presumably aren't using skid steers to retrieve wood.

From the article:

Oglala-based service organization Re-Member provides firewood to families on all corners of the reservation, but the drifts of snow have rendered their wood stockpile inaccessible still – and it’ll be that way for the foreseeable future.

“Our wood pile remains inaccessible,” read a Facebook post on Dec. 20. “Our skid steer and plow are out-of-service. Given the conditions, it would be near impossible to operate our equipment and unsafe for our staff to work in the conditions we are facing.

That is, one of the key stockpiles serving the community couldn't provide fuelwood due to both weather conditions and broken equipment.

And, as numerous others have noted, the region is desperately poor and remote.