Leonard Benally

P.O. Box 733

Hotevilla, AZ 86030

To: Ms. Mary Robinson, High Commissioner for Human Rights

Mr. Abdelfattah Amor, Special Rapporteur on Religious Intolerance

Mr. Francis Deng, Special Rapporteur for Internally Displaced Persons

United Nations Commission on Human Rights

Habitat-Right to housing

Re: Non-signer of the 75-year lease Agreement

The young people don't have homes around here. I was born and raised here but I don't have a home. God, I want a home. I cannot sign a lease to get a home and then there's no resource. I don't have money and I don't have a right to build. They haven't issued me a house yet. So I guess I say we have our own ghettos on the reservation. Sometimes I feel like a refugee even though I was born and raised here.

If you're trying to build a home you're liable to go to jail for it. It all comes down to right. The US government and Hopi officials say we don't have the right to decent homes, hogans. My hogan needs to be repaired before winter sets in.

Some of the people who relocated hang out in border towns, homeless, get run over. It is the same way for the people that relocated to the New Lands. They found graves and caskets there when people tried to plant gardens. And when people went to the Relocation Commission they say, "Grandmother leave it there and cover it up." Most of these homes are abandoned, people just moved away to become homeless.

Yours sincerely,

Leonard Benally