Sixty percent of today's tribe is 18 years old or younger. Chronic diseases killed most of the older members. There is no room to construct more homes or to expand existing leach fields for septic systems. Food, clothes and other necessities are taken into the canyon by helicopter or by packhorses and mules. There are no cars in the canyon and there are only a handful of unreliable phones.
Mail is delivered almost daily by horseback.
Health care is provided by the Arizona Department of Public Health. But health care workers are viewed as outsiders and it takes time for outsiders to be accepted. Recently, health care workers scheduled mammograms for tribal women over age 35. Jobs and poverty are at opposing ends of the scale, and poverty weighs heavily on the minds of tribal leaders. Some have tried to adapt and survive in the outside world, most return to Supai, to home.