Some have lost their homes to their creditors. Others have moved in with relatives on the reservation and are renting their relocation homes. A few have simply abandoned them. Paul Tessler, the top administrator of the federal agency responsible for relocation, is proud of its success. But he also acknowledges the widespread hardship among older Navajos.
Critics speak in harsher terms.
They say it has forced premature and needless change upon some of the United States' most vulnerable citizens, an isolated group of traditional Indians bound by religious belief to their homelands. Many critics blame Congress for not comprehending the meaning of relocation to elderly Navajos. If the human cost is hard to calculate, the cost to taxpayers is clear. The cost is expected to reach a half-billion before relocation is done. Relocation has been slowed by a host of forces beyond that underestimation.