Navajo Nation rescinds $500,000 award for Chinle nonprofit ADABI

The Navajo Nation Department of Family Services rescinded a $500,000 award that had been headed to Chinle nonprofit Amá Dóó Áłchíní Bíghan Inc., pushing domestic violence and family-support services back into uncertainty across the Chinle Agency.

Crescentia Tso, the department’s manager III, signed a memo dated April 27 and sent it to executive officer Lorena Halwood, withdrawing a March 27 award letter. The department said the proposal included roof replacement, flooring, siding and other repair-related costs that it later classified as construction services outside the scope of the request for proposals.

The reversal affects more than one organization. ADABI is one of the few providers in the Chinle area offering crisis intervention, advocacy, prevention, a safe home network, culturally sensitive support, traditional healing and 24-hour response for victims and survivors of intimate partner violence, as well as help for children, families and people without stable housing. Its mission is to promote prevention of sexual assault and domestic violence while fostering safety and healing.

Halwood said the money had been publicly described as intended for ADABI during an October provider conference in Chinle attended by Rep. Myron Tsosie, Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren and Speaker Crystalyne Curley. She said she learned on Dec. 30, 2025, that the Navajo Nation Division for Children and Family Services had converted the money into an RFP process instead of delivering it directly to the shelter. Tribal officials later paused the $500,000 allocation on Jan. 15, 2026, as questions mounted over whether the funding had to be opened to competitive bidding under procurement rules.

The money traces to an Arizona budget bill that appropriated $500,000 to the Arizona Department of Economic Security for the Navajo Nation for women’s shelters and social services. The dispute now leaves ADABI, which serves the Chinle Agency and surrounding areas of the Navajo Nation, with the same reimbursement pressures it has described for months.

According to earlier reporting, the shelter must front salaries, utilities, repairs, food, diapers and fuel before it can invoice the Navajo Nation, and reimbursements can take weeks or longer. Halwood has said that delay matters because staff drive out immediately when families call for help, even when gas money is scarce. “Time is of the essence,” she said.

ADABI’s office is listed on U.S. Highway 191, about a half-mile west of Chinle Junior High School, and its phone number is (928) 674-8314. For families in Chinle, Forest Lake and surrounding Apache County communities, the rescinded award means the question is no longer whether help is needed, but whether the funding will arrive in time to keep it available.