Shiprock veterans turn vacant building into housing materials site

Veterans in Shiprock have already switched on the lights in a long-vacant industrial building, and they are now trying to turn the 51-year-old structure into a manufacturing site for affordable housing materials. The project centers on a roughly 30,000-square-foot building that the Northern Agency Veterans Organization secured through a 25-year business-site lease from the Navajo Nation after years of planning that were slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The work so far has been largely volunteer-based. Veterans have cleaned, drywalled, painted and repaired the building, where freshly restored lights now illuminate a large open floor. The goal is not simply to rehabilitate an empty property in Shiprock, but to create a place where the group can eventually produce energy-efficient homes for veterans, surviving spouses and, later, the wider public in the Four Corners region.

Northern Agency Veterans Organization says it was established in 2019 as a federally recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit serving Diné veterans in the Northern Navajo Agency. The Shiprock site sits in the broader Shiprock Agency area, which the Bureau of Indian Affairs says serves the northeastern portion of the Navajo Nation across Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. That regional reach gives the project stakes beyond one chapter or one town, especially for Apache County residents who live in or have family ties to the northern Navajo communities.

The effort also lands in the middle of a larger housing fight on the Navajo Nation. In February 2025, the Navajo Nation Council approved a veterans housing policy tied to a $50 million Fiscal Recovery Fund allocation, setting priorities based on critical housing need, service history and displacement. Navajo leaders have said the administration continued to push veterans housing and related services, while the Navajo Nation Veterans Administration said its housing program and policy work remained active in 2026.

The need remains large. Navajo Times has reported that more than 30,000 military veterans are estimated to live on the Navajo Nation, and nearly 2,800 of them are women. Bobbi Baldwin, the Navajo Nation Veterans Administration executive director, has said many veterans still lack running water or secure shelter. Navajo leadership also said 194 veterans were assisted in 2025 in securing U.S. benefits, and in December 2025 President Buu Nygren said the Veterans Housing Program team was making progress on safer, healthier homes.

The Shiprock project joins a history of other Navajo housing-manufacturing efforts that show both promise and risk. The Navajo Nation announced a $31.7 million contract with BITCO for 95 homes in 2023, and earlier plans for a hogan-style housing manufacturing facility moved ahead in 2018. But a separate ZenniHome manufacturing effort in LeChee later closed after losses and a reduced expected order, a reminder that a promising building can still stall if funding, production and logistics do not hold together. For NAVO, the real test now is whether the restored Shiprock site can move from volunteer cleanup to actual housing output.