Navajo Council demands accounting of $24 million in housing contracts, spending
Navajo lawmakers pressed for receipts on a $24 million housing deal already tangled in a factory shutdown, a special prosecutor and a new lawsuit.
A $24 million housing question that has already rippled from LeChee to Window Rock was back in the open as Navajo Nation Council leaders again demanded a full accounting of money tied to Executive Branch contracts and ZenniHome work.
During the Controller’s report at Spring Session, Speaker Crystalyne Curley said the Council had taken lawful steps to get to the bottom of the issue and protect Navajo resources. The administration of President Buu Nygren pushed back, saying there was no missing money and accusing Curley of pushing a misleading narrative. That split turned the dispute into more than a bookkeeping fight. It became a test of whether the Council can force the Executive Branch to turn over records that show exactly how the money moved.
The money trail begins on March 7, 2024, when Nygren signed a $24 million ARPA grant tied to ZenniHome at the LeChee factory near Page, Arizona. The president’s office later said the Navajo Nation paid $24.9 million up front to Indigenous Design Studio + Architects, or IDSA, under the contract structure, and that IDSA then subcontracted ZenniHome to build homes. Nygren’s office also later said the $24 million grant would have been administered to ZenniHome but was terminated after objections from other communities.
Council members have been demanding documents for months. In July 2025, the Navajo Nation Council directed Executive Branch offices to provide the master contract and asked the Navajo Nation Department of Justice to examine whether ZenniHome and IDSA breached it. A special prosecutor, Kyle Nayback, was appointed in August 2025 to investigate possible unethical or illegal conduct tied to the administration’s contracting activities, and a Window Rock District Court later granted authority to advance investigations into ARPA funds related to IDSA, ZenniHome and Native Community Capital.
The stakes sharpened after ZenniHome’s LeChee factory shut down in July 2025, affecting more than 200 workers. The company had about 65 employees there in 2022, most of them Diné, and by March 2024 it said more than 100 Diné workers were on the payroll. Nygren said in July 2025 that one-third of homes on the Nation lacked running water, kitchens or bathrooms, underscoring why housing spending drew such intense scrutiny.
The controversy widened again in February 2026, when a New Mexico architecture firm sued ZenniHome, alleging misuse of nearly $22 million in federal housing funds and failure to deliver any of 160 modular homes. For Gallup, McKinley County and other communities that depend on Navajo housing dollars, the dispute now centers on whether a high-profile project produced the homes it promised or left behind a costly pattern of weak oversight and unanswered questions.
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