Navajo Nation probes $24 million gap in ZenniHome housing funds

President Buu Nygren’s office says there is “no missing $24 million,” but the money tied to ZenniHome still has not turned into homes for Navajo families near LeChee. Only 18 homes were built before ZenniHome shut its LeChee factory in July 2025, and more than 200 workers were affected by the closure.

That is why the Navajo Nation Council has pressed harder for answers. The Council’s Budget and Finance Committee introduced Legislation No. 0174-25 on July 13, 2025, seeking hearings and subpoena power over the ZenniHome matter. Delegates have focused on whether federal COVID-19 relief money was improperly awarded or administered through the housing initiative, a fight that has become a test of how much control the Council can exert over major Executive Branch deals.

The numbers at the center of the dispute keep shifting. The original plan called for 160 homes for $44 million, then was reduced on July 3, 2025, to 80 homes for $22 million. Even then, no homes were delivered to Navajo families before the factory closed, leaving the promise of new housing unfulfilled in a region where overcrowding and the shortage of safe, modern homes remain urgent problems.

Nygren’s office has pushed back, saying the Navajo Nation paid $24.9 million up front to Indigenous Design Studio + Architecture, or IDSA, which then subcontracted ZenniHome. The administration has said the Navajo Nation Department of Justice and other necessary offices approved the contract in writing. That defense has not quieted the criticism, because the public still sees a large sum attached to a project that produced only a fraction of the planned homes.

The case widened further in August 2025, when the Window Rock District Court appointed Kyle Nayback as special prosecutor to investigate possible unethical or illegal conduct tied to contracts involving IDSA, ZenniHome and Native Community Capital. In September, the court gave Nayback authority to advance those investigations.

By February 2026, the conflict had moved into court in Arizona. IDSA filed a lawsuit in Maricopa County Superior Court seeking to recover about $22 million from ZenniHome, saying the company breached a five-year, $50 million deal to manufacture 160 modular homes. IDSA said its accounting showed ZenniHome spent the money while still failing to deliver the homes.

For residents around Page and LeChee, the unanswered question is not just where the money went. It is why a high-profile housing project backed by federal relief funds left behind no completed homes, a shuttered factory and a deeper cloud over tribal oversight.