Lumbee Tribe to stop accepting MPRP applications Dec. 31

Dec. 17—PEMBROKE — Lumbee Tribal Council members were told Thursday that the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina's Mortgage Pandemic Relief Program will cease accepting applications on Dec. 31 due to the high volume of "urgent folders."

Urgent folders consist of applicants who have homes that are in the process of going into foreclosure, is in foreclosure, homes that have received warning notices of utilities being shut off or homes with utilities having already been disconnected, said Matt Roller, the assistant compliance officer for the Lumbee Tribe.

Once the intake of applications stops, the program will review the applicants on hand and reevaluate the next steps in February.

"So we can know how many applications we can take and open back up if necessary," Roller said.

The program assists tribal members who need assistance with unpaid mortgages, utilities, internet, homeowner-related insurance, HOA and Condo fees, property taxes, principal mortgage reduction or mortgage interest rate reduction

The Tribe was allotted just over $11 million for the program and has spent $4 million thus far. The department has three years to spend the remaining funds.

In other business, the tribal council approved an amendment to the budget moving $250,000 from the Downtown Payment Assistance line item to the Rental Assistance line item.

"That will make that budget line item $275,000 and the line item for Down Payment Assistance, $550,000, " said Pam Hunt, chair of the Lumbee Tribal Council's Finance Committee.

"It's not that we're saying we don't want our folks making down payments and starting mortgages. We definitely do. However, we don't feel that at this time that amount of funds would be needed. If it is, obviously, we would adjust moving forward," Tribal Councilman Corbin Eddings added.

Also Tuesday, council members voted to remove members Dr. Christopher Clark (District 4) and Louise Mitchell from the Lumbee Tribal Council's Constitutional Reform Committee, due to their appointments being a violation of Article 11 Section 2 of the Constitution, which is cited as ethics and conflicts of interests.

"Myself, the committee and the council I believe, would want to make it known that it's due to no fault of their own ... Due to a mistake made by this council, they were appointed in error and in order to make that corrected, we are where we are this evening," Eddings said.

"From here on out let's be mindful of who we appoint council or committees. These people work long and hard on this constitution ... let's be cautious of how we appoint people," said Tribal Council member Jody Bullard.

Council members also heard an update Thursday from Laurece Hunt, of the NC Commission of Indian Affairs.

Following the update, Tribal Council member Richard Jones asked when the commission would join the tribe's fight to ban "offensive" mascots portraying American Indian culture for schools.

"We got so many people high up that could jump on this. It's only gonna change by aw. We've written a resolution. We've done our part," Jones said.

In answer to the question, Council member Gerald Goolsby said the matter has been tabled due to clarification needed on what the definition of "offensive" is in this instance.

"If we just do offensive mascot then someone can come up and say well I don't like dolphins or pirates are offensive to me ... We need to define it more," Goolsby said. "We know what we're talking about."

"I charge you guys not let this get tabled to the next month and the next month," Jones replied.

Also Tuesday, Lumbee Tribe member Tammie Jump presented outgoing council members Ricky Burnett, Eddings, Larry Chavis and Shelley Strickland with bolo ties and thanked them for their service.

Tomeka Sinclair can be reached at tsinclair@robesonian.com or 910-416-5865.