This story originally appeared on Underscore Native News
On March 18, the Nooksack Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Nooksack Indian Housing Authority moving forward in the eviction of the late Olive Oshiro, a disenrolled Nooksack citizen who died last June at 88, from the home she lived in for more than two decades. Oshiro’s family had hoped to honor her wishes and keep the home in the family.
The family was ordered to vacate Oshiro’s home by April 1.
Olive Oshiro died before the four-year legal battle with Nooksack Indian Tribe to keep her home was over. Five days after Oshiro passed away, Charles Hurt, an attorney representing the Nooksack government, submitted notice to the court of her death and suggested that “her death automatically terminates the lease and renders her appeal moot.”
But, according to state law, if a person dies while in a lease-to-own contract, their estate or heirs will inherit the rights and obligations, including the option to purchase the property. If a person dies while renting, the lease agreement typically transfers to their estate or next of kin, who become responsible for fulfilling the remaining lease terms, including rent payments, until the lease expires or is terminated.
Regardless of the scenario, probate court, which oversees the legal process of settling a deceased person’s estate, was necessary in this case.
Oshiro was one of 306 Nooksack citizens who were disenrolled in 2016. In December 2021, Nooksack Indian Tribe began working to evict the families under a new policy change that required the tenants in Nooksack housing to be a “Native family,” defined as “a family whose Head of Household or spouse is a currently enrolled member of a federally recognized Indian Tribe.”
Many Nooksack relatives, including the 306 disenrollees, belong to the First Nations Shxwhá:y Village in Canada with ties to Nooksack and to the Nooksack nation in the U.S. In fact, the Nooksack tribe was considered a Canadian tribe until U.S. federal recognition in 1973. Although they are enrolled Shxwhá:y Native families, they were no longer citizens of a U.S.-recognized Native nation, so didn’t qualify as a “Native family.”
Oshiro’s daughter Elizabeth became her power of attorney in 2016, after her father died and Elizabeth became her caregiver. At a hearing in August 2024, a panel of three judges postponed Oshiro’s case for four months so that her family could obtain legal representation.
“Before she left us here on Earth, she said, ‘Don’t give up the fight. Keep fighting,’” Elizabeth Oshiro told Underscore + ICT.
By Jan. 7 of this year, Oshiro’s family still hadn’t been able to obtain representation from a licensed attorney. According to Gabe Galanda, a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes and founder of Indigenous rights law firm Galanda Broadman who previously represented Nooksack disenrollees, no other attorneys will risk their livelihood to represent the family at Nooksack after his experience.
The Nooksack Tribal Court disbarred Galanda from practicing law within the Nooksack system. Galanda had represented Oshiro and her family and successfully blocked Nooksack courts from disenrolling the family from 2012 to 2016 until he was disbarred.
“They saw what happened to me and my firm,” Galanda told Underscore Native News + ICT. “The Nooksack judiciary is widely considered illegitimate. I don’t know of any firm that’s even tried to get licensed at Nooksack since 2016 because of it all.”
“We were barred without process and had our livelihoods threatened by Nooksack,” Galanda continued, “fired or passed over by other tribal clients, maligned by colleagues and now so-called Nooksack judges, and blacklisted from tribal lawyer circles, all as a result of our advocacy for the 306.”
According to Galanda, Michelle Roberts, who is Olive Oshiro’s granddaughter and her family’s spokesperson, contacted other firms and couldn’t find anybody to help them.
“The judges have refused to contend with this reality, instead pretending the family can just hire another lawyer,” Galanda said.
Nooksack Indian Tribe has not responded to requests for comment.
The family was unable to obtain an attorney by the next hearing on Feb. 14 and couldn’t provide arguments of evidence. The Nooksack Tribal Court of Appeals decided to proceed with eviction even after the Pierce County Superior Court on Jan. 23 ordered the transfer of Olive Oshiro’s estate, including the deed to her home, to her children, Elizabeth Oshiro, Roma Oshiro and Matthew Oshiro.
According to court documents and Peter Kram, an attorney with the law firm Kram and Rooster, who filed the petition to have Elizabeth Oshiro handle her mother Olive Oshiro’s estate, notice was given to Nooksack Indian Tribe, Nooksack Indian Housing Authority and Raymond James, a Florida-based tax credit investor in a limited liability partnership with Nooksack, to appear at probate court on Sept. 24, 2024. Nobody from Nooksack or Raymond James appeared at the hearing; four months later the court ordered the deed transfer to Oshiro’s children.
“They made no opposition to it,” Kram told Underscore Native News + ICT.
Raymond James finances Nooksack housing in exchange for federal income tax credits and holds the title to the tribe’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program (LIHTC) homes, as well 99% ownership of the homes during a 15-30 year tax credit compliance period.
“The tribe, NIHA and Raymond James had every opportunity to show up before the state court to contest the estate’s claim to the home,” Galanda said. “Without any contest to the probate, the state court did what every other probate court would do in that instance by allowing everything in Ollie’s estate to pass to Liz and her siblings.”
Nooksack Housing Authority argued in the Nooksack Tribal Court of Appeals that Olive Oshiro never owned the home so ownership couldn’t be transferred to her children. To be able to determine if there was an ownership stake in the house, there needed to be someone to represent Oshiro’s estate after she died, so probate court was necessary.
But the Nooksack Tribal Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Nooksack attorney Charles Hurt, who argued that the Superior Court of Washington does not have the jurisdiction over Nooksack Indian Tribe to adjudicate its interest in the property and went a step further in claiming the Oshiros may have committed an act of fraud against the Pierce County Superior Court.
“We presented the state court order to the appeals court and they said we committed a fraud,” Roberts said in her statement during the March 18 hearing. “That is wrong. How disrespectful. We did exactly what the appeals court told [Elizabeth Oshiro] to do. We are not the fraud in this situation. Our family has at all times followed the rules. The court rules. The membership rules. The housing rules. We followed all the rules. The Tribe did not. We are not the frauds.”
The issue, according to Galanda and Kram, is that the Nooksack Indian Tribe does not have a probate code to pass assets down to next of kin after someone dies. Considering that, and because the Oshiros are American citizens, they are entitled to the protections of Washington law and therefore went to state probate court.
Kram, the 2023 Washington State Bar Association 2023 APEX (Acknowledging Professional Excellence) Professionalism Awardee, dismissed Hurt’s fraud claims.
“Fraud is something that [Nooksack Indian Tribe] have invented in this appellate process, that they have to cover their own butts because that’s not fraud,” Kram said. “[State probate court] is exactly how you seek relief by transferring property from one generation to the next.”
Eventual tenant ownership
The seven households facing eviction by NIHA since 2021 for no longer being enrolled citizens were supported by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Native American housing dollars, as well as federal LIHTC assistance. LIHTC was meant to create a pathway to homeownership for Native people across Washington state in which, after 15 years, they could receive the deed to their home under the Eventual Tenant Ownership (ETO) program with LIHTC.
At Nooksack, one dollar of nominal consideration was all that was needed for a conveyance or transfer of these homes, according to transfer plan documents.
The evictions at housing projects managed by Nooksack Indian Tribe raised concerns about tenant purchase options and, more widely, the LIHTC program managed by the state Housing Finance Commission. This prompted an audit that examined the commission’s oversight of housing projects in Native nations across Washington state that offer tenant purchase options.
According to the Washington State Auditor’s Nov. 19, 2024 audit of the Housing Finance Commission, 135 homes in Native country were eligible for ownership by 2023, including homes at Nooksack, but none of them had begun the process of ownership transfer, largely due to a lack of management of the program by the commission. Commission agreements required tribal housing authorities to submit an update on their progress toward fulfilling tenant purchase options no less than once every five years, at the commission’s request.
The first update request should have occurred in 2010 but didn’t happen until 2022.
The commission claims a lack of policies and procedures is to blame. It has since updated and begun implementing new policies and procedures. The belated actions fail to remedy the consequences already caused by the lack of oversight in cases like Olive Oshiro, who may have owned her home in 2020 if there had been proper oversight. Oshiro’s home has been an LIHTC home since 2005, so she could have owned her home after 15 years.
“We empathize with the Oshiro family and are relieved they have another housing option,” Margret Graham, communications director for the Washington State Housing Finance Commission, told Underscore + ICT. “The fact is that the Nooksack Indian Housing Authority (NIHA) is within its rights to set tribal membership as both a condition of tenancy in their rental homes and a condition for purchasing the homes when/if offered for sale. The disenrollment in 2013 is the legal crux of this unfortunate situation.”
But disenrollment didn’t happen until 2016 and citizenship of Nooksack Indian Tribe was not a requirement for the LIHTC housing until 2021 after a NIHA policy change.
“It’s really frustrating and it’s hurtful,” Oshiro said about the HFC’s lack of action for her mother’s potential homeownership. “They just turn the other cheek and just let Nooksack do whatever they want to do.”
Housing justice
As the legal battle over Olive Oshiro’s home came to an end, Roberts made clear that this fight was not just about property — it was about justice, recognition and the rights of Indigenous families within a system that is often stacked against them. In the years leading up to her death, Oshiro fought tirelessly to stay in the home she had built a life in, a home that could have passed to her children under the terms of the LIHTC program.
“I hate to see my mom’s house go,” Oshiro said. “She loved that house. She’s gone now. I guess we all have to pick up and move on, move forward, start a new chapter in our life.”
For the Oshiros, their case is not only a reflection of one family’s fight but also a stark reminder of the larger challenges facing Native communities — struggles for sovereignty, justice and the right to housing.
“We are the direct lineal descendants of Annie George and her daughters — the Three Sisters — Elizabeth, Emma and Louisa,” Roberts said in a Nov. 25 statement. “Our ancestors did not survive residential schools or the genocide attempt to destroy Indigenous people in both the U.S. and Canada, in order to witness our family’s erasure from Nooksack.”
Elizabeth Oshiro and the other elders evicted from Nooksack are also citizens of First Nations Shxwhá:y Village, which has ties to Nooksack Indian Tribe, and have moved to Nooksack, Washington into houses owned by the First Nations Shxwhá:y Village.
“It’s just been a long journey, tiring, but the only reason why my mom told me to keep fighting is because we know who we are,” Elizabeth Oshiro said. “We know that we’re true Nooksacks, and they can’t take that away from us… We know where we belong.”
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Author: Luna Reyna
Luna Reyna is a writer and broadcaster whose work has centered the voices of the systematically excluded in service of liberation and advancing justice. Before coming to Underscore Native News and ICT as the partner organizations' Seattle-based Northwest Bureau Chief, Luna was Crosscut’s Indigenous Affairs Reporter, and her work has appeared in the South Seattle Emerald, Prism Reports, Talk Poverty and more. Luna is proud of her Little Shell Chippewa heritage and is passionate about reporting that sheds light on colonial white supremacist systems of power.
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