Whiteclay retirement home won’t open until at least ’13

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LINCOLN, Neb. — A nursing home designed to serve American Indians in the northwest Nebraska town of Whiteclay will not open for at least another year because of a funding delay, project planners said Wednesday.

The proposed 60-bed facility near South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Indian Reservation was supposed to open last month for members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. But financial consultant Gary Ruse said the tribe wasn’t able to secure the money it needed until three months ago, when it received about $13 million in loans from the Shakopee Tribe in Minnesota.

“It is started now, and they’re getting ready to pour the footings,” said Ruse, a former bank president based in Gordon. “Originally, it was supposed to be done by now, but now we’re expecting it’ll take at least another year. But it is under way, and progress is being made daily.”

The nursing home was scheduled to open in August for elderly tribe members, some of whom are living in facilities hundreds of miles from their relatives.

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