Indian country honors housing pioneer.(Ron Froman)(Biography)

Tim Foster remembers reminiscing during a trip to Disneyland with Ron Froman a few years ago. The two friends in their sixties talked about testifying before Congress three decades earlier urging the creation of a federal funding set-aside for Indian housing.

Decades after President Gerald Ford actually signed the bill creating an Indian Housing program, the two Indian housing pioneers were still talking about what needed to be done to improve Indian housing.

Foster is once again reminiscing: this time to honor the legacy of his friend Ron Froman, who passed away May 28 from a long illness with colon cancer. Born on June 29, 1940, Froman was 65 years old.

Froman, a member of the Oklahoma Peoria Tribe, and Foster, from the Yamaka Tribe in Washington, first presented the case of how to create a separate fund to build homes on reservations back in 1973.

The funding then was part of Section 8 public housing, but with great need in Indian Country, the two saw an opportunity with the new Housing and Community Development Act legislation in 1974.

Froman informed Foster that the legislation had passed during a trip to Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

"When I arrived, Ron said to me 'how'd you like to meet the president? Immediately, we went to Washington for the signing of the bill. President Ford and his wife held a reception. As two young guys, we were impressed. We represented Indian Housing there," Foster told NAR. "It was a big thing at the time."