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Native advocates bring boxes of reports to lawmakers, allege missing and deceased relatives tied to sober‑living abuses
Summary
Reva Stewart of Turtle Island Women Warriors told senators she delivered thousands of reports alleging missing or deceased Native relatives and said rebranded bad actors resumed operation after a moratorium; she urged accountability for Native members affected by the fraud.
Reva Stewart, identifying herself as Bear Clan and speaking for the Turtle Island Women Warriors, brought boxes of documentation to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee and urged legislators to treat the files as evidence of ongoing harm to Native Americans tied to the behavioral‑health fraud scheme.
"Every file represents a native relative who has a family," Stewart said, describing missing‑person posters and deceased‑relative files included in the boxes. She told the committee the group submitted reports to Access, the FBI and the Office of Inspector General and said initial outreach to agency staff in December 2023 did not produce satisfactory responses. "Why did they reach out back in December 2023?...To help us or to quiet us? Because we will not be silent," she said.
Stewart testified that after the moratorium on new providers was lifted, some operators linked to exploitative and unlicensed sober‑living homes rebranded and resumed operations, sometimes using the same phone numbers and contacts in other states. Committee members asked whether law enforcement had investigated the group’s referrals; Access and the Inspector General said referrals are made to the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and federal partners when appropriate and that jurisdictional issues on tribal land may require federal investigation.
The committee asked Access to provide lists, aggregated counts and to review outstanding follow‑up questions from prior hearings. Lawmakers signaled urgency in combining fraud prevention with safeguards to prevent displacement and death among vulnerable members.
