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SELLS — The Archie Hendricks Sr. Skilled Nursing Facility springs out of nowhere on a remote stretch of Federal Route 15, south of the Tohono O'odham capital.

The 5-year-old, 60-bed center has cared for 200 elderly tribal members, many of whom had been away from home in urban senior centers.

"It's nice to be here with my own people," said Josephine Yesk, 87, who moved from the Phoenix area earlier this year.

The senior center fixed one of the Tohono O'odham Nation's pressing problems — caring for its elders. But the bigger problem — caring for the young — cannot be solved so easily.

People 65 or older make up 7 percent of the nation's 28,000 members, whereas those 21 and younger make up nearly a quarter.

A quarter of students at the tribe's high school dropped out in 2005-06, gangs are a growing problem, and those who do earn a degree find a severe shortage of jobs for skilled people.

The tribe spent $14 million of its gaming proceeds to build the nursing home and spends $5 million annually to run it — a small fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars gaming has brought since the tribe opened its first casino 14 years ago.

Tribal officials won't say how much money their casinos generate — they are not subject to the same public-records laws as state and local governments. But a Star analysis based on the O'odham's mandatory contributions to local agencies and governments, as well as other financial information, estimates the tribe grossed $196 million from gaming last year.

Tribal officials estimate gaming revenue will increase about 20 percent with the opening last Thursday of the new Desert Diamond-Nogales Highway casino and hotel.

Despite the windfall, local tribes have fallen short of state mandates that they use gaming revenues to become more self-sufficient, develop their economies and build stronger governments, a Star investigation found.

The Tohono O'odham Nation's per capita federal spending, when adjusted for inflation, has actually dropped by about 10 percent from 1997 to 2005.

The tribe still relies almost solely on federal grants for housing, however.

The tribe hasn't reduced its unemployment rate and has been slow to make decisions on how to use casino profits to help its citizens.

The shortfalls are most visible in the struggles of young tribal members, who increasingly are turning to gangs to fill their free time. The tribe invested $30 million nearly two years ago to build five youth centers to give young people an alternative to gangs, but there's no telling yet whether they've made a difference.

Gangs lure kids away from school. Dropout rates at the tribe's Baboquivari High School are spiraling — up to 26 percent in 2005-06 from just under 16 percent five years earlier — cutting into the pool of applicants for the tribe's $6 million yearly college scholarship program.

Those who do achieve a college or trade education often return to jobs that pay too little to lift them out of the poverty that has plagued the tribe for generations. The handful with specialized degrees, including doctors and lawyers, find the fewest opportunities.

"A lot of us on the nation have degrees, but there's no jobs in our fields," said Delia Lopez, staff dietitian at the nursing home and the wife of Vice Chairman Isidro B. Lopez. She said her husband's administration is addressing the problem.

Wages at the three casinos are competitive with those of other local jobs, but the casinos are too far from remote tribal villages for many members to consider. Tribal government jobs in the nation's 11 districts often pay at or below the poverty rate.

Because of the vast social ills the tribe faces, the to-do list stretches far beyond its resources, Chairman Ned Norris Jr. said — even given gaming's bounty.

Stephen Folson went through the tribe's scholarship program and earned a trade-school auto mechanic's certificate only to discover he couldn't land a job with his newfound skills.

The father of three young boys ended up in an entry-level job at the nation's radio station making $21,000 a year, about $2,000 under the federal poverty level for his family of five.

"I'm sticking with this because I like this job," said Folson, 22, who is a technician and programmer for the station. "Living on the rez right now is best for us. We have land and a house, and the nation is helping us."

Folson is taking his second stab at the scholarship program. He is studying business at Tohono O'odham Community College and hopes one day to be general manager of the radio station.

Unemployment on the nation has yo-yoed in recent years from a high of 25 percent in 2002 to a low of 14 percent in 1998, Arizona Department of Economic Security figures show. Today, it's just under 18 percent — nearly five times the Tucson rate. A quarter of the O'odham rely on some form of state welfare, such as food stamps or subsidized health care.

The nation's biggest employer is its casinos, including the just-opened Desert Diamond- Nogales Highway. The three facilities employ 1,300 people in all — about 25 percent of them O'odham and another 10 percent from other tribes, said Desert Diamond Casino CEO Scott Sirois. The nation employs around 1,200 others, from secretaries and janitors to schoolteachers and nurses.

"I know for a fact that it is possible for someone dealing blackjack to make anywhere from $40,000 to $80,000 a year," Norris said shortly after his June election. "It's a good opportunity. … But not everybody wants to work here."

His son is a casino dealer who makes a comfortable living, but many tribal members don't want to leave the reservation and move to Tucson for a casino job, he said. The two biggest casinos are on the outskirts of Tucson, about 60 miles from the tribal capital of Sells.

During a job fair in late July to fill 70 to 80 casino positions, only a handful of O'odham were among the 300 people who applied by early afternoon. The jobs paid from $8.98 an hour for cashiers to $13.15 for hourly carpenters.

Few of the jobs available appeal to the highest-skilled tribal members. The nation, by Norris' admission, is sorely behind the times in everything from technology to infrastructure.

He points to the nation's 50-plus-year-old hospital in Sells, with its unsophisticated and inadequate equipment, as emblematic of the problem.

"That's where we deliver our medical services," he said. "We're expecting 21st-century doctors to come into that antiquated system and apply their skills there. This happens way too often that our young O'odham go to college and earn their degrees. But what are they coming back to?"

Christopher Jose could be a poster child for Norris' vision. He is young, educated, self- reliant — a picture of the 21st-century O'odham.

Jose, 27, took advantage of the scholarship program and studied technology at High Tech Institute in Phoenix. Then he came home to the reservation.

He has worked at the Archie Hendricks center for five years as its information-technology guru. He makes between $35,000 and $39,000 a year.

"I just want to better serve my people and help give back what they gave to me," Jose said, sitting among computers that take up most of the space in his pantry-sized office.

He and his wife live in a new three-bedroom apartment on the nursing-home campus and pay $450 a month rent — about what they paid for a two-bedroom apartment in Tucson, he said.

In a year or so, the couple will move to South Komelic, about 15 miles south of Sells. They are in line to get one of the 20 houses being built there by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Jose was raised by an aunt in the village, in a four-bedroom HUD house that had electricity, running water and satellite TV — luxuries until recent years for some of the nation's remote villages, Norris said.

"Some of our communities don't have running water. Many of our communities now have electricity," he said.

"My community, Fresnal Canyon, was probably one of the last communities that just got electricity about a year and a half ago."

Casino money so far has not been used for housing, which is a major issue on the 2.8 million-acre reservation.

Norris is somber when he relates that 500 tribal members — young and old — need homes.

Much of the nation's housing stock is old and run-down, from 1970s HUD tract ranch homes to the traditional thatched-roof, dirt-floor homes that dot the nation.

Joe Antone, 71, who is receiving treatment at the nursing home, lived in one of those traditional homes in the village of Covered Wells for 20 years. Over the years, his adobe structure has suffered the trials of time and the elements; it needs some fixing before he can move home, and the tribe is helping, Antone said through a translator.

Few others will get similar help. The nation is winding down a federally funded program that fixed more than 100 homes, Norris said. Instead it hopes to use gaming revenues to build new homes.

"If we continue to rely on HUD, this 500-tribal-home need is going to be there forever," Norris said.

Folson, the radio station employee, and his family live in a new three-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot manufactured home that was a wedding present from his family. It sits on a 550-foot-by-550-foot plot of land his district, Gu Achi, gave him.

Even so, he can barely make ends meet. He gets $100 a month from the tribe to help pay his utility bill, he said. Each year, he and other district residents can apply for a $500 grant funded through gaming revenue. The money is used for home repairs and improvements.

With his grant this year, Folson is building a fence around his house to keep out wandering cattle. Last year, his grandmother used her grant to buy a new refrigerator.

"With the way our district is run, all my life I never knew we had that money," Folson said. The district's new chairman "brought it to our attention that that money is ours and to use it to our benefit."

Historically, the Tohono O'odham make decisions by consensus. Nothing is done unless everyone agrees — and that takes time.

In recent years, they have strayed from that model, Norris said, but he is determined to return to the tribe's roots.

"We're trying to get back to culture. We're trying to get back to implementing the consensus-decision-making process," he said shortly after taking office in June. "And we have to accept the fact that that can be very time-consuming."

Communication and isolation are two of the biggest political stumbling blocks to meeting members' needs, Norris said.

The reservation is the size of Connecticut with a fraction of the population, and some live in nooks and crannies often overlooked by the government in Sells.

He envisions sitting down with leaders in each of the nation's districts to find out what they need.

"Even though there are common issues in all those 11 districts, there are unique issues," he said.

If you ask Folson, one of the best things the O'odham have done with their casino windfall was to build youth centers. When he was a teen a few years ago, he and his friends had few options to occupy their time and many landed in gangs, he said.

Folson discovered music and was in a rock band for a few years, but some of his friends weren't so lucky. Their lives took dangerous turns, and some still have not found their way back.

"The violence, the gang activity here is ever-increasing," Norris said. "It's a different type of challenge to try to reach our youths. They are so easily influenced."

Norris is carrying on former Chairwoman Vivian Juan-Saunders' efforts to improve the school system. A state report released Monday listed Baboquivari Middle School and Indian Oasis Intermediate School as failing to meet state minimum standards.

During Juan-Saunders' administration, she met with all the education authorities operating in the nation, from the parochial schools to local districts to state officials, to try to coordinate efforts. That cooperation and communication needs to continue, Norris said.

The scholarship program also is making strides: It has served thousands of people since it was instituted in 1995. Before gaming, the tribe had fewer than 250 enrolled members who went to college or trade schools.

"We had our first Stanford law school graduate three years ago. We just had our first M.D.," Norris said with pride.

But the problem for youths lies deeper, embedded in the reservation's isolation.

"That's the world that they see. They don't see opportunity. They don't see beyond their villages," Norris lamented.

"I was talking to a group of young O'odham high school seniors. A couple said, in an open audience, 'I'm going to go on GA.' GA is general assistance; that's the welfare program. I looked at them and I said, 'Why do you want to do that?' They said, 'What else is there for me out here?' It woke me up. In their mind, what else is there?"

The O'odham realized early on that gaming could be their cure, but not their cure-all.

Deciding what came first has been time-consuming and painful; deciding what comes next is equally daunting given the tribe's political hurdles and geography, Norris said:

"There's a lot yet to be done."Read the rest of this three-part series: