Minnesota Native News: It’s Never Just Housing

Transcript

This is Minnesota News, I’m Marie Rock.

A tent encampment of homeless folks continues to grow in Minneapolis. There are about 300 people there, many of whom are Native.

Tribal and urban leaders are making plans to provide more sturdy shelter over the coming months. But what else is needed to support those living in these tents? Reporter Melissa Townsend tells us more.

[camp sound]

A lot of people involved in this camp say the first priority is stable, affordable housing. Joy Friedman is with Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center.

FREIDMAN: You need to be able to have affordable housing to rest your head to be able to start thinking about - now what do I do? But if I don’t even know where I’m going to sleep tonight, I can’t worry about anything else. Tonight i have to find a safe location, I have to hold down my tent, I got to watch over my stuff. This is making it so I don’t have time to deal with anything else that’s going on with my life. (:20)

When I talked with Charyl from Lac Courte Oreilles [la coo du ray], she’d been living in the camp for about a month.

CHARYL: I’m looking for an apartment and I’m looking for like some therapy and stuff because like I told you what I went through was very traumatic. And I prefer the Native ways. (:12)

To fill the need for housing in the short term, the Red lake Nation has struck a deal with the city and county leaders. The tribe will host FEMA style trailers on their land in south Minneapolis The tribe wants the trailers to be paid for and managed by the city and county. It’s a short term solution while local officials and Native leaders make a plan for long term permanent housing.

But not everyone in this camp is ready for that. Donald John Banks is from Mille Lacs. He’s spent a few nights off and on in the camp over the past few months.

REPORTER: So I guess the Mayor has a plan to potentially put people in housing.
BANKS: I’d be OK with housing but first I want to - I got to relearn a lot of things and redo a lot of things just so I could say I did it the right way. (:16)

Banks says he struggles with addiction and depression. He says he just needs to be in a different place emotionally and have like a 5-year plan before he can commit to a permanent address.

REPORTER: So you think now you’re ready for a 5 year plan?
BANKS: I have the foundations for a 5 year plan, that’s about it. That’s it. (:11)

For Banks and people like him who aren’t in shelters, street outreach is key.

At the camp, a coalition of tribes and Native led urban organizations are providing everything from meals, showers, snacks, advice, spiritual resources, some security and connections to health and social service programs. But one organization hasn’t been able to help.

STATELY: From very early on people were telling us we need people to come in and provide onsite medical care that we have some people there with a range of things. (:07)

Antony Stately is CEO of the Native American Community Clinic. NACC is just a few blocks away from the camp, but too much legal red tape kept them from doing the kind of outreach they wanted to do.

STATELY: Which was challenging for me and my staff because these are our patients. We wanted to help them. (:04)

And here again the Red Lake nation comes through. Stately says a valuable partnership with the Red Lake Nation and Livio health group helped them cut through the red tape. NACC no longer needed multiple layers of approval because Red Lake is a sovereign government. And they licensed NACC to provide onsite medical care on their behalf.

ANTONY: Some of the leadership at Red lake is very innovative and forward-thinking in the way that they conceptualize the responsibility they have to their urban dwelling members. (:10)

Stately says in one week NACC staff was able to go tent to tent and offer screenings for HIV, Hep-C and Syphilis. For those testing positive, docs and nurses connected them with services at the NACC clinic just blocks away.

Red Lake and NACC have also partnered on a brand new intensive out-patient drug treatment program. On October 1st, the program opened its doors in two locations— in Little Earth and in the Ancient Traders Market Building on Franklin. The program is culturally based, medically assisted treatment using Suboxone. Stately says they hope to work with up to 50 clients this year.

This tent city has shown a light on the crisis created by the shortage of affordable housing and addiction services. These partnerships are a good example of the kind of resources tribes and urban leaders want to see more of — culturally sensitive approaches to supporting urban Native relatives who are currently struggling.

For Minnesota Native News, I’m Melissa Townsend.