Sunday, April 24, 2022 | Special Advertising Section 1 R 28 SPONSORED CONTENT Native sacred spaces bring healing, empowerment According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, Native Americans experience elevated rates of homelessness. Nationally, 45 out of every 10,000 Native American people experience homelessness, while white people experience homelessness at 11.2 out of every 10,000. A 2021 report funded by the Washington State Department of Commerce found that despite making up less than 1.5% of the Washington state population, Native Americans are 8.1% of the homeless and 11.9% of unsheltered homeless. In January of 2022, the Native-led housing and human services agency Chief Seattle Club opened its landmark affordable housing project, ʔálʔal. Pronounced “all-all” in American English, ʔálʔal means “Home” in Lushootseed, a Coast Salish language. Built on a holistic model of wraparound services to heal and bring people together, ʔálʔal’s in-house case management services and culturally responsive programming complemented 80 units of housing for previously homeless, urban Native people. “We comprise 32% of the chronically homeless in Seattle,” says James Lovell, Chief Seattle Club’s development and communications director. “We strive to bring these numbers to zero, and we believe that can only be done with Native leadership and values.” Sacred spaces can help provide homes and healing for Native urban people. A sacred space is “where our ancestral heritage can be brought to life and practiced, revitalized, and thrive,” says Nadine Philp, Chief Seattle Club’s development coordinator says. A sacred space is crucial in “cultures where it was either removed or wasn’t honored in mainstream space, or forgotten due to the urbanization and colonization of our lands and culture.” Losing home: Context Some risk factors for homelessness exist across the general population — such as drug and alcohol abuse, mental health challenges, and post-traumatic stress disorder. But Native American people may face unique issues that compound these conditions, according to some community experts. Disease, treaties, city ordinances, boarding schools, and dams over centuries limited the Native populations, reduced housing options, and attempted to repress their cultures. The U.S. government’s Urban Indian Relocation Chief Seattle Club is a Native-led housing and human services agency. We believe a world without homelessness is possible by leading with Native values. We provide sacred space to nurture, a!rm and strengthen the spirit of urban Native people. Learn more at www. chiefseattleclub.org. Program, initiated in 1952, invited young people living on rural reservations to move to cities such as Seattle, offering jobs, housing and education. These were part of a string of broken promises, leaving Indigenous people to face dead-end jobs or unemployment, discrimination, and the loss of kinship and cultural support. Sacred spaces: Repairing the damage and trauma Despite being unable to access federal funding, some urban organizations are offering traumainformed approaches and culturally relevant programs to help repair past pain. In the California Bay Area, the Native American Health Center offers traditional healing activities, community events and cultural groups such as beading, sewing and dance. The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless offers three Native American talking circles for sober men, women and coed attendees, among other sacred spaces. In Seattle, ʔálʔal is next door to Chief Seattle Club’s Day Center, a place to get help with housing, rest, and share a meal. The center’s kitchen serves up local, sustainable, and traditional meals when available — salmon dishes for a barbecue cookout, wild rice and once, 300 pounds of venison donated by a local tribe. “For us, authentic, traditional foods are truly good medicine, not just good for our bodies but also our souls.When you cook a meal passed down from ancestors for time immemorial, the smells filling the room are the same smells that filled kitchens in traditional homes or longhouses,” says Philp. “At Chief Seattle Club, we envision a future where our Native community is safe, healthy, housed, and connected to a community that respects and celebrates Native cultures,” Lovell says. “For us, this looks like building more sacred spaces around the city that empower our urban Native relatives, from affordable housing, to community spaces and more.” These spaces are proving to offer deep, transformational power. As in past years, Chief Seattle Club’s staff opened the Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Day in Olympia, with traditional songs accompanied by their big drum. In 2021, the Club beamed in remotely from the ʔálʔal community room. “As we practiced before the session started, our new residents could hear the drum and it was like a heartbeat moving through the building,” Lovell says. Just before the live opening, two new members asked to join in. “They were proud to be in our building and advocate for better housing for our relatives.We always knew that this building would be special, and moments like this prove that our traditional practices are needed now as much as ever.” PROVIDED BY CHIEF SEATTLE CLUB Read story online (Chief Seattle Club)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDIxMDU=