Lorraine Davis: Our people need culturally responsive services and housing

Thursday, December 13, 2018  

By Lorraine Davis
Native American Development Center
ndnativecenter.org

In 2001, I moved to Bismarck from a South Dakota reservation to attend United Tribes Technical College (UTTC), hoping to make a better life for me and my eight-year-old son.

We stayed with a relative until school started – until she told us to leave while she went out of town. I searched for an Indian center to help me find emergency housing where Native Americans can stay for the weekend.

When that proved impossible to find, we ended up having to stay a few nights in a homeless shelter comprised of all kinds of people not appropriate for a family. After being at UTTC for five months, we were evicted a few days later because I violated the zero-tolerance policy for alcohol. We were going back to the homeless shelter where we would stay for only five days before we were evicted from there as well.

At this point, I was dealing with legal problems, I lost temporary custody of my son to serve three months in the state’s penitentiary with women. Proceeding my release, the hardest part was regaining custody of my son and family housing.

In order to regain custody of my son, I had to have established housing suitable for my son and me. In order to obtain family housing, I had to have custody of my son. It took me a year to get him back.

During this one year of homelessness staying with using friends in Bismarck while I went to college at UTTC, I finally obtained a public housing voucher and was able to get my son back. I look back and remember how much someone like me -- someone struggling with addiction but desiring to overcome it -- would have benefited from an Indian center and culturally responsive, permanent supportive housing.

As tribal people, we want to be with our people. Our cultures are different in ways that seem to be oblivious to the White Caucasian. Some examples of differences are in policies and procedures, environment, social norms like teasing and humor, tribal languages spoken by our elders that make us feel like were home (tribal homes), and activities, (e.g., pow-wow drum song and dance, wopida for our tribal families, veterans and elders).

I was raised by my Dakota mother, Arikara grandmother and Dakota grandfather and my two siblings, raised with our Dakota traditions. When we leave our reservations, we not only leave our immediate family, but we leave our extended families that we call our Oyate (our tribal people), and our traditional way of life.

This is a huge barrier for tribal people as we can’t access this in our urban areas unless there are community development projects that take place. This is vitally important to our existence, it is a way of life, just like Christianity is to Whites and other ethnicities.

As traumatic as my experience was, it revealed a vision in me that has guided my career. My experiences with homelessness, addiction, incarceration and the loss of custody of my son—and my difficulty reintegrating into society—showed me how much Bismarck needed resources to help Native Americans find housing and support services as they transitioned from a reservation, jail/prison, treatment, or change in career -- sophisticated jobs are limited for Native Americans in Bismarck.

North Dakota Natives are doing great things for our tribal people. Multi-tribal members attend and complete the.Wellbriety Warrior Down Recovery Coach Training by White Bison uniting tribal nation leaders in peer recovery support. #StrengtheningTribalPeople pic.twitter.com/skrdFO37Bi

— Native American Deve (@NativAmerDevCtr) May 3, 2018

This inspired me to start the Native American Development Center (NADC) in September 2012. Returning to my reservation wasn’t an option: previous traumatic experiences and environmental factors, such as chronic alcohol usage and a lack of jobs and housing, would be hard to escape.

Unfortunately, my story is familiar to our tribal people and families. More than 34 percent of Native Americans in North Dakota reported having no health insurance, compared to the statewide rate of 11.4 percent. Native Americans make up 6.7 percent of North Dakota’s population and of our state’s Native Americans population, 10,942 are living in the Bismarck which is where our largest Native Americans urban population exists within our state. Further, 59 percent of tribal members enrolled within the five recognized tribes of North Dakota (Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Spirit Lake Sioux Tribe, Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation and Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Tribe) live outside the reservations.

The NADC focuses on addressing those disparities by providing culturally responsive permanent support housing services for Native Americans families transitioning and living in Bismarck. Housing problems that urban American Indian and Alaska Native households faced in a housing study conducted (Kingsley et al. 1996), especially low-income families, included a lack of affordable housing, overcrowding, homelessness, and low access to housing assistance programs.

This same study also reported that unemployment, poor credit, lack of available housing for large and extended families, and lack of education about finding and keeping housing were barriers for American Indians and Alaska Natives who sought decent and affordable housing in metropolitan areas. Evidence presented in this report finds that the living conditions and experiences of many American Indians and Alaska Natives living in urban areas remain challenging.

A recent national housing study shows that Native Americans across 36 major metropolitan areas across the U.S. are less likely to seek assistance if they feel that case managers won’t understand their cultural needs. The need for these services comes from our history as Native Americans--two centuries of trauma--forced relocations of parents and children into boarding schools, cultural assimilation of religion (Christianity) and way of life, numerous broken treaties, and other social, economic, and political injustices–still affects our communities.

Today was our fourth (last) session of a Lakota Language Classes for Families series. We will launch another series soon, watch for updates right here on our Twitter page! #LakotaLanguage #Families #Bismarck #NorthDakota pic.twitter.com/TWdFDBJwjK

— Native American Deve (@NativAmerDevCtr) March 12, 2018

High rates of substance use disorders (SUDs), posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), suicide, and attachment disorders in many American Indian and Alaska Native communities have been directly linked to the intergenerational historical trauma forced upon them, such as forced removal off their land and government-operated boarding schools which separated American Indian and Alaska Native children from their parents, spiritual practices, and culture.

However, common reasons American Indians and Alaska Natives move to metropolitan areas include: housing availability, health status and access to healthcare services, educational and employment opportunities; and common reasons Native Americans move from metropolitan areas back to the reservations are because of family ties, culture and familiarity. Native Americans also face barriers with the emergency shelter system. Because some shelters exclusively serve women or men, families are not allowed to stay together, a specific problem given the perceived increase in the number of homeless families among American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Respondents suggested that shelters that bar individuals who drink alcohol or use illegal drugs from staying there, such as one shelter in a metro area, could cause difficulties for American Indians and Alaska Natives because of the prevalence of alcohol and substance use. Conversely, shelters without this rule might not be viable options for homeless individuals overcoming substance addiction issues.

The unemployment rates in Bismarck are alarming—3 percent for Whites and 9.5 percent for Native Americans and across North Dakota it is 2.4 percent for Whites and 10.3 percent for Native Americans. This would help us understand North Dakota’s income poverty rates—4.7 percent for Whites and 35.9 percent for Native Americans. North Dakota’s child welfare disparities amongst Native American children and youth as of 2014 was 32.3 percent, and 66.1 percent of these children had a permanency goal of reunification. Lastly, Native Americans have 2.5 times the rate of victimization than that of Whites.

NADC uses a hybrid approach of affordable, permanent supportive housing, finance and public health (traditions as wellness) that integrate our similar tribal traditions into our services providing a sense of belonging and familiarity to our tribal families. It is the most efficient and cost-effective way to battle the interrelated issues of homelessness, poverty, mass incarceration, addiction and child welfare within Native American communities for our state. Providing effective services benefits both the Native American and the non-Native populations.

For example, poor housing, limited healthcare, high poverty and unemployment, unsurprisingly, lead to higher incarceration rates. Although Native Americans only make up 6.7 percent of North Dakota's population, they represent 21 percent of the state’s prison population. By reducing the number of individuals imprisoned for substance-abuse related crimes, the state can realize significant savings on the cost of prison upkeep. Recidivism rates could be cut dramatically through support systems connected to an affordable housing complex with a cultural community center. Doing so would break an intergenerational cycle of trauma and poverty.

Culturally responsive services are vital to our existence, preservation of our heritage, tribal identity and the strengthening of our families. The Native American Development Center calls on stakeholders and leaders from all three governments (federal, state and tribal) to support holistic solutions to address the full spectrum of these problems, ensuring that Native Americans are re-unified with their families and capable of obtaining their culture and specific learning opportunities while integrating with the general Bismarck community.

Lorraine Davis serves as the executive director of the Native American Development Center, located at 209 N. 24th St., Suite A, in Bismarck, North Dakota. She can be reached via email at lorraine@ndnadc.org. Follow the Native American Development Center on Twitter @nativamerdevctr and on Facebook @ndnadc