[ Inquiry ] Pa’upena CDC Community Needs Assessment
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[ Inquiry ] Pa’upena CDC Community Needs Assessment

During the course of its 2-day consultation session with representatives from Pa’upena CDC and other homestead organizations, staff members Harry Maher and Kevin Klingbeil visited the majestic and remote Kahikinui homestead as well as the more urban Pakupalo and Lahaina homestead areas. Session participants discussed Pa’upena CDC’s recent receipt of its Right of Entry (ROE) for 127 acres of Hawaiian homelands and its authorization to engage in community design that could lead to a subsequent ROE for an additional 5,000 acres as well as an array of historical, legal, regulatory and other issues that have limited the number of native Hawaiians who have received leases to occupy Hawaiian homelands.

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[ Report ] NAIHC/HUD Crime Prevention Summit
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[ Report ] NAIHC/HUD Crime Prevention Summit

In an effort to complement the community engagement, housing managing and law enforcement efforts described by other presenters at the HUD/NAIHC Crime Prevention Summit in Denver, Big Water presented an array of data collection techniques and data storage and sharing tools that could enable tribes and tribal programs to better coordinate with other tribal and non-tribal agencies, mobilize their communities to gather critical information, better target the use of limited law enforcement resources, and integrate available data to allow for identification of critical patterns and timelines concerning issues such as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons, gang activity and methamphetamine use in tribal housing units.  

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[ Inquiry ] Launch of Assessment of Housing Needs of American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians in Washington State at NWIHA and ATNI Meetings
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[ Inquiry ] Launch of Assessment of Housing Needs of American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians in Washington State at NWIHA and ATNI Meetings

In cooperation with its partner on the project, Akana Big Water presented to the members of the Northwest Indian Housing Association (NWIHA) at the Skagit Casino Resort in Bow, Washington and the Housing Committee of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI) in Portland, Oregon to launch the Assessment of the Housing Needs of Native Americans in Washington State funded by the Washington State Department of Commerce’s Community Services and Housing Division.  The final report for this project will in part address state, federal, local and industry investments in rental and homeowner housing for Native Americans and provide policy recommendations to support the development of sufficient and safe housing for Native Americans on and outside of tribal areas and address other systemic barriers that prevent or impede access to safe and sufficient housing by Native Americans.

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[ Big Water Talk ] [ Report ] 2020 Census Training and Technical Assistance
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[ Big Water Talk ] [ Report ] 2020 Census Training and Technical Assistance

Big Water Consulting partnered with United Way, Pyramid Communications, King County, and the Urban League to form a coalition designed to work with local community based organizations to better target community outreach and increase 2020 Census self-response rates in King County and Washington State. The work is funded by a grant from the Washington State Office of Financial Management. In addition to providing training to United Way Census Navigators who will provide information and assistance concerning the 2020 Census at 33 tax preparation locations in historically undercounted areas in King County, Big Water is creating an online map including predicted self-response data as well as live self-response data that will help partners target efforts in communities that may be at risk of having low self-response rates.

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[ Big Water Talk ] NAIHC Legal Symposium Presentation with Sustainable Native Communities/MASS Design
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[ Big Water Talk ] NAIHC Legal Symposium Presentation with Sustainable Native Communities/MASS Design

Big Water staff members Harry Maher and Kevin Klingbeil presented alongside Nathaniel Corum of Sustainable Native Communities/MASS Design at the NAIHC Legal Symposium in Las Vegas to describe their new collaborative effort to fully integrate data collection, community design and planning processes in order to ensure that tribal data collection and needs assessment activities are informed by planning and design principles and that the data produced from these efforts can fully inform subsequent design and planning processes.

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[ Inquiry ] White Mountain Apache Housing Needs Assessment Launched
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[ Inquiry ] White Mountain Apache Housing Needs Assessment Launched

Two weeks ago, we helped train the survey manager and field staff for the White Mountain Apache Housing Needs Assessment project which is being conducted within the boundaries of the Fort Apache Reservation extending north from the Salt River Canyon in the mountains of eastern Arizona. In addition to the training sessions, we held community meetings in the reservation's more remote Cibecue and McNary communities to learn more about their respective living conditions and needs. We also conducted a focus group with reservation residents who are experiencing homelessness or are doubled-up (staying with others with no permanent residence of their own) to identify the nature and sources of their particular issues as well as ways in which the Tribe or its programs could support their efforts to overcome their current challenges and create more stability in their lives. Despite a winter snowstorm that knocked out power to much of the reservation (and allowed us to conduct training without lights for the first time), trainees and community members braved the elements in order to keep the project on schedule.

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[ Report ] LCO Community Assessment Complete
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[ Report ] LCO Community Assessment Complete

Big Water would like to congratulate the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians on completing its LCO Community Assessment project. We had an opportunity to share the results of the household survey with project stakeholders and community members at LCO Ojibwe Community College in Hayward, Wisconsin on November 5. Our follow-up meetings with the Grants/Planning Department and the Waadookodaading Ojibwe Language Immersion School on November 6 will help ensure that this data is fully utilized by the Tribe and tribal programs and that future tribal data collection efforts will benefit from lessons learned in this project. This project serves as yet another example of tribes in northern Wisconsin taking a data-driven approach to planning, program management and the grant application process. We would also like to thank Enterprise Community Partners for providing critical matching funds in support of this capacity-building project.

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[ Report ] South Dakota Tribal Veterans Homeownership Study Reports Available Online
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[ Report ] South Dakota Tribal Veterans Homeownership Study Reports Available Online

Big Water Consulting partnered with the Cheyenne River Housing Authority, Oglala Sioux (Lakota) Housing and Sissteon Wahpeton Housing Authority as well as the Tribal Veterans Service Officers (TVSOs) for these three reservations to conduct a survey and a focus group with tribal veterans in each area. The purpose of this project was to determine evaluate veterans' housing needs, their interest in and qualification for homeownership, and opportunities to better serve those who served their country. We were honored to participate this project and would like to thank all of the contributors to this inaugural effort, including the tribal housing entities, the TVSOs, South Dakota Native Homeownership Coalition (SDNHC), Lakota Funds and Enterprise Community Partners.

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[ Report ] Presentation of SISC King County AIAN Housing Needs Study to ATNI Housing Committee
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[ Report ] Presentation of SISC King County AIAN Housing Needs Study to ATNI Housing Committee

Kevin Klingbeil presented the results and key findings of the SISC King County American Indian and Alaska Native Housing Needs Study to the Housing Committee of ATNI. Discussion addressed the specific needs of Native students in Seattle, efforts to develop new housing for Native families and other subpopulations of the Native community in King County, and disparities between the income levels of Native households and the median household income for King County as well as the wide gap between the rising cost of housing in this area and what Native families can actually afford.  

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[ Big Water Talk ] NAIHC and AMERIND Annual Convention and Tradeshow
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[ Big Water Talk ] NAIHC and AMERIND Annual Convention and Tradeshow

Kevin Klingbeil presented to attendees of the National American Indian Housing Council (NAIHC) and Amerind Annual Convention and Trade Show on May 8 and discussed how tribal data collection and data-driven planning activities can be used to demonstrate both community need and tribal capacity to funding sources within the context of competitive grants.

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[ Inquiry ] "Tohono O’odham Census Challenge Prevents Loss of Millions in Housing Funding"
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[ Inquiry ] "Tohono O’odham Census Challenge Prevents Loss of Millions in Housing Funding"

Big Water is proud to have been part of this historic project in which local tribal field staff mapped and assessed the condition of all housing units within the Nation's lands, gathered vital demographic and needs-based data from a sample of the Nation's households, and ultimately prevented the loss of millions of dollars of critical housing funding over the next five years.

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[ Big Water Talk ] United Native American Housing Association Meth Summit
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[ Big Water Talk ] United Native American Housing Association Meth Summit

Kevin Klingbeil presented the results of a Meth Testing and Remediation Survey to staff of tribal housing entities in the Northern Plains and representatives of the HUD Office of Native American Programs. The survey was designed and implemented by Big Water and completed by 23 of the 32 UNAHA members. Data collected in the survey served as a catalyst for discussion of the various challenges faced by tribal housing entities in their efforts to identify and appropriately respond to to the use of methamphetamine in their units.

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[ Conference ] Southwest Tribal Housing Alliance Tri-Annual Meeting
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[ Conference ] Southwest Tribal Housing Alliance Tri-Annual Meeting

As an associate member of SWTHA, Big Water joined member organizations and representatives of other organizations serving Native communities at Isleta Resort & Casino to observe the election of new SWTHA officers and discuss current housing funding issues, pending legislation, and regional initiatives to support tribal housing development and management in the Southwest.

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[ Conference ] Assembly of First Nations National Housing and Infrastructure Forum and Trade Show
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[ Conference ] Assembly of First Nations National Housing and Infrastructure Forum and Trade Show

Big Water crossed the border to meet with housing staff and distinguished regional chiefs of the Assembly of First Nations to learn more about the unique issues, programs, challenges and opportunities addressed by First Nations leaders and housing providers as well as emerging legislative advancements, financing mechanisms and training and technical assistance programs providing new avenues for community and economic development for Native communities in Canada. 

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[  Conference ] Housing Washington Conference 2018
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[ Conference ] Housing Washington Conference 2018

Big Water staff attended the largest gathering of affordable housing organizations in Washington State, participated in a tour of historic buildings redeveloped into affordable urban housing facilities and learned about the widening gap between the demand for additional affordable housing supply and the development of new affordable rental units, legislation allowing for more efficient use of surplus government land, and other creative mechanisms to promote affordable housing development. 

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[ Big Water Talk ] Western Planners
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[ Big Water Talk ] Western Planners

Kevin Klingbeil delivered the lunchtime keynote speech "Bridging the Gap between Native and Non-Native Communities" on the first full day of the conference, served as a member of a panel entitled "Federal Indian Law: Power to Plan, How They Differ from Local and State Governments," and described a layered data-driven planning perspective in a presentation entitled "Switching Brushes: Integrating Varied Data Sources to Paint a Richer Tribal Planning Picture." 

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