0:00:00.5 Louis Marvin: Welcome to Resource on the Go, a podcast from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center on understanding, responding to and preventing sexual abuse and assault. I'm Louis Marvin and I'm a project coordinator at the NSVRC. Today's episode is part of a series on housing for prevention that we co-created with the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence. Our organizations collaborate on an initiative that supports advocates in meeting the housing needs of survivors. And in reflecting on that work together, we became eager to talk about the ways that housing is also a tool for preventing violence. Today, you're going to hear Caroline Laporte and Gwendolyn Packard from STTARS Indigenous Safe Housing Center interview Melissa Bringstem an outreach worker with the native communities in South Minneapolis.

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0:01:05.8 Speaker 2: Hi everybody. My name is Caroline Laporte. I am an immediate descendant of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, where I also serve as an associate judge. I'm a survivor of sexual assault and stalking, and I bring that into my position as the Director of the STTARS Indigenous Safe Housing Center which is a project of the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center.

0:01:26.0 Speaker 3: Hello, everyone. My name is Gwendolyn Packard. I'm Ihanktonowan Dakota. I'm a pre VAWA survivor of domestic violence, and I work with Caroline at STTARS Indigenous Safe Housing Center.

0:01:39.5 Speaker 4: Hi, I am Melissa Bringstem, enrolled in Red Lake Reservation from South Minneapolis, and I work in outreach in South Minneapolis in the native community with the homeless and the addicted. And I'm glad to be here.

0:01:55.0 S2: So Melissa, we were really excited that you were willing to join us for this conversation. I think the way that Gwen and I have reflected on our sort of budding relationship with you is that we felt, so, I don't know, I guess elated is maybe the right word to have met you in Minneapolis when we were there for our listening session, and then for you to have been willing to come to the work group meeting, the national work group meeting that we host to address housing insecurity and homelessness for gender-based survivors in Indian country, and both on and off reservation communities.

0:02:29.6 S2: But you've been a really great participant, ongoing and a member of our work group. And so we felt like it was important to bring you to this space today to really talk about your work. So I know you gave a brief introduction of yourself, but we were hoping we might wanna elaborate a little bit more and then just talk about the outreach work that you shared about in your introduction.

0:02:50.3 S4: Usually, I go out in the night-time because in Minneapolis we have outreach workers that usually just go out in the daytime. And in the daytime, our unsheltered relatives, there's a lot of resources that they can attend and get help from in the cities here in Twin Cities. But in the night-time, that's when everything's closed, so that's when I like to go out and go look for our relatives who are unsheltered or just walk in the streets or in tents or have nowhere to go, or on the train stations, the light rails.

0:03:26.7 S4: And I just go and I talk with them and just catch up with them and see how they're doing and show them love and help them with if they need anything like camping gear, like clothing, hygiene, blankets, tents, food, socks, hand warmers, gloves, hats, all that kind of stuff and help them. If they wanna go to detox, I'll take them to detox. If they wanna get in treatment, I'll help them sign up for treatment or take them to detox so they can go to treatment from there. Otherwise, I'm also a caretaker at Kimball Court in St. Paul. And with that, it's a program for unsheltered relatives through Beacon, Avivo and Red Lake. They have a program to help people and that have been homeless for a long period of time to get apartments, shelter. So I work in apartment building and it houses up to 75 residents and most of them are people who have been living in the streets in tents or couch hopping for years.

0:04:34.1 S3: What do you think is important for people to know about indigenous survivors facing or experiencing homelessness in your community? 

0:04:43.9 S4: Our community, indigenous, the women are at the highest rate of going missing in our community. And it happens like every night and it's not reported and it really doesn't get on the news as much as compared to white people. They go on the news and they start a party search. Well, there's a lot of girls that end up missing in our neighborhood that are native and it doesn't really get on the news. And so we have to go do footwork and just try to look for them ourselves. It's hard for indigenous peoples to be heard, especially in the court systems, fighting for our land back and for our rights and for housing. We go to courts and then they just overlook our situations and most of the time we don't get help. So we just have to start building our own organizations and shelters and our businesses on our own. And we're making it little by little, but it's happening over here.

0:05:40.3 S2: I'm really glad that you brought up a connection around MMIW and our unsheltered relatives. I think it plays a little bit into our next question for you, which is based on your experience, what do you believe is the connection between violence prevention and housing? 

0:05:55.9 S4: A good connection with that is when our relatives do get a housing or at least they get to go home and shower and sleep and feel good about having a place and it keeps them away from being vulnerable, sleeping outside or in a tent. 'Cause if they're in a tent, somebody could easily crawl in there and have their way with them or if they're out of it from doing drugs or just sleeping, just tired. So with shelter, it helps them to get connected back to our culture and keeps them away from a lot of danger that's out there on the streets where they're vulnerable.

0:06:33.6 S3: There's a dominant story about housing and shelter, one that says housing is earned and blames individuals and their situations for experiencing homelessness. We want to encourage bigger imaginations and more expansive thinking in our story. Housing is a human right, but it is also an indigenous responsibility, one that we should provide to each other based on our traditional teachings, culture, ways of life and relationships. What is the story about housing you tell through your work? What is something you wish other people knew? 

0:07:08.8 S4: Everyone deserves to have their own home, and some people think that some people don't deserve it because they're on drugs or they're alcoholics or they just don't know how to like live right. But I see that people who end up getting housing, they transition into it, it's hard at first because they're so used to being outside, but once they get in, they're able to connect with their cultural teachings and activities and stuff and their attitudes change and they're able to work better with themselves and to heal.

0:07:46.7 S2: I really appreciate that you said that. I think I even wrote it down. Everyone deserves to have their own home. I think that's really beautiful. It's really in line with the work that we do at STTARS.

0:07:56.9 S4: And the Avivo program, they have programs for families so they can help them get them houses and get them in the low income housings to help them with their... So just in case they don't have like enough funding, they'll help them with a deposit or the first month's rent. And then plus we have like tribes that over here, their offices also help native families with their first month's rent and their deposits and stuff like that in moving.

0:08:24.7 S3: Then I just had one question around the camps that you visit and that are throughout the cities. And through a lot of cities, what is the experience people have in terms of law enforcement and do they do the sweeps or are there sanctioned sections in the city where they can set up camps? What is that experience? 

0:08:47.6 S4: Usually the unsheltered and some workers will... There will be like open private lots that aren't being used for like years and it's just, why not just put up a camp right there? So it's like after you put up 10 tents and especially during the pandemic, we were allowed to have a camp, but if you had like 10 tents put up, and then they really couldn't do nothing about it. So that's whenever everybody took advantage of it and put their tents up and we'd bring 'em more supplies to help them stay comfortable through the days and nights and check on them. And a lot of times, we'd sit at the camps at night, just talk with them and build a spirit fire and sit around the fire and have s'mores. But whenever the city or like the neighbors would get upset, they would end up putting up eviction papers saying when they got to move.

0:09:46.4 S4: And so, a lot of outreach workers, will go and help the campers to take down their tents and gather their supplies and just move to a new place. But sometimes some people just don't move or they don't get help moving. But yeah, it's a problem with the city. They keep evicting and telling them they gotta leave, otherwise they just bulldoze everything and just throw everything in the garbage and they fence it up. They put big block cements on the property, and so nobody can even even go in there. And that's what they're doing all around the city and they're wasting a lot of the city's money doing that just to evict Native Americans in our own community. It happens a lot.

0:10:35.3 S4: And we just keep moving, bring them new tents, new clothes, everything. Sad, but we make it. Yeah, we need help. We need more housing. We need more housing for indigenous and the homeless and for families and for traffic sexually assaulted women, we need a lot more help. The shelters, they do get full and like I said, natives really don't care to go to other shelters that are not indigenous. They just won't go. They'd rather stay in the neighborhood where they just roam outside 'cause they feel safer just in our neighborhood because that's where we grew up.

0:11:20.9 S2: I think this question builds off of that and I really appreciate your response. What are some of the cultural differences that you've seen in your work between indigenous survivors and non-native survivors dealing with homelessness or housing insecurity? 

0:11:37.3 S4: Some people feel safe within our community because like also on Saturdays, every Saturday, we go out at one o'clock and we have a feast for them at their camps. Wherever they move, we go. That's where we go. Well, all of us, there's other ladies and like ladies from churches and like they heard about or hear about us and they'll be like, oh, you guys are serving food. Wow, what can I bring? We'll be like, bring clothes, spoons, forks, plates, containers, garbage bags, whatever you can that somebody needs in a camp and bring a hot dish, bring desserts, drinks whatever you think will help in this camp. And so we will all get together and we'll feast them every Saturday at one o'clock.

0:12:21.0 S4: And so a lot of people that are like, not from our neighborhood, like in the black community or the white community, they'll hear about us and they'll be like, oh, you guys are getting stuff for camping and you guys, oh you get, oh, you guys are getting fed. They see like our community comes together to help our people. And so some people just feel comfortable with it and they come and stay with us. There's a lot of people from different races that come into the camps to get help 'cause they see that the natives are getting help somehow and being loved from workers. And the community does come together to try to help somehow. So other people do feel comfort in our community, and so they do come.

0:13:05.1 S3: We talked a lot about your community. What are some of the really great things or good things or even better things that you see happening out there in terms of resources or supports. And I think that the community coming together to help you all feed people is really, really moving and powerful. But are there other things that are happening in the cities that are helping to alleviate some of this? 

0:13:38.4 S4: Like every organization, they all have their own little... They'll come, they'll put out flyers like on Facebook and they'll say, Hey, we have a grief group going on. We have a lot of grief groups going on, like in Little Earth and like [0:13:50.4] ____ resource center at Indian Health Board, everybody has their own little groups. It is hard for people who are like struggling in their addictions. They wanna go to ceremony... We have a lot of Cedar ceremony, sweat lodges and stuff, but people who are using, they're just really, they feel bad and they're embarrassed because they've been using, or they haven't showered or they don't have any clean clothes and they feel like they don't fit in. And so they don't come to our gatherings because they feel they don't feel well, they're high or they're coming down or they just feel unwelcome because they had been using or they just feel like they don't look right.

0:14:33.1 S4: But we do bring like... We go and sage them down and people need ceremony. They need ceremony. So some people will allow them to come and sit down and to get doctors 'cause they need that love and that affection. We have healers out here that have ceremony and so there's... We have to like, love our people even though they're going through a hard time. It just helps them to bring their spirits, lift their spirits a little more. What else can we do? Just keep having ceremony and pray.

0:15:10.8 S3: So just to add onto that a little bit too in terms of people with disabilities or elderly population or LGBTQ2S community how are you seeing, are there resources there for that as well? 

0:15:30.5 S4: Yeah, yesterday I was invited. I got to go see over at the division of Indian Works on Lake Street. We have, right now they're doing moccasin making and then on Sunday they're gonna... They're inviting that community to come in. They're invite 'em in so that they can get like start making medicine bags or just to get into doing something cultural to help them feel comfortable. 'cause they're gonna have a Powwow so that's coming up. So they're reaching out to them and it's scary for them out here because they wanna be comfortable, but it's hard to be comfortable in public. So that's why we have this program there. They have safe space for them so that they can make indigenous outfits and feel comfortable and have snacks and talk about however they wanna talk about their personal issues or whatever, how it goes down inside of outfit making everybody just sits around and talks and tells stories, jokes, and eats and makes their outfits.

0:16:34.9 S4: Everybody's... Every native is very creative. So it's good to have a safe place like that. And that's what's happening with that community. There's other places that have safe spaces too for sewing and stuff. We have like sewing societies over here in St. Paul, Minneapolis every other day in different orgs. There's good programs. But yeah, it's pretty scary out there for people who are gay, queer and bi. It's hard for everybody out here who's going through homelessness and addictions. Everybody has their own problems so everybody knows how to work with somebody a certain way and helping. So it's just nice to see different people coming forward to help. We'll see what the future brings. 'Cause I know there's a lot of people who wanna come out and help and then the people who are like suffering, they see people who used to be homeless or in their addictions before and now they're helping so they're like, oh, I wanna do that. And so a lot of people are coming forward who are getting sober in housing and they're starting to help too. That's home to us is our neighborhood, our community. So like people think it's easy for us just to move away. We're just used to being around each other and helping each other and that's just how it is. Tribally, we all have helpers and who all look out for each other.

0:18:03.4 S3: How large is the off reservation indigenous community in Minneapolis, St. Paul and or do the tribes in the state help address the housing insecurity and homelessness situation? 

0:18:20.4 S4: There's a large population of Native Americans here. Especially people here about you can get help here. Otherwise they just think it's fun over here. So a lot of people from different reservations, they come over here, they come to the Twin Cities. Twin Cities is a pretty big native population in St. Paul and in Minneapolis, south Minneapolis is pretty much the biggest. St. Paul, there's a lot of natives, but they really don't have native community like that. They have organizations and stuff. But in South Minneapolis it's pretty much where it's at, where all the natives really get together. You could walk into some of the tribal offices and they will have... They'll help you like with your car, if you have a problem with like your car and you need assistance in getting it fixed, they can help you with a certain amount of money to help you get your car fixed.

0:19:15.8 S4: Otherwise they can help you with like a damage deposit or your first month's rent or and your last month's, right? It just depends. Some tribes do help with things and plus with help getting in college and with paperwork and with food and yeah, tribal offices do help around here as as much as they can. And the organizations too. It just depends. We just gotta keep in contact. It's hard to keep in contact with the camps being bulldozed and the unsheltered being removed from their camps. It's hard to get hold of them sometimes. So that's why we like to keep up with them wherever they're at so where they're at so that we can help them and see what organizations or tribes do help with. And so we can connect them with that.

0:20:07.9 S2: What role does trust play in the work that you do? 

0:20:11.4 S4: For me, I grew up in South Minneapolis. I know a lot of people, I grew up with a lot of people and a lot of people... There's a lot of teenagers and young adults in their 20s. They call me auntie, they see me to be like Auntie, I'll be like, hi. I'm like, what's up? What are you guys doing? What do you guys need and what's up? Just get all up in their business. And I have good trust with everybody and I have word of mouth and stuff and I'm just out there. They know me by my car, my truck when I'm driving and they know me by face and I'll just put a post on Facebook of what's going on for the day. But yeah, if somebody comes into the community and says, oh yeah, can we do some paperwork? 

0:20:54.0 S4: You wanna do something? They'll shy away from that. They're not used to just talking to anybody. But yeah, there's a lot of trust issues, especially with people they don't know. I don't know if everybody has their own way of representing themselves, but I know how people don't just like to... Natives don't really like to just sit there and just tell everybody their business and stuff. They're pretty shy. Some people are talkative. But yeah, in indigenous community we do have trust issues because of the past with being told that we're gonna get help and then end up being something else or just somebody using community members for something. So that, I don't know, there's all different kinds of things that I could say. I don't wanna put anybody on blast though.

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0:21:46.8 S4: I dunno. Yeah, the community, like people who are homeless, they do have trust issues really bad and that's why they just move along and it's hard to get ahold of some of them 'cause they don't wanna give out their information or they don't have anything to show who they are.

0:21:58.9 S4: And we've come through... We've been through a lot and like, I see like in a lot of native, their grandparents or their parents really don't know how to show love because of boarding school era and from generational trauma, it's like hard to show affectionate and a lot of people are really shy and don't know how to show affection because of our past. And it was passed down to like not show love and to... It is hard to have trust because of all the stuff that happened and it keeps going on in these court systems. Like you can see people in court giving our community the stink eye because they don't wanna help us because they want that funding instead. I'm telling you, I'm telling you I can... I see a lot.

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0:22:45.7 S4: I see a lot in the community and the housing organizations and in the court system and I'm just trying to like, just to be helpful and just to be a body there to represent and to help and support. So I have trust issues too, but I'm gonna stand there and be by everybody's side as much as I can. I have to be, 'cause I'm the next one to stand up.

0:23:04.1 S3: In your off reservation indigenous community. What wisdom exists to keep people safe and housed? 

0:23:15.7 S4: The wisdom that's being passed down from our elders, like the stories and how they were sent off to be moved away. And all of our storytellers, whenever we have like community gatherings and ceremony and stuff, we just need our ceremony and our cultures and our language to keep going strong. And that's what keeps our community alive.

0:23:39.7 S2: Melissa, obviously Gwen and I have really enjoyed talking with you today and as we have continued to enjoy working with you as a very important member of our national work group. So we just wanted to say thank you so much for your time.

0:23:53.1 S4: Thank you. I'm glad to be here. And yeah, there's a lot of stuff to talk about. I'm really happy to be here and share space with you guys and thank you for listening because there's a lot of stuff that needs to be addressed and I know there's a lot more stuff that our communities will get help with in the future and there's a lot of goodness to come.

0:24:11.7 S4: The only thing we can do is just keep helping each other and listen, listen to the ones who are suffering. 'cause that's where the lack is at, is there's people suffering and they don't know how to speak either because they're too high or they have nowhere to go or they don't feel good about themselves. So we just need people just to listen to everybody. So we just need to keep reaching out and thank you for this because this will help a lot of people to understand different communities and to recognize and to say, hey, yeah, that's what we're going through too. And it makes people feel like they're not alone because it's everywhere. We have these problems everywhere. And.

0:24:48.4 LM: Thanks for listening to this episode of Resource on the Go. For more resources and information about preventing sexual assault, visit our website at nsvrc.org. You can also get in touch with us by emailing resources@NSVRC-respecttogether.org.

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