The Native American Youth and Family Center, Clackamas County and other project partners gathered on June 25 to celebrate the opening of a new family shelter program in Milwaukie. Khwat yaka haws – which means “Auntie’s Place” in the Chinook language – will offer eight private spaces for Native families experiencing homelessness.
Metro’s voter-approved supportive housing services fund is paying for the program. This fund enabled counties to create or sustain over 1,400 shelter beds, connect almost 8,000 people with stable housing, and prevent nearly 22,000 evictions since the first dollars became available three years ago.
The building, which formerly housed the Annie Ross House shelter program, is adjacent to the Walsh Commons affordable housing community on Northwest Housing Alternatives’ Milwaukie campus. Starting July 1, it will provide space for eight families experiencing homelessness at any given time. Each living space includes bunk beds to accommodate families of up to seven people, a kitchenette and bathroom. The ground floor features cozy community spaces for guests to gather, including a communal kitchen, reading nook, deck and playground.
A reading nook offers a cozy space for the shelter’s young guests and their parents to spend time together.
Services will include educational and employment support, substance use counseling, peer support, mental health support, and assistance with navigating housing and social services so residents can move onto the next phase of their journey to stability. The average stay is expected to be about 45 days.
Khwat yaka haws is the first shelter of its kind in greater Portland and addresses an urgent need for culturally responsive programming for Native people. The shelter will host Native American cultural activities to foster a sense of community, healing and belonging among residents.
Native American artists painted colorful murals that feature symbols of cultural significance, and meaningful objects and art are placed throughout the space. This thoughtful approach surrounds guests with reminders of the richness of their heritage. Guests will also have access to traditional healing practices, medicines and first foods.
Amaranta Colindres’ mural upstairs is “a visual land acknowledgement emphasizing local plants and animals, showing a diverse amount of wildlife thriving in their respective homes,” according to NAYA’s opening celebration brochure.
The medicine station holds wooden bowls with sweetgrass, sage and other traditional medicines.
Oregon state Representative Tawna Sanchez, who is also NAYA's director of Family Services, suggested the shelter's name during a gathering to celebrate the lease's signing. It refers to the way aunties in Indigenous communities open their homes to support other community members, and embodies the organization’s core values of kindness, respect, giving, tradition, community and pride.
The opening celebration started with a blessing from community elders Darlene Foster and Suzie Kuerschner. Welcoming guests, NAYA’s Interim CEO Oscar Arana shared his vision that the shelter “will be a place where Native families will come for housing support when they need it the most. It will be a welcoming place where they will be greeted by staff who understand and care for them.”
NAYA board president Molly Washington touched on the struggles Native people have endured in the United States for centuries due to racist policy and practice, including experiencing homelessness and housing instability a much higher rate than many other groups.
“It’s harder for Native people, and I know this because I’ve seen it, because I’ve experienced it myself,” she said. “It’s harder for us because the systems were designed against us. They were designed not to include us. They’re also designed to oppress, and really to eliminate us. And those are the barriers we face in every single aspect of everything we do.”
Before introducing shelter staff, manager Andulia Sanchez shared her excitement about this new community resource: “We’ve always struggled with generational trauma. Now, we want to focus on generational healing. We are no longer surviving; we are now thriving.”
James Lovell of the Chief Seattle Club gifts the Oregon Potlatch Wool Blanket from Eighth Generation to NAYA and the shelter.
James Lovell, chief community development officer of the Chief Seattle Club in Seattle, surprised his friends at NAYA by attending the celebration and gifting the center a blanket featuring basketry designs from each of the federally recognized Oregon tribes. Remembering how Native people were pushed off their land and into cities by the federal government in the 1950s, he said that though the first Native people to see homelessness are no longer alive, he said he believes Native people of today will see homelessness in their communities end in their lifetime.
The celebration concluded with a ceremonial drumming, followed by gathering in the community room to share a meal from Indigenous pop-up and catering company, Javalina.
Chanti Manon’s mural in the community room communicates “a sense of connection and community” through images of an elder braiding a youth’s hair, intertwined with elements of the natural world.