The Effort to End a Tribal Housing Crisis

The Suquamish Tribe is using federal dollars to create more affordable housing. Crosscut reporter Luna Reyna discusses the roots of the problem and the solution.

For many years the Suquamish Tribe and its citizens owned less than half of the land on their reservation in Washington, and many of those citizens have long struggled to afford housing there.

This reality is based in large part on the forced federal assimilation policies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s also because of what the 21st-century U.S. government has called “Broken Promises.”

But recently the tribe has been getting its ancestral land back and building affordable housing for its citizens. 

For this episode of the Crosscut Reports podcast, Indigenous affairs reporter Luna Reyna talks to host Sara Bernard about the new effort, the federal funding that is making it possible and the troubling history that has made it necessary.

Read our full report on the Suquamish effort here. 

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Credits

Host/Producer: Sara Bernard

Reporter: Luna Reyna

Executive producer: Mark Baumgarten

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