Stories
United States
Building a Lasting Spirit
When The Oprah Winfrey Show first visited Robert Young in his Seattle, Wash., home in 2001, he and his wife were operating Red Feather Development Group (RFDG) out of their basement office—it was a “small-time adventure” as Robert described it, grounded in a genuine concern for the plight of American Indian elders who were freezing to death due to inadequate housing conditions.
Robert had started the organization in 1995 when he helped build a stick-frame constructed home for a Lakota elder named Katherine Red Feather on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
“At the time, we wanted to figure out what were the real issues that faced the reservations,” said Robert. “We wanted to get our minds wrapped around an issue that has been developing for the last several hundred years.”
Closer to the Reservations
To better understand the problem, his small-time adventure would soon assume life-changing proportions. In 2003, Robert sold his business and uprooted his family from its comfortable suburban life and moved to Bozeman, Montana, to be closer to the reservations. There, he hired additional staff and called on a willing army of volunteers to launch ambitious home-building projects across reservations throughout the northern plains and as far south as Arizona.
“It’s really like building a home on the moon,” said Robert of the process. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere, and it’s the outward bound school of volunteerism because volunteers are camping right next to what they’re building. They’re showering outside, they’re eating outside and all of this is done over a 28-day period—and then there’s a home on the ground.”
RFDG enlists the help of corporations to donate construction supplies, which lowers the cost of the project for the homeowners. The homeowners then work side-by-side with the volunteers and finance the remaining costs of materials. Like Habitat for Humanity, the RDFG is not a handout program, but rather offers a hand-up to the often-forgotten reservation communities.
“It’s great what we were doing—you’d see an enormous change in the family you were working with,” said Robert, who helped build homes across four different states and eight different tribes. In all, he’s overseen 65 housing projects, ranging from new construction and complete home rehabs, to wheelchair ramps for tribal elders and the disabled.
Along the way, the organization gained the trust of the area tribes and learned important life lessons that transcended any historical differences. But a vital piece of the puzzle, Robert felt, was missing.
“We weren’t leaving something behind,” said Robert.
A Spirit of Cooperation
Over the last few years, RFDG shifted its focus to address that “something”. Their goal over the next five years is to establish reservation-based sustainable housing programs that will be managed by the tribal communities themselves—to complete the virtuous circle and empower the people they initially wanted to assist. To do this more effectively, they started concentrating their efforts in cooperation with two tribes—the Hopi tribe in northern Arizona and the Northern Cheyenne in eastern Montana.
Working together, the tribes and RFDG established advisory councils on the reservations to discuss housing issues and community planning. These discussions usually center on two areas: understanding the straw bale construction process used to build the homes and dealing with the bureaucratic red tape that can slow the process to a crawl.
“It’s a daunting process,” said Robert of the regulatory requirements, “because you have land issues unlike any other in the country, and you have lending regulations that are unlike anything in the country, so it’s a very difficult thing to understand.”
Once the red tape is untangled—which can take years—the building can begin.
RFDG uses straw bale construction techniques because it provides superior insulation, is plentiful and offers cost savings up to 60 percent when compared to a traditionally contracted starter home. Since 1999, RFDG has completed 12 straw bale construction projects, and compares the construction process to “adult legos,” which due to the relative simplicity means that homeowners tend to be less apprehensive about helping to build their home.
Spreading the Program
Robert hopes to replicate the program with the help of Hopi and Northern Cheyenne tribal members, “so it’s no longer this short Irish guy from Seattle coming into a native community saying, ‘hey, I’ve got an idea for housing here.’”
Such efforts mean RFDG could eventually put itself out of business. “If there is any way I can work myself out of a job, great,” said Robert, “and we are well along the way.”
But he cautions that the need for housing remains great and volunteers will still be needed to assist with future projects.
Learn more about the Red Feather Development Group in the group’s promotional video:
Get Involved
Red Feather Development Group has been offered a challenge grant by the Niles Foundation of Greenwich, Connecticut, that offers to match all donations up to $100,000 during their 2008 Annual Appeal. Visit the RFDG website at www.redfeather.org for additional information on their American Indian Sustainable Housing Initiative and their 2008 Annual Appeal matching grant.
- In just 5 minutes you can help by:
- IDEA 1: Find out if your corporation can make in-kind donations to the Red Feather Development Group and help provide building supplies.
- IDEA 2: Learn about the plight of American Indian tribes to shed light on their current circumstances.
