Newsletter
Redbird Newsletter
June 2008
Taking Big Steps Toward Our Goals
Affordable housing is beyond the reach of 88% of Los Angeles area renters. For elderly Native Americans living in the City of Angels, these statistics are even higher. Redbird has chosen to address this issue by striving to create affordable, safe and culturally appropriate elder housing in a community setting.
It’s a dream we’ve envisioned for five years or more, but now we are taking steps toward making that dream a reality. We are applying for HUD funding to create the first “Redbird Ranch” facility. We have chosen a property that is for sale on the open market. In order to complete the application, we need to have a Phase 1 Environmental Review of the site, to be completed at our cost. We also need a letter of commitment from the seller and their listing agent, community support from both public agencies and Native American people, and confirmation that we can create an elder housing facility on the site, which has residential zoning and a special use permit.
To accomplish all of this by July 1, we need some very special assistance; particularly with the environmental review. We cannot use an old report. It must have been completed with the last 180 days. The subject property is located in Sunland in Los Angeles County. Please, please, if you or someone you know can assist us in completing the Phase 1 review, contact us immediately. We can offer some compensation.
What follows is a letter asking for support, not in dollars, but in words; in the HUD application package we need to include letters that demonstrate the need for elder housing, and our ties with the Native American community that will enable us to be good providers. If you feel that you can offer us such support, please do.
Dear Friends:
For the past five years, Redbird has been engaged in efforts to create an elder housing facility. At this time we are applying for funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development for a five unit Native American elder housing program.
Part of the application process involves submitting letters of support from the Native American community, as well as the neighboring community of the proposed site. We are seeking such letters now and hope that you will be willing to write and send such an endorsement.
The grant process is complicated, and the time frame is short. The completed application must be submitted by July 10. We would like to have all of our materials in hand by July 1.
We are hoping to purchase a special use property in the Sunland area which is currently being offered for sale. If we are able to secure HUD funding for the property and negotiate a sale, the property would provide us with a pre-existing structure to be converted into housing units, a community room, commercial kitchen, ample parking, and caretaker residence.
We are very hopeful that we will be met with cooperation by the seller and their listing broker, and are working with them now to secure a commitment.
In the meantime, we need your support to demonstrate the need for elder housing in the Native American community, and the confidence in Redbird as an organization to be able to provide such assistance and operate the facility.
Any facts relating to the need for elder housing that you can mention will be helpful. Any experience you have in dealing with aging populations, whether they be native or non-native, will also help. If you are able to put your letter on your organization’s letterhead, this too is always beneficial.
HUD is also looking to see that we have a relationship with the Native American community; a track record of service, in essence, so if you feel that you can mention a long-standing history of experience with Redbird, that will be important information.
These letters will be submitted with our grant package to HUD, but will also be kept on file for use as we seek matching and supportive grants, or simply other potential funding sources. As such, you may address them to Redbird and title them simply “To Whom It May Concern”. It is crucial that we are able to demonstrate the need for housing for Native American elderly, and our relationship to that community. We need your help to do so.
Redbird is a federally recognized 501(c)(3) non profit association. We received non profit status in 1994 and have undertaken educational and charitable endeavors within the Indian community as well as the general public since 1990. While we are probably best known for hosting the Children of Many Colors Powwow, we view the need for elder housing as an urgent and critical issue to which we must respond. The application we are submitting to HUD is a major step in this direction. If successful, it will allow us to turn a dream into a reality, and to serve an ever increasing number of Native American elderly and their care-giving families.
If you would like more specific information about this project, or Redbird, you may visit us online at www.RedbirdsVision.org, or call (805) 217-0364.
We wish to thank you in advance for your support, which will be critical in this process.
With sincere best wishes,
Corina Roberts,
Founder
Redbird
P.O. Box 702
Simi Valley, CA 93062
Email: redbirds_vision@hotmail.com
(Please note: this is a proposal to provide housing, not assisted living. Assisted living is a field unto itself, and while the property we are looking at could be an assisted living facility, our focus is the component of providing safe, affordable, culturally appropriate housing)
Winter/Spring 2008
Children of Many Colors Powwow
July 18-20
We have confirmed the dates of July 18-20 with Moorpark College for the Children of Many Colors Powwow. Friday night there will be a potluck and open flute circle. Saturday and Sunday will be devoted to gourd, intertribal and exhibition dancing. We are hoping to throw in a few fun contests this year.
We are working with the college now to find out what time we will be able to access the field on Friday; there is currently a football practice scheduled for Friday morning, so we may not be able to set up the circle until early afternoon.
If you would like a vendor application, feel free to email or call and please include your mailing address. Applications should be available to download from our website by mid-March.
Haramokngna Spring Opening and Equinox Celebration
March 22
Haramokngna American Indian Cultural Center will have its opening celebration on March 22. A number of authors and artists will have exhibitions at the opening. Paul Campbell, author of Survival Skills of the California Indians, will be giving an exhibition and sharing his latest book. Valena Broussard Dismukes will have her new book, The Red-Black Connection, available for sale. Corina Roberts, Redbird’s founder, will have an exhibition of multi-media works and the book Haramokngna Diaries – Portrait of a Forest available for sale.
Haramokngna is located in the Angeles National Forest at the intersection of Highway 2 and Red Box/Mt. Wilson Road, 14 miles north of the 210 freeway in La Canada Flintridge. For more information or to be a vendor at the event, go to www.haramokngna.org
Website Update is Complete
Redbird’s website has been completely refurbished, and includes photo galleries, our latest news, and a calendar of events which is updated monthly. If you have events to submit to the calendar please feel free to do so. Our website address remains the same:
www.RedbirdsVision.org
Native American Housing
Morongo Indian Casino will host a free two day training workshop for Section 184 American Indian Housing. This is a program through HUD (Housing and Urban Development) that extends home ownership opportunities to Native Americans with a CDIB (certificate of degree of Indian blood). Redbird will be attending the workshop for the purpose of exploring ways to use this innovative program to help us find, fund and begin our first Redbird Ranch Native American elder housing project. We would like to purchase a four unit property as co-borrowers with a qualified individual. This would give one Native American individual or family ownership of their own home, and provide three additional units that can serve as our first elder housing project.
Our primary goal is to provide safe, affordable and culturally appropriate housing for elders and their care-giving families; by working with this particular program, we can also offer native families the option of home ownership, which is the ultimate goal of the Section 184 program. The workshop is free and open to interested members of the Native American community. Contact information for Morongo Casino follows.
March 25-26 Section 184 American Indian Housing Seminar
Morongo Casino Resort and Spa
49500 Seminole Drive
Cabazon, California 92230
888-667-6646
www.morongocasinoresort.com
Firewood for Southern California Ceremonies, Lodges
Redbird has a special arrangement with the National Forest Service to assist those who conduct sweat lodge and other ceremonies in getting appropriate firewood. The wood is from National Forest land and includes cedar, sycamore, oak and various pine species. It has been cut and is in various stages of seasoning; some pieces will require splitting. Interested parties should contact Redbird directly to make arrangements. The wood is located in the Angeles National Forest, not far from the Haramokngna American Indian Cultural Center. It can only be accessed with prior permission, so please contact us in advance of when you anticipate needing to collect the wood.
Looking for a Home
Redbird’s founder, Corina Roberts, is looking for a new home. She has been the Caretaker/Artist In Residence at Haramokngna for the past year. The position ends in March. Corina comes with a small dog, large cat, and the primary personal computer that houses all of Redbird’s information. She got spoiled living in the mountains and is hoping to find another rural or semi-rural location somewhere in Los Angeles or Ventura County. She can be contacted through Redbird.
Redbird Promoting the Awareness and Celebration of Indigenous Cultures and People – Creating a Sustainable Future
A 501(c)(3) non profit association
P.O. Box 702
Simi Valley, CA 93062
www.RedbirdsVision.org
email: redbirds_vision@hotmail.com
(805) 217-0364
Support Redbird’s work at no cost when you shop; register with
www.escrip.com
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Fall 2007
Keeping the Doors Open at the Porcupine Clinic – Please Help
Redbird is undertaking a campaign to raise $6,000.00 for the Porcupine Clinic on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Its doors closed for lack of heat as fires rage through Southern California and devastate local reservations, and its plight as the only independent American Indian Clinic in the United States has been swallowed in the smoke of our own local tragedies.
In the following article you will find information on how to send money directly to the propane company which services the clinic. You can also make a Paypal donation to Redbird and we will forward your contribution to the propane company, and provide a contribution letter to you for your tax records. You can make a contribution through our website at www.RedbirdsVision.org or directly through Paypal using this email address:
redbirds_vision@hotmail.com
Porcupine Clinic Out of Heat
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By Stephanie M. Schwartz, Freelance Writer
Member, Native American Journalists Association
October 26, 2007 Firestone, Colorado
Porcupine Clinic, located in the small community of Porcupine, South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota [Sioux] Reservation is out of heat. According to Stella White Eyes, Administrative Assistant for the Clinic, the Clinic has closed its doors until it can find resources to fund their heating costs.
Porcupine Clinic is the only independent Indian community-controlled health clinic in the United States. It is not connected with the Federal Indian Health Services (IHS) program and is funded primarily by grants and donations. Unfortunately, those resources have become exceptionally rare this year.
Porcupine Clinic opened its doors in 1992 and serves the entire Reservation as well as the Porcupine District in which it is located. Patients are billed according to their ability to pay and many patients, including low-income Elders and children, receive free health care there.
In 2004, the Porcupine Clinic opened its dialysis unit, saving countless lives of those diabetic patients who could not journey 120 miles away to Rapid City for needed dialysis treatment several times a week. The only other dialysis treatment available on the 11,000 square mile (2.7 million acres) Reservation is located in the small IHS Hospital in the community of Pine Ridge. But that facility hosts only a handful of dialysis beds, is up to 100 miles away from the more remote areas of the Reservation, and is completely unable to treat the vast need of the entire Reservation.
Recent statistics state that the diabetes rate on Pine Ridge is 800% that of the National average and the life expectancy rate is 52 to 58 years old. It is said that 55% of the adults on Pine Ridge over the age of 40 have diabetes.
Ms. White Eyes states that the Clinic has been unable to pay their annual propane tank rental fees of $245 (for both the Clinic and dialysis unit tanks) or for the propane to fill them. They have three tanks: a thousand gallon tank which services the main clinic and two five hundred gallon tanks servicing the dialysis unit. The minimum propane delivery from their provider, Western Cooperative (WESTCO) out of Chadron and Hay Springs, Nebraska, is $360.
If all the tanks were filled, at $1.69 per gallon, it would cost well over $3,000. Further, that will need to happen more than once this winter. While the dialysis unit helps to fund at least part of its own propane use, the Clinic is out of funding now, just as winter is approaching fast.
Harvey Iron Boy, Porcupine District Vice President and Head Man, spoke of the vital role that the Clinic plays in the local district as well as the Reservation as a whole. Not only are the health care services, bi-lingual assistance, diabetic education, and dialysis treatments all meeting critical needs on the Reservation but there are more basic needs met by the Clinic as well. He pointed out that locals often come into the Clinic simply to get warm on days when they have no heat in their own homes.
Ms. White Eyes has contacted various non-profits and assistance organizations but has largely gone unanswered. Link Center Foundation, a small all-volunteer non-profit organization out of Longmont, Colorado, was contacted this week and was also unable to help. With their own heating assistance program for the elders and disabled on the Reservation struggling due to lack of donations, there simply was no funding available to help the Clinic.
However, Audrey Link, Founder/President of the Link Center Foundation (www.LinkCenterFoundation.org), personally paid the $245 out of her own pocket for the annual tank rental fees for the Porcupine Clinic and dialysis unit on Friday. Largely retired and on limited income herself, Link stated that she couldn’t go to sleep tonight if she thought the dialysis patients and Clinic were going to lose their propane tanks.” At least now, if they can raise any money at all elsewhere, they can use the money for propane to fill them.
Anyone wishing to donate towards propane fuel for the Porcupine Clinic may do so directly to the propane company. Please contact:
Loretta at Western Cooperative (WESTCO)
170 Bordeaux St, Chadron, NE 69337-2342
Call Toll Free 800-762-9906
Credit Card and Bank Card donations by phone will be accepted. Small donations are also welcome and will accumulate until the minimum delivery has been reached and then the company will make a delivery of propane to the Clinic. Please clearly mark any donation “For Porcupine Clinic.”
Donations may also be sent directly to the Clinic. For more information, please contact:
Porcupine Clinic
Stella White Eyes, Administrative Assistant
P.O. Box 99, Porcupine, SD 57772
Internet Information: http://www.lakotamall.com/porcupine/
Phone: 605-867-5655
Note: Due to lack of heat, there may or may not be anyone available to answer the phone at the Clinic at this time. Please leave a message.
Stephanie M. Schwartz may be reached at SilvrDrach@Gmail.com
Visit other writings of Stephanie M. Schwartz at www.SilvrDrach.homestead.com
(On October 28 Corina Roberts joined Robin Carneen and Tamra Brennan on First Peoples’ Radio to discuss the California wildfires, the Porcupine Clinic, and ways for people to help fellow natives in need. First People’s Radio can be reached via the internet at
www.ksvr.org )
Hummingbird Creek – Environment versus Development
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On October 12, Pascaline Derrick from the Trust for Public Land met with Jim Keppler and Tom Evans of the Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District, and Corina Roberts of Redbird, to discuss the potential feasibility of preserving the area collectively known as Hummingbird Creek in Simi Valley.
Hummingbird Creek was once a beautiful region, with year-round water and an oak-studded meadow. It was home to the longest enduring Chumash village in Ventura County, and to a thriving population of wildlife who depended on the perennial source of water to survive.
Today the property looks very different. It has been scraped bare of its vegetation, and subdivided into parcels for single family homes.
The creek remains and the wildlife still rely upon it for their survival, particularly in these harsh times of hot weather and little rain. Their ability to utilize the creek and the adjacent wildlife corridor beneath the 118 freeway will be permanently jeopardized if development commences in the once-pristine oak meadow that acts as a buffer between the wild world and the urbanized one.
Whether or not the resources and energy needed to preserve this piece of land can be generated remains unknown, but the dialogue has begun, and we will continue to work towards a mutual understanding of the value of the natural environment and the need to preserve a place for wildlife in our increasingly urban lives.
Bank of America Names Redbird Founder “Local Hero”
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On November 5, 2007, Bank of American hosted its annual Neighborhood Excellence Initiative award ceremony, and among those chosen for the Local Heroes award was Corina Roberts, Redbird’s founder.
Bank of America supports the efforts of students, individuals and organizations in creating strong, healthy communities, and recognizes the significant impact that non profit organizations and individuals make in the lives of others, and in the livelihood of their communities.
Michael Reifel and Susan DeSantis accompanied Roberts to the awards ceremony, held at the Autry National Center in the Western Heritage Museum. The presentation took place near a mural that Corina fondly remembered standing in front of years ago, while western impressionist artist Neil Boyle painted her in native regalia for an enthralled audience of western art fans.
Roberts received a handsome award and Redbird received a donation of $5,000.00. This donation will help insure that 2008 is a productive year for Redbird. It has already been instrumental in allowing for the shipment of warm blankets, clothing and toys to the Porcupine District of Pine Ridge in South Dakota, as well as a number of individuals and families in need of some holiday warmth and cheer.
Toy and Blanket Drive a Success
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On December 1 Redbird held its annual toy, blanket and school supplies drive at the Simi Valley Library Community Room. There was plenty of delicious food, a drum that sang contemporary and traditional Chumash songs, and wonderful support. Approximately 60 blankets were donated; forty five of these were suitable for shipping to Harvey Iron Boy, head man of the Porcupine District, along with warm clothing items and some soft, cuddly toys.
Additional blankets were purchased by Redbird and sent to several families for whom a donation request was placed. Seven bags of toys and a large box of school supplies were given to Walking Shield; smaller quantities of toys went to the 28th annual CCIM Christmas Powwow, United American Indian Involvement, and four local families. Donated work attire went to UAII’s workforce development program, and the remainder of the donated clothing was distributed to local families. A few packages of men’s socks went to Changing Spirits in Long Beach, where the residents were quite grateful to receive them.
Heavy blankets that could not be shipped to South Dakota were distributed to Haramokngna American Indian Cultural Center and UAII.
If you like to shop, look for post-holiday sales on lightweight, warm blankets; we’ll be collecting them in July at the 2008 Children of Many Colors Powwow.
Elder Housing Project and Community Services
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We would like to acknowledge and say thank you to Shannon Nash of the City of Simi Valley, and Jenny Chadwell, two women who have taken the time to help us gather valuable information resources as we move slowly forward with the Redbird Ranch Elder Housing Project.
This is an effort which will require not only financial commitment, but professional knowledge as well. With so many causes competing for our time and attention, it is very encouraging to know that this project has not been forgotten, and that the resources we will need do exist. As Redbird continues to gain recognition as a valuable asset to the southern California community, those resources will become increasingly available to us.
The City of Simi Valley has a database of organizations which serve those in need, including minority communities, and we will be adding Redbird to that list and networking with other organizations to insure that we are able to reach the largest population possible; whether it be providing clothing donations or conducting educational and cultural workshops and presentations.
There is always a demand for Native American people to share about their culture, and often, too few people available to do so. We would like to improve our networking base in the Ventura and Los Angeles County areas so that when we are called upon to give a presentation, we can respond to that request with people who are well versed in their culture and capable of communicating that culture to others.
eScrip Update
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For those of you already enrolled in the eScrip program, thank you so much for your support. If you haven’t joined eScrip yet, please consider doing so.
With just two hundred supporters over the course of one year, we can offset a considerable portion of the cost involved with hosting the Children of Many Colors Powwow.
With five thousand supporters, we could generate enough donations over the course of two to three years to make a down payment on a property for the Redbird Ranch elder housing project.
The eScrip program is free. When you shop or dine out, and swipe your registered store loyalty, ATM or credit cards, the merchant you’ve spent money with makes a donation to the eScrip program for Redbird. The list of stores and restaurants that participate in this program is constantly growing, and it never costs you anything. To register securely, simply go to www.escrip.com
Wishing you a safe and peaceful season,
Corina Roberts, Founder
Redbird
P.O. Box 702
Simi Valley, CA 93062
Website: www.RedbirdsVision.org
Email: redbirds_vision@hotmail.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/redbirdsvision
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