In December of 2021, The American Indian Community Development Corporation (AICDC) opened the doors of Anishinabe III, another permanent supportive housing building added to their roster. Built over the summer of 2021, this four story building on Franklin Avenue sits between the American Indian Center and the Hiawatha overpass, right across the street from the long fenced-off Wall of Forgotten Natives, on what used to be the Anishinabe Campus lawn. Nearly 30 years after the first inception of AICDC as an Indigenous-led task force, this building stands as a testament to the Corporation’s commitment to ever-evolving needs of their neighborhood and their relatives.
Travis Earth-Werner, AICDC’s Program Project Manager, says this project is a reflection of AICDC’s longtime, core mission to address homeless in the Indigenous community in South Minneapolis. Anishinabe III is their continued response to the growing crisis of inaccessible housing. And like their other buildings, this new project does more than address housing. Their programs address the unique issues that arise for Indigenous people from the legacies of colonization at the intersection of healthcare and housing.
Anishinabe III is an expansion of the Anishinabe Campus, the first building of which opened in 1996. Anishinabe Wakiagun, “The People’s Home” in Ojibwe, was AICDC’s first housing development project. It has 45 single room occupancy units dedicated to Indigenous adults living with chronic inebriation statuses – those who have a high rate of detox center usage, those living with permanent health effects of alcohol use, and those who continue to use alcohol, etc. AICDC expanded the Wakiagun building and their services, and in 2016 opened Anishinabe Bii Gii Wiin, “People Come Home” in Ojibwe, which offers 30 single room occupancy units to Indigenous people whose goal involves sobriety and sober/chemical free housing…