Native communities leading the future of housing, healing, and economic sovereignty
The Native Housing Sovereignty Initiative (NHSI) is a growing movement of Tribal Nations, Native organizations, housing leaders, developers, funders, and technical partners working together to support Native community-led housing solutions that strengthen long-term sovereignty.
Dignity
Following through of the love force that flows through us, identity, self worth.
Compassion
Love in action, peace in effect, responding to suffering in others to alleviate it.
Harmony
Harmony, balance, beauty, everything in its right place as it should be.
Why Native Housing Sovereignty?
Native communities face the most severe housing shortages in the United States. Yet the solution is not simply building more houses. True housing sovereignty means communities have the ability to:
- Define our own housing vision
- Develop Native leaders + workforce
- Access capital on equitable terms
- Build local ownership and economic opportunity
- Integrate cultural, behavioral wellness priorities
- Govern housing systems for future generations
Housing sovereignty is about creating lasting community capacity—not just delivering units.
Our Housing Sovereignty Framework
The Native Housing Sovereignty Initiative is organized around six interconnected pillars:
Housing Production
Supporting pathways to develop affordable, workforce, transitional, and homeownership housing that reflects community priorities.
Workforce Development
Creating opportunities for Native youth, tradespeople, entrepreneurs, and future housing leaders to participate in housing development and construction.
Behavioral Wellness
Integrating Indigenous approaches to healing, peacemaking, cultural connection, and community wellness into housing development efforts.
Capital Access
Building pathways to financing, lending, grants, and investment that strengthen Native ownership and long-term community wealth.
Community Governance
Supporting community-led decision-making, Indigenous peacemaking, and local leadership structures that sustain housing initiatives over time.
Long-Term Sovereignty
Creating housing systems that increase economic, cultural, health, and governance sovereignty for future generations.
Featured Projects
Lower Sioux Members, Redwood Falls, Minnesota
United Indians of All Tribes Foundation Youth, Seattle, Washington
Partners
We welcome collaboration with:
Tribal Nations
Communities seeking housing development pathways that strengthen local capacity and sovereignty.
Native Organizations
Organizations working in housing, economic development, health, workforce development, education, and community wellness.
Developers & Builders
Partners committed to supporting Native-led housing development and local ownership.
Funders & Investors
Organizations seeking meaningful opportunities to support Native housing and community development.
Technical Partners
Architects, engineers, planners, legal professionals, and subject matter experts.
Manufacturing Partners
Organizations helping expand access to innovative and scalable housing solutions.
Resources
The Initiative is developing a growing library of resources, including:
- Housing development guides
- Funding opportunities
- Development readiness tools
- Behavioral wellness resources
- Case studies from Native communities
- Workforce development resources
- Videos and presentations
- Indigenous governance and peacemaking resources
These resources are designed to help communities move from vision to implementation.
Pathways to Sovereignty
We provide connections to education, training and services that support communities in developing sovereignty through ten pathways:
All that is natural in the world. Nature. How much of the natural world is allowed to thrive?
The capacity to connect to everything, to each other, to nature. How spiritual is your community allowed to be?
Physical, emotional, social wellbeing. What is the collective health and wellness of your community?
Shared meaning making of a community. Do people deeply honor and practice their heritage and culture?
Relations–connections with others. Do people get along, trust one another, work and create together.
Information, understanding, wisdom. Do you and your community steward your own collective knowledge.
Capacity to think, reflect, grow, adapt. Are you mentally and emotionally well without depending on others.
Our individual experiences, capacity, potential. Can you thrive without depending on people from the outside.
Physical manufactured things. Can you thrive without needing things from outside of your community.
Any resource measured in terms of money. Are you free from compromising your values because of money.
Circle of Stewards
Our work is facilitated by stewards of sovereignty
Dr Carma Corcoran
Chippewa-Cree
Cultural Sovereignty
Board Director
Dr. Corcoran is an Adjunct Professor in the Indigenous Nations Studies Program at Portland State University, and directs American Indian Law at Lewis and Clark Law School. She addresses Native societal issues through workshops on Gentle Action Theory and Traditional Ways of Knowing and Being .
Neil Takemoto
Hawai'i Kamaʻāina
Community Sovereignty
Board Director
Born and raised in Hawai'i, Neil has worked in regenerative community development for 30 years, supporting thriving places, circular economies and systems change. He works with nonprofits, businesses and government in a collective impact initiative to provide greater access to community sovereignty.
Kenny Tolbert
Choctaw
Economic Sovereignty
Board Director
Kenny founded the Sovereign Insurance Association for Native Nations (SIANN) to support Native American Nations who own or wish to form Tribal Sovereign Insurance Companies. His mission is to foster the creation of additional Sovereign Insurance companies across Indian Country.
Danny Desjarlais
C̣aƞṡayapi (Lower Sioux)
Housing Sovereignty
Board Advisor
Danny Desjarlais is a national leader in Native-led regenerative construction and housing sovereignty. As founder of the Green Buffalo initiative, he advances culturally grounded, bio-based homebuilding to restore self-determination, wellness, and economic power for Indigenous communities.
Dr James Miller
Native Hawaiian
Design Sovereignty
Board Advisor
James is a partner at Metaamo and architect for the Eagle Haven Tiny Home Village at Lummi Nation. His work integrates Indigenous knowledge and regenerative design to create healing-centered, climate-resilient spaces. A leader in decolonizing architecture, Dr. Miller advances Native-led planning rooted in restoring balance between people, land, and culture.
Mari Hicks
Wyandotte Nation
Economic Sovereignty
Board Advisor
Mari is a strategist and facilitator with more than a decade of experience advancing Native-led systems change and economic development. As President of Scattering Seedlings, she translates vision into actionable project plans, stewarding funding and partnerships accountable to community priorities.
Andrea Alexander
Makah Nation
Economic Sovereignty
Board Advisor
Andrea has leveraged over $480 million for Tribal Nation transportation, energy and telecom. She is now working on economic sovereignty, addressing financial literacy issues in native communities to help develop new housing sovereignty models through the Northwest Native Asset Building Coalition (NWNABC).
which she founded..
Felix Neals
Eastern Band of Cherokee
Governance Sovereignty
Board Advisor
Felix Neals, LMHC is a trauma-informed mental health counselor and somatic practitioner with over a decade of experience supporting healing from trauma, intergenerational harm, and systemic inequities. His work integrates mind-body therapy, attachment science, and psychedelic integration to support the behavioral wellness foundations of community sovereignty and collective healing.
Inspiration
Initiative Members
Sovereignty Rises
A Native nonprofit supporting economic, health and housing sovereignty
Native Housing Sovereignty Partners
A Native social enterprising supporting Native housing sovereignty
Viceroy Homes
Modular home component supplier for Native Housing Sovereignty Partners
Sovereign Insurance Association for Native Nations
A Native nonprofit in support of Tribal Nation insurance sovereignty
United Indians of All Tribes Foundation
A Native nonprofit advocating for Native housing sovereignty
Northwest Native Asset Building Coalition
A Native Nonprofit in support of economic sovereignty
Green Buffalo Institute
A Native nonprofit advocating for regenerative construction
Join the Initiative
Whether you are a Tribal leader, housing professional, nonprofit leader, funder, business owner, youth leader, or community member, there is a place for you in this work. Together we can build housing systems that support:
- Healthy families
- Strong communities
- Economic opportunity
- Cultural continuity
- Community wellness
- Long-term sovereignty
These resources are designed to help communities move from vision to implementation.
Get Involved
Connect with us to:
- Explore partnership opportunities
- Share your community’s housing vision
- Learn about demonstration projects
- Participate in peer learning and collaboration
- Support Native housing sovereignty efforts
- Catalyze a new housing village
Advocacy
There are many pathways of advocacy that build capacity for cultural, health and economic sovereignty
Building homes
Strengthening communities
Advancing sovereignty
Frequent questions
If you have other questions, connect with us at welcome@nativehousingsovereignty.org
It is majority indigenous, and majority women in leadership and staff.
It is about individuals and communities retaining their capacity to act, and to steward their own destiny.
We advocate for sovereignty through housing and health coalitions of organizations and collectives of individuals.