THE WARRIOR WAY

WAPATO - In 1855 the Yakama Nation signed a treaty with the government of the United States ceding all but two million of their approximately 14 million acres of ancestral lands on Columbia Plateau on the east side of the Cascades. In return, they preserved their fishing and hunting rights on all the lands and the members of its 14 tribes and bands were given two years to return to their homelands before the area would be opened to white settlers.

The treaty held for just 12 days, broken when Isaac Stevens, the first Governor of the Washington Territory declared the area - including Indian lands - open to settlement. The next four years, the Yakama recall (http://www.yakamanation-nsn.gov/history3.php) "a series of raids, counter raids and reciprocal atrocities began." The Yakima War ended in 1859, its Chief escaping to Canada but many Yakama leaders captured and executed.

The Yakama were not the only tribes to suffer at the hands of the U.S. military. After all, for most of the 19^th century the military had been the principal instrument of a national policy to dominate or, some even urged, exterminate Native Americans. Tribes may have won many battles, but they would lose the war.

Back then it might have seemed reasonable to expect the badly-broken relationship between Native Americans and the military would be hard, even impossible to repair. To the contrary. When the United States entered World War I, President Wilson instituted a draft from which Native Americans were exempt because they were not citizens. Nonetheless, says Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_and_World_War_II), "approximately 10,000 Native Americans" volunteered to serve. Some 25,000 Native Americans actively fought in World War II representing "over one-third of able-bodied Native American men aged 18-50."

The Department of Defense, reports, Kevin Gover (www.huffingtonpost.com/national-museum-of-the-american-indian/american-indians-serve-in-the-us-military_b_7417854.html) of the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, that in 2012 there were more than 22,000 Native Americans on active-duty and more than 150,000 living Native American veterans. "On a per capita basis," Gover notes, "American Indians serve in their country's armed forces in greater numbers" than "any other ethnic group."

Some stepped forward, of course, for economic opportunities life on reservations could not offer. Many more, probably, did so because, explains Robert Holden of the National Congress of American Indians tells Indian Country Today (http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2016/05/30/perfect-native-american-memorial-day-164644), of "the warrior cultures. Warriors have always been in our presence and always will be, not only in times of conflict, but in times of peace as well. They became the leaders.".

They are to be honored and, if need be, helped, something you certainly see among the Yakama. Like hundreds of non-Native communities, the Yakama Nation is committed to ending homelessness among veterans, among its warriors. It's no surprise, then, that the Yakama Nation Tribal Housing Authority was delighted to be among 26 tribes nationwide selected by HUD to launch its Tribal Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing Initiative to provide some $5.9 million rental assistance and supportive services to income-eligible Native American Veterans who are homeless or at risk of homelessness living on or near a reservation or other Indian areas. A HUD VASH voucher mean the veterans need pay no more than 30 percent of their monthly income to put, HUD Secretary Castro explains, a permanent, affordable "roof over their heads."

The Yakama Nation Housing Authority received 20 of the 500 Tribal VASH vouchers awarded nationwide in January, 2016. It wasted no time putting them to use. A week earlier, it had closed on the purchase of a 41-unit apartment complex in Wapato, a town of 5,000 on the Reservation. Rehabilitated and re-named Pahto Village, on June 1^st the Authority moved-in the first eligible veteran, one of the very first Tribal VASH voucher-holders in the country to do so.

All 20 of its Tribal VASH vouchers will be used at Pahto Village to house formerly homeless Yakama enrolled in VA case management programs. The Authority has gone even further, becoming one of the very first tribal housing authorities in the country to win a HUD Continuum of Care for the Homeless grant to start a Pathways to Success program at Pahto Village. It funds supportive services to help residents set and meet their employment and education goals helping them attain economic self-sufficiency.

We sometimes want to believe that homelessness is a big-city problem. It's not. Homelessness is crisis everywhere, in cities big and small and any size in between. Fortunately, as the speed and resolve with which the Yakama have moved shows, so too is the commitment to end it. As warriors, they deserve nothing less.

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