SEATTLE — Tenants have begun moving in at ʔálʔal, a new affordable housing space run by Chief Seattle Club in the heart of Pioneer Square, one of King County's oldest settled neighborhoods.
Designed by Native architects and decorated with work by Native artists, it is meant to be a "sacred space" for residents and a place to reunite American Indian and Native Alaskan people with programming, resources and events.
"It was in the plans for years before we broke the ground to build," Chief Seattle Club Executive Director Derrick Belgarde said. "Watching members come in, knowing it's going to change their lives, knowing it's going to help them thrive and will help to rebuild our community is very exciting."
While anyone can apply for housing, it is specifically designed and caters to the Native population. Chief Seattle Club says while Native Americans make up 1% of the generation population, they compose about 15% of people experiencing homelessness. A recent King County Regional Homelessness Authority report shows that when it comes to people who are chronically homeless the number is around 30%.
"Five hundred years of oppression, genocide, displacement, bad American government policies, boarding schools, children taken out of homes into foster care – you name it – our community suffered," Belgarde said. "Of course, we all have individual pain and traumas we have to work out on an individual level but if we want to heal the community broadly, we have to come together to do that."
Tenant Ashton Kellogg moved in Thursday making it the first time he'll have an apartment to call solely his own.
"It's crazy," Kellogg said. "It's a trip to say I have a nice apartment like this with a nice view at 23 years old. Not only that but to have a chance at my acting career, which would be a lot harder if I didn't have these things in place."
It will give Kellogg the stability to chase his dreams, working as an actor and producer, and doing everything he can to give a voice and create space for Native culture throughout the community.
"It's important, because it's culture, and the culture here is dying," Kellogg said. "Helping the Natives have the art teacher or art studio they can go, the carver who wants to carve for kids. Imagine we had a space, imagine the city gave Pioneer Square to the Natives and we have powwows on the strip there and that would be a tourist attraction from all across the world."
Along with offering a space for people to live, ʔálʔal will have a health clinic operated by the Seattle Indian Health Board, a cafe and a community space, where Chief Seattle Club plans to host programming.
"This is a place they can come together, build community together, feel safe, seek collective experiences, collective stories, knowing they belong," Belgarde said. "That sense of belonging is so huge that a lot of people take for granted, but for us Natives, where we're so forgotten, marginalized, disenfranchised out of the mainstream systems, finally a place we can come together actually as a community and start healing each other as a group."
Belgarde says this is just a start. In a matter of years, they hope to be operating 500 units of housing, and beyond that, they say, there is a need for even more.