Nika Bartoo-Smith
Underscore Native News + ICT
A new report released shows that there are more than three times as many unsheltered American Indians and Alaska Natives in King County in Washington state than what a previous government agency report showed.
The University of Washington, the Urban Indian Health Institute, and the Chief Seattle Club teamed up to do their own research and correct the data that came from King County Homeless Authority in June.
“We unfortunately see this flaw in research all the time. We call this data genocide,” Abigail Echo-Hawk, a citizen of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, said in a press release. “People who identify as American Indian or Alaska Native in combination with another race are too often erased from data that is used to inform policy and funding. We know this is a problem, yet we see it over and over again.”
The report found that American Indians and Alaska Natives make up 15 percent of unsheltered individuals in the county despite accounting for only 1-2 percent of the total population (that’s using alone and in combination data from the 2020 Census numbers).
The initial Point-In-Time count from the housing authority showed only 4.2 percent of unsheltered individuals self-identifying as American Indian, Alaska Native or Indigenous.
In July, leadership at both Chief Seattle Club, a Native-led housing organization, and the Seattle Indian Health Board estimated that number was likely closer to 15 percent, but the undercount highlighted ongoing flaws in data collection, as previously reported by Underscore Native News + ICT.
“Look, if we’re ever going to solve these issues that we’re facing in a community and Native homelessness as a subset of just overall homelessness, the data’s got to be on point,” Derrick Belgarde, chief executive officer at Chief Seattle Club, told Underscore Native News + ICT. “The data’s got to be accurate, and we can’t be following false data sets.”
The corrected data came from work done by Belgarde; Echo-Hawk, the vice president of the Seattle Indian Health Board and director of the tribal epidemiology center there, the Urban Indian Health Institute; and Zack Almquist, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington and lead researcher of the initial Point-In-Time count.
One of the biggest issues with the housing authority’s Point-In-Time count comes from the “multi-racial” category. If someone identifies as Native and any other race then they are lumped into a multi-racial category, not counted as Native. An overall data collection flaw from the federal government.
“If it wasn’t for good reporters that are out there, like, ‘yeah, let’s talk about this story, let’s put this story out there,’ it probably would have been just glossed over, and everybody would be thinking that there isn’t really much of a Native homelessness issue here in Seattle,” Belgarde said, who is Siletz and Chippewa Cree.
Moving forward, the University of Washington and the Urban Indian Institute of Health recommend fixing the multi-racial category to make sure people are included in the overall count along with collaborating more with Native organizations to ensure the methods used follow best strategies for data collection when working with marginalized communities. The report also recommends funding more culturally specific options to address the shelter gap.
“The King County Point-in-Time Count relied upon people reporting to a central hub to have their data collected,” Belgarde said in a press release. “There is so much distrust by Native peoples that there has to be a safe place for people to report to, a place where they are met by members of their own community, especially in this current political environment where reporting to ‘officials’ feels especially dangerous.”
This story is co-published by Underscore Native News and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest.
The post New data shows Native homelessness is three times higher than previous count in King County appeared first on ICT.
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