Grand Ronde tribal community debuts ‘tiny shelter’ villages
The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde is working to support homeless tribal members with two new tiny shelter villages. GRAND RONDE, Ore. — The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde is working to support homeless tribal members with two new “tiny shelter” villages. The first village opened a few weeks ago, and tribal leaders are already building the second.
The community northwest of Salem, off Highway 22 on the edge of the coast range, is a rural area with many of the same housing difficulties other parts of Oregon are experiencing.
“It’s become such an issue everywhere and for us as the tribe, we love our people and we want to be able to help them have resources and we want to be able to offer that up,” said Kelly Rowe, who leads health services for the tribe.
The tribal community is currently working to pave the way for additional tiny shelter villages.
“These are 10 by 10 (foot) unit pods that we put together into a village for our tribal members… these are the bunks that drop down,” Rowe explained as she showed off the large living pods.
The under-construction second village will have 15 pods that can house up to four people each, for up to a year.
“We knew that we had families that were affected, and so we knew we needed some larger units and so we have the larger units, plus we have community rooms because we don’t want people to feel like they’re blocked in,” she said.The second village is […]