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The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) in northwest Montana are planning to build a local meat processing plant to expand services for local hunters and ranchers.
Montana Public Radio’s Aaron Bolton has more.
The tribes are applying for a $7.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help build a processing plant on the Flathead Reservation.
CSKT Planning Director Janet Camel says many local ranchers can’t keep cattle through the winter and are forced to sell animals out of state when local processors are too busy.
“So they sell to brokers in the fall and don’t get as much money as they believe they should be getting.”
Camel says the processing plant would also provide services for tribal substance hunters, who struggle to find meat processing services.
The tribes plan to harvest bison from the National Bison Range when managers need to thin the herd.
That meat would be distributed through tribal food programs.
Camel says the tribes are reliant on the USDA grant to launch the project.
The USDA is set to announce awards for tribal projects across the country this fall.
Ho Chunk Village (Photo: Jerry L Mennenga / Ho-Chunk, Inc.)
The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska’s Ho-Chunk Village housing development is one of nine recipients of a 2023 Honoring Nations All-Star award from the Harvard Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development.
Deborah Van Fleet has more.
The Village is a project of the tribe’s economic development corporation. Lance Morgan, founder and CEO of Ho-Chunk, Inc., says a unique type of planning has gone into Ho-Chunk Village.
“It’s designed to be a walkable community for health purposes. But making it a denser community is helpful from the affordability standpoint. We have a lot of units overlain over a very small amount of infrastructure, which is very unusual in a rural community.”
Morgan says having a master plan for the Village has allowed them to “fill in the pieces” to create a cohesive community over time, as funding has become available.
Phase two of the Village is now underway.
The Ho-Chunk corporation has built a few hundred new housing units to date.
When tribal members buy a single-family home, they’re given the lot and down payment assistance, and the house is built at cost.
Morgan explains because the tribe has bought the land for the building lots – removing it from federal trust status – homeowners have a greater opportunity to build generational wealth.
“We have a system that is pushing all levels of housing – from home ownership to low-income to elder housing, to young college professional-type – everything. We run the gamut.”
Morgan feels theirs could be a model, both for tribal and non-tribal communities.
Jonathan Taylor agrees.
He’s a research affiliate at the Kennedy School Project on Indigenous Governance and Development and site visitor for Honoring Nations award candidates.
“Ho-Chunk Village stands out for pioneering a walkable, multi-use development on an Indian reservation.”
Taylor says Ho-Chunk Village is a lot more than a housing development.
“The Village provides critical infrastructure for reversing Winnebago ‘brain drain’ in ways not possible relying on federal housing programs, and permits the tribe’s growing middle class to live near where they work and contribute to community life.”
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina will vote this fall on whether or not to expand marijuana beyond medical use on tribal lands for people 21 and older.
The Associated Press reports, at a recent meeting, the tribal council agreed to put it on the ballot for voters to decide.
The tribe decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana in 2021 and formed a business plan to grow and sell cannabis at a dispensary still under construction.
The tribe’s election is set to take place in September.
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