Coeur d’Alene Tribe crafts sustainable relationship with University of Idaho

When the Coeur d’Alene Tribe celebrated the grand opening of its new 18-unit multi-family housing project in Plummer, Idaho, the community wasn’t just excited about the building or who it will help. Part of the joy last fall came from efforts between tribal members and University of Idaho students to sustain a culture by building a sustainable community through the spirit of collaboration. “Changes on the reservation are monumental, they’re grand,” said Rosanna Allen, executive director of housing on the reservation since February 2011. “We have a lot of pride in the work that has been done.” Construction began in 2010 on three buildings named “The Gathering Place.” Each was constructed using straw bale technique—an extremely environmentally-friendly building method which produces beautiful homes that are super-insulated, inexpensive, and durable. With the first phase—three buildings of six apartments each—completed, The Gathering Place is of one of the largest sustainably-built, low-income housing developments in the Northwest, and is thought to be the largest straw bale project in the U.S. Phase two will provide housing for approximately 20 more low- to moderate-income tribal members currently on tribal housing waiting lists. Prior to The Gathering Place, there had been a critical shortage of housing: many homes on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation (which includes the cities of Plummer, Worley, Tensed, and Desmet), were either in ruins or falling down around the families living in them.) Although residents recognized they needed to build a better community, many lacked the leadership and skills to improve conditions; poverty rate was around 16 percent, dropout rates were high, substance abuse was a problem, and many youth were disconnected from family and community. In 2006, things began to change. Laura Laumatia, an educator for the reservation via the University of Idaho Extension Office and a local resident, saw an opportunity for the reservation to receive guidance to rise above the current statistics. Since 2003, the UI Extension, in partnership with Northwest Area Foundation, had been helping communities reduce poverty through a program called Horizons, designed for communities with fewer than 5,000 residents and poverty rates of at least 10 percent. Over the next 18 months, interested reservation residents were taught leadership skills, how to create a long-term vision, how to organize and facilitate community conversations about poverty, and how to take action to reduce that pov¬erty. “People took on more leadership and became much better at defining what they wanted from the university,” Laumatia said. People found their voice, “setting priorities and being clear about what they could do for themselves and where they needed help.” Throughout this process residents identified affordable housing as a high priority. That sparked another idea in Laumatia, who was also a graduate student in a new UI bioregional planning program called the Building Sustainable Communities Initiative. Focused on intersecting teaching, research, and outreach, and bringing students and faculty members into commu¬nities to conduct engaged scholarship, Laumatia saw the potential for the reservation to become a pilot commu¬nity for BSCI’s first collaboration, and ultimately convinced the professors and director of the program to agree. It was perfect timing as the UI had just recently compiled its 2005–2010 strategic action plan in which the university committed to strengthening outreach and engagement by connecting all academic areas with the needs of constituents and stakeholders statewide. “We were looking for a project and a community to work with to give students experience,” said Tammi Laninga, assistant professor with the BSCI. “It was the perfect opportunity for our planning students; having Laura was a huge bridge between us and the reservation.” As the 18-month Horizons program was winding down in 2007, the tribe joined with the BSCI in a partnership called “Better Together”— aimed at positively affecting communities and lives of the UI students. BSCI, which also offers a graduate degree in Community Design, teamed up with UI’s Department of Landscape Architecture and brought 15 students, faculty and local residents together to work on projects to help reservation communities achieve sustainable design. It was a chance for students to learn by applying classroom theory to real-world land use, building and community devel¬opment issues, with the complication of multiple jurisdictions and complex history adding even more to the educational experience. “It was a perfect opportunity for planning students as they were able to interview tribal members and really find out their needs and wants, then try to figure out how to incorporate all those things into the final product,” Laninga said. Tribal members realized in their Horizons coaching that in addition to having housing sustainably built, they needed a commons area and ample individual space. It was also very important that residents didn’t need to cross any roads to move from building to building. After students compiled the collected information, several conceptual designs were drafted for the designated 2-acre site and presented to the Horizons Steering Committee, made up of tribal residents and Horizons faculty. They also created a bioregional atlas, updated zoning ordinances, and pre-design plans for a tribal education institute. “They were really happy with the plans,” said Laninga “Students were able to take what they had told them and integrate a lot of it into their designs.” While the tribe didn’t ultimately use one specific design, the final plan was a compilation of several conceptual plans. The final project also procured a $4 million federal stimulus grant for construction. “The role of the [bioregional] planning program students was pretty instrumental in the reservation securing funding; the ability to show actual plans creates a much more solid case for winning a grant,” said Laninga. For most students in the graduate bioregional planning program, the partner¬ship with the Coeur d’Alene Reservation was their first experience working in a Native American community. Stu¬dents learned cultural competency, humility, and patience in the process of building social and human capital. “As a student, it was a great experience,” said Laumatia. “It was so amazing being able to work on a project like this from the ground up and be able to say ‘Hey, we had a hand in this.” The “Better Together” partnership received the Outreach Scholarship/W.K. Kellogg Foundation Engagement Award for the western U.S. region. The award, which included a $9,500 prize, honors the partnerships of a single university that has redesigned its teaching, research and outreach functions to become more involved with communities. “Better Together” was also one of five finalists for the national C. Peter Magrath University/Community Engagement Award.