On Friday, a Presbyterian church in Portland made the final decision to return land to the Indigenous-led Future Generations Collaborative. This land will be used to construct Barbie’s Village, a tiny home village and early childhood center for unhoused Indigenous families.
Anna Allen, a Shoshone-Bannock tribal affairs advisor for Multnomah County, expressed her joy on Friday, stating, “It’s a beautiful day for land to be returned to tribal communities.”
The Future Generations Collaborative is an Indigenous-led organization that has been serving the needs of urban Native people in the Portland area since 2012. Their mission is to foster healthy and healing Indigenous communities.
For over two years, the organizers have dreamed of building between six and ten tiny homes, along with a resource center that will provide comprehensive services for Indigenous families experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity.
As of Friday night, this dream is finally becoming a reality. The congregation voted to gift the land and building of the former Presbyterian Church of Laurelhurst to the Future Generations Collaborative, with 135 in favor and 24 opposed.
Jillene Joseph, an Aaniiih citizen and the engagement lead for Future Generations Collaborative, expressed her excitement, saying, “This is a huge win for us, for our community, and really, for all of Indian Country.”
Rev. Aric Clark emphasized the importance of this move in healing the relationship between the church and Indigenous peoples. He stated, “If we do land acknowledgments, but are afraid to do land back, then that is a form of taking the Lord’s name in vain.
It’s essentially saying holy words, without having any meaning or intent to actually back them up with the right action. So if we are serious about trying to understand our history, and our complicity, but also trying to just build good relationships for the future, it’s not just about the past, it’s also about the present and the future.”
The project is named after Barbie Shields, a citizen of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and a dedicated natural helper. She worked with the organization for five years to address public health disparities in the Indigenous community, particularly among those experiencing homelessness on their homelands.
Barbie and her family understood the issue of homelessness firsthand. Kenneth Shields, Barbie’s husband, shared that the couple experienced homelessness early in their marriage when they had young children.
Because of this experience, Barbie, who was Anishinaabe and Sioux, envisioned creating a safe place for Indigenous families with small children to begin their journey to collectively repair and heal from homelessness and the lasting impacts of colonization.
Jillene Joseph, executive director for the Native Wellness Institute and a partner with the Future Generations Collaborative, said, “That was always one of Barbie’s concerns – wanting to help our people that were living on the streets. She always felt how ironic it was for Native people to be homeless on their own homelands.”
Sadly, Barbie did not live to see her vision come to life. In 2018, she passed away after suffering a brain aneurysm, leaving behind her husband, her four children, and her community.
Jillene Joseph said, “Her death just had a profound impact on the other elders and natural helpers — on all of us. We wanted to do something to keep her legacy alive and to honor the work that she was doing.”
With the help of Barbie’s husband, Future Generations Collaborative came up with the idea of Barbie’s Village. The process to reach this point, where construction for the tiny home village might finally begin, involved a lot of bureaucracy, along with important relationship building.
In 2021, the Presbytery Leadership Commission created the Barbie’s Village Task Force to work with Future.
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