PRESS RELEASE: NCUIH Urges Senate Appropriations Committee to Match House Funding Request of $81 Million for Urban Indian Health

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Contact: Meredith Raimondi
202-544-0344
mraimondi@ncuih.org

NCUIH Urges Senate Appropriations Committee to Match House Funding Request of $81 Million for Urban Indian Health

NCUIH sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee to request the same funding level as included in Chairwoman McCollum’s House bill for urban Indian health.

Washington, DC (June 10, 2019) — Today, the National Council of Urban Indian Health sent a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee requesting to match the funding for the urban Indian health line item in the House Appropriations bill that recently passed out of the full Appropriations Committee. Last month, the Senate held their first hearing on the Interior budget with Secretary Bernhardt.

“After years of stagnation and chronic underfunding to the urban Indian health budget, NCUIH would like to see the Senate follow the House by also including $81 million for the urban Indian health item. NCUIH urges the Senate to follow the House bill’s example which incorporates a solution of addressing the unmet needs of urban Indians by increasing the overall IHS budget without taking away from the other line items,” said NCUIH Executive Director Francys Crevier.

Urban Indian Organizations (UIOs) are the only part of the Indian health System (IHS/Tribal facilities/UIOs) that only receive funding from one source within the IHS budget – the urban Indian line item. The 41 UIOs in 22 states are an integral part of the Indian health system.  Currently, UIOs receive less than 1% of the IHS budget creating serious budget constraints while still providing culturally-competent and quality healthcare.

The House Interior Appropriations Bill authored by Chairwoman Betty McCollum includes $81 million for the urban Indian health line item, which is an approximately $30 million increase from current levels. The House Bill will next move to the floor for a vote.

As the Senate continues to develop their Interior Appropriations bill, NCUIH requests that they include the $81 million for urban Indian health. This needed increase would allow UIOs to hire more staff, expand vital services from behavioral health to substance misuse programs, and improve health outcomes for the growing demand for health care for urban Indians.

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Call to Action Toolkit: Senate Appropriations Bill

The National Council of Urban Indian Health is calling for the Senate to match the House mark of $81 million for the urban Indian health line item.

We ask that members of our community do the same by sending letters or calling their Senators to advocate for this important increase. Presently, the Indian Health Service (IHS) budget for urban Indian programs is less than 1% creating serious budget constraints for us to still provide culturally-competent and quality healthcare. An increase would provide 41 Urban Indian Organizations with critical funding that is long overdue.

Currently, the House bill that is moving to the floor for a vote has the $81 million line item for urban Indian health. The Senate has not published any of their funding bills for FY2020.

We have put together several ways you can advocate for this important funding.

NCUIH Outreach

  • Read our press release.
  • Read our letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee requesting to match the funding for the urban Indian health line item in the House Appropriations bill that recently passed out of the full Appropriations Committee.

Contact Your Senators with this Example E-mail/Letter

  • Find your senators here.
  • Write to your Senators using this sample letter.
  • Dear Senators [Senators from your state]:Last month the House Appropriations Committee approved the FY 2020 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill that included an approximately $30 million increase – bringing funding to $81 million for Urban Indian programs. This needed increase would allow the 41 Urban Indian Organizations (UIOs) to hire more staff, expand vital services from behavioral health to substance misuse programs, and improve health outcomes for the growing demand of health care for urban Indians.Sincerely,
  • [First and Last Name, Address, City, State, Zip]
  • I hope you will urge the Senate Appropriations Committee to include the line item of $81 million for Urban Indian programs and show your support for the health of urban American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) people.
  • As a constituent of [State] and a supporter of the National Council of Urban Indian Health, I humbly request that you honor the United States’ trust responsibility to urban Indians and support funding in the amount of $81 million for the urban Indian health line item.

Graphic

  • Download the graphic for your Facebook post or tweet.

Tweet

  • Write to your Senators on Twitter.
  • Find your Senators’ handles here.
  • Example tweet: “As a constituent, I urge [@ Senator’s handle] to please support the $81 million line item for urban Indian health in the Senate Appropriations Bill. #urbanIndianhealth @ncuih_official”

Facebook Post

  • Post your support on your Facebook.
  • Example post: “I just wrote to my Senators to include $81 million for urban Indian health. Show your support for this important increase by joining me! Find out how here: https://www.ncuih.org/policy_blog?article_id=259
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UIO Call to Action Toolkit: Urban Indian Health Funding

This is a big deal! The inclusion of $81 million for the urban Indian health line item in the House budget is a huge step for our programs.

Next week, the House of Representatives will vote on the bill that includes the $81 million line item for urban Indian health. NCUIH supports the bill in its current form with the inclusion of this large increase and recommends Members of Congress vote YES.

We need your help to urge the Senate to do the same. If this nearly $30 million increase is in both bills and signed into law, all 41 Urban Indian Organizations (UIOs) would see a major increase in funding.

If the budget includes this $30 million increase for the urban Indian health line item, all 41 programs will see impacts. The inclusion of $81 million for the urban Indian health line item by the House is a huge step for our programs. We need your help to urge the Senate to do the same. If it is included in both bills and signed into law, the 41 Urban Indian Organizations (UIOs) would see a major increase in funding.

Currently, the House bill that is moving to the floor for a vote has the $81 million line item for urban Indian health. The Senate has not published any of their funding bills for FY2020.

NCUIH Outreach

  • Read our press release.
  • Read our letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee requesting to match the funding for the urban Indian health line item in the House Appropriations bill that recently passed out of the full Appropriations Committee.

Advocacy Toolkit

Here are several ways you can advocate for this important funding in an easy-to-use toolkit. Please share with your networks the opportunity to advocate for this funding increase, whether through a newsletter, blog post, social media, letters from your community, and/or a press release.

Please contact Meredith Raimondi (mraimondi@ncuih.org) with any questions.

Graphic

  • Download our graphic for inclusion in your newsletter/blog, Facebook post, tweet, etc.

Newsletter/Blog Entry

  • Below is a sample newsletter entry to include in your next newsletter or blog post.
  • Example Text:[Program Name] joins the National Council of Urban Indian Health in calling for the Senate to match the House budget of $81 million for the urban Indian health line item. We need members of our community also communicate this important message. Please send emails, letters or call Senators to advocate for this important increase. Presently, the Indian Health Service (IHS) budget for urban Indian programs, like ours, is less than 1%. This creates serious budget constraints to still provide culturally-competent and quality healthcare. An increase would provide [Program Name] with critical funding that is long overdue. Currently, the House bill is moving to the floor for a vote this week. The Senate has not published any of their funding bills for FY2020. Our Senators are [Senators for your state] and they can be reached here. Email your Senators using this sample letter.

Ask Your Community to Send E-mails and Letters to Your Senators and Members of Congress

Here is information that you can share with your community members for sending emails.

Letters to Senators

  • Find your Senators here.
  • Write to your Senators using this sample letter.
  • Dear Senators [Senators from your state]:

    As a constituent of [State] and a community member of [Your Program], I humbly request that you honor the United States’ trust responsibility to urban Indians and support funding in the amount of $81 million for the urban Indian health line item.

    Last month the House Appropriations Committee approved the FY 2020 Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill that included an approximately $30 million increase – bringing funding to $81 million for Urban Indian programs. This needed increase would allow the 41 Urban Indian Organizations (UIOs), including ours, to hire more staff, expand vital services from behavioral health to substance misuse programs, and improve health outcomes for the growing demand of health care for urban Indians.

    I hope you will urge the Senate Appropriations Committee to include the line item of $81 million for Urban Indian programs and show your support for the health of urban American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) people.

    Sincerely,
    [First and Last Name, Address, City, State, Zip]

Letters to the House of Representatives

  • Find your Member of Congress here.
  • Write to your Members of Congress using this sample letter.
  • Dear [Member of Congress],

    As your constituent and a community member of [Your Program], I humbly request that you honor the United States’ trust responsibility to urban Indians and support funding in the amount of $81 million for the urban Indian health line item by voting YES on H.R. 3055.
    This needed increase would allow the 41 Urban Indian Organizations (UIOs), including ours, to hire more staff, expand vital services from behavioral health to substance misuse programs, and improve health outcomes for the growing demand of health care for urban Indians.

    I hope you will vote yes on H.R. 3055 to support the health of urban American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) people with an increased budget of $81 million for urban Indian programs.  Thank you for your time and for your leadership.

    Sincerely,
    [First and Last Name, Address, City, State, Zip]

Twitter

  • From your program’s Twitter account, tweet to your Senators and Members of Congress.
    • Find your Senators’ handles here.
      • Example tweet: “We urge [@ Senator’s handle] to please support the $81 million line item for urban Indian health to help our program in [YOUR STATE] in the Senate Appropriations Bill. #urbanIndianhealth @ncuih_official”
    • Find your Members of Congress here.
      • Example tweet: “Please support #urbanIndianhealth by voting YES on H.R. 3055 [@ Member’s handle], which includes $81 million for urban Indian health to help our program. @ncuih_official”

Facebook

  • Post your support on your Facebook.
  • Example post: “We need you to help advocate Congress for an increase of nearly $30 million for urban Indian health. Show your support for this important increase that would help our funding! Find out how here: https://www.ncuih.org/policy_blog?article_id=259

Press Release

  • Send a press release to your local media to let them know about your advocacy.
  • This is a big deal! If the budget includes this $30 million increase for the urban Indian health line item, all 41 programs will see impacts. Your local media should care about how this would improve your program’s ability to serve your community.
  • Example press release.
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NCUIH Wears Orange for Gun Violence Awareness Day

NCUIH wears orange today for National Gun Violence Awareness Day on June 7.

A Long History of Gun Violence

Gun Violence Has a Major Impact on Native Communities in the United States

Gun violence has a dark history for Natives in the United States. The deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history took place in 1890, when representatives of the U.S. government executed as many as 300 Native men, women, and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, for practicing Ghost Dancing, a spiritual tradition within our culture.

Guns were first introduced to Natives around the 1600s, when the weapons arrived with European colonizers. While guns were used against Native people with great frequency, we also adopted them as a means of hunting and war, marking the beginning of my community’s relationship with gun violence that continues in many different forms today.

Native communities have the highest rates of fatal police encounters. Our men, women and children are killed by cops with great frequency, most commonly in fatal shootings, but rarely make national news. A 2014 study by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice reported that, per capita, Native Americans are more likely to be killed by police than any other demographic in the U.S. For instance, in 2017, Jason Pero, a 14-year-old Chippewa eighth grader, came home sick from school; by the end of the afternoon, he’d been shot dead in front of his own home by a police officer. The officer’s reasoning for shooting a 14-year-old boy twice was that he believed the teen had a knife and allegedly “lunged” at the officer with it. Jason reportedly served as a guide for his mother, who is blind.

In addition, gun violence in Native communities coincides with one of the country’s highest rates of death by suicide. In 2014, the president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, John Yellow Bird Steele, declared an emergency on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota when more than 100 people ages 12 to 24 killed or attempted to kill themselves within a span of a few months. Today, Pine Ridge has a rate of death by suicide that is 150% higher than the national average. The commonality of this issue isn’t uncommon for other reservations as well, and the prevalence of guns throughout communities across the country does not lend to the cause of ending this crisis.

My father is Oglala Lakota. He grew up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, home to the poorest communities in America, near where Wounded Knee took place. There, the life expectancy rate today is the lowest in the Western hemisphere other than in Haiti: men are expected to live to 48 years old, and 52 for women. But local community members I know say life expectancy is more like 30 through 40, since people on the reservation often die so young from suicide, drugs, and alcohol. My father is 44. I’m 20 years old, which is middle-aged, given the life expectancy on Pine Ridge. According to the Rapid City Journal, FBI data showed murders in Pine Ridge alone jumped 90% from 2015 to 2016, with drugs and guns as two of the major factors.

Drugs like meth and heroin — along with the deaths from violence, overdoses, and suicide that come with them — are widespread on reservations. Today’s Native American youth are twice as likely to encounter sexual abuse, substance abuse, and domestic violence than other groups in the U.S.

Domestic violence rates in Native communities are especially troubling: Alaskan Native women, for example, experience such violence at a rate 10 times higher than anywhere else in the country, and 4 out of 5 Native women report having experienced violence in their lifetime. (Much of this violence against women in our communities, especially sexual violence, is committed by non-Natives.) The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) says that 19% of reported domestic violence cases committed against all women in the U.S. involve a weapon, and the presence of a gun in these situations increases the risk of homicide by almost 500%. Among all other women in the U.S., Native women are the second-most likely to die from homicide of any kind, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Violence Against Women

According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, American Indian/Alaska Native women have the 2nd highest homicide rate, after Black women and followed by Hispanic women.2

About “Wear Orange”

Orange is the color that Hadiya Pendleton’s friends wore in her honor when she was shot and killed in Chicago at the age of 15 — just one week after performing at President Obama’s 2nd inaugural parade in 2013. After her death, they asked us to stand up, speak out, and Wear Orange to raise awareness about gun violence.

Since then orange has been the defining color of the gun violence prevention movement. New York gun violence prevention advocate Erica Ford spearheaded orange as the color of peace through her work with her organization, Life Camp, Inc. Whether it’s worn by students in Montana, activists in New York, or Hadiya’s loved ones in Chicago, the color orange honors the more than 100 lives cut short and the hundreds more wounded by gun violence everyday.

Our movement gains momentum when gun sense activists come together to fight for a future free from gun violence. Wear Orange Weekend is an opportunity for us to show the country just how powerful we are.

Together, with hundreds of thousands of Americans, we turned America orange. But the work doesn’t end there. Everytown and our partner organizations continue to do life-saving work so that we can get closer to realizing a future free from gun violence. we wear orange to be seen, and demand that we be heard. Support us by going orange.

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PRESS RELEASE: National Council of Urban Indian Health 2019 Youth Advisory Council Members Announced

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

Contact: Meredith Raimondi
202-544-0344
mraimondi@ncuih.org

National Council of Urban Indian Health 2019 Youth Advisory Council Members Announced

NCUIH welcomes 5 new young adults to promote resilience and raise awareness about suicide prevention and substance misuse in American Indian and Alaska Native young populations.

Washington, DC (June 17, 2019) — The National Council of Urban Indian Health (NCUIH), in partnership with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), announced its 2019 cohort of National Urban Indian Youth Advisory Council Members (Youth Council). The 2019 class of NCUIH Youth Council members include Czarina Campos (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma), Taylor Francisco (Navajo Nation), Megan McDermott (Descendant Piegan Blackfeet & Plains Cree), Quentin Paulsen (Nima Corporation), and Benjamin Sandecki (Cherokee).

“Suicide is the second leading cause of death among AI/AN urban youth and we are proud to have these extraordinary young people leading the charge in working to end this epidemic. The NCUIH Youth Council includes 5 outstanding American Indian and Alaska Native youth who are working at the forefront to advocate for better access to prevention and recovery services to address the challenges facing AI/AN youth living in urban areas,” said NCUIH Executive Director Francys Crevier.

“No one is going to do this work for us, and if we don’t do it now, no one will,” said Adon Vazquez, a 2018 Youth Council Member.

NCUIH’s inaugural Youth Council began serving in 2018 with a goal of connecting urban American Indian and Alaska Native young adults with opportunities to share, learn, and advocate for initiatives to address suicide and substance misuse in their communities while providing a leadership experience to assist and support their professional development. Similarly, the 2019 Youth Council will be working over a 12 month period to promote urban AI/AN youth suicide prevention strategies and raise awareness about substance misuse.

The 2019 Youth Council will be attending a training in Washington, DC in late June.

View the one pager on the Youth Advisory Council.

View the selection criteria for the Youth Council.

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Welcome NCUIH’s Summer Intern and Legal Fellow: Christina Haswood and Joy Parker

NCUIH is pleased to have Christina Haswood, Intern, and Joy Parker, Legal Fellow, in the office through July.

Photo of Christina Haswood and Joy Parker

About Christina Haswood

Born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, Christina is Navajo, originally from Inscription House, AZ. Her clans are; Tódich’ii’nii, DibéÅ‚zhíní, Naasht’ézhi TábÄ…Ä…há, and Kinyaa’áanii. She is currently a graduate student from the University of Kansas Medical Center in the Master’s in Public Health Program with a concentration in Public Health Management. Christina is in the Summer 2019 Native American Political Leadership Program (NAPLP) at George Washington University. Her research interest is suicide in Native American adolescents and her career goal is to advocate for the improvement of American Indian/Alaskan Native health through federal policies.

Christina can be reached at intern@ncuih.org.

About Joy Parker

Joy Parker (Abenaki) is currently the summer legal fellow at NCUIH. She is in her second year at the University of Arizona College of Law, where she is working on certificates in Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy and Environmental Law. Joy is also a midwife and is excited to be working with NCUIH at the intersections of Native healthcare and Federal Indian law and policy.

Joy can be reached at fellow@ncuih.org.

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