Concrete Lessons: Policies and Practices Affecting the Impact of COVID-19 for Urban Indigenous Communities in the United States and Canada.

Throughout the Americas, most Indigenous people move through urban areas and make their homes in cities. Yet, the specific issues and concerns facing Indigenous people in cities, and the positive protective factors their vibrant urban communities generate are often overlooked and poorly understood. This has been particularly so under COVID-19 pandemic conditions. In the spring of 2020, the United Nations High Commissioner Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples called for information on the impacts of COVID-19 for Indigenous peoples. We took that opportunity to provide a response focused on urban Indigenous communities in the United States and Canada. Here, we expand on that response and Indigenous and human rights lens to review policies and practices impacting the experience of COVID-19 for urban Indigenous communities. Our analysis integrates a discussion of historical and ongoing settler colonialism, and the strengths of Indigenous community-building, as these shape the urban Indigenous experience with COVID-19. Mindful of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, we highlight the perspectives of Indigenous organizations which are the lifeline of urban Indigenous communities, focusing on challenges that miscounting poses to data collection and information sharing, and the exacerbation of intersectional discrimination and human rights infringements specific to the urban context. We include Indigenous critiques of the implications of structural oppressions exposed by COVID-19, and the resulting recommendations which have emerged from Indigenous urban adaptations to lockdown isolation, the provision of safety, and delivery of services grounded in Indigenous initiatives and traditional practices.

Substance dependency among homeless American Indians.

Extensive qualitative research in the San Francisco Bay Area in California and in Tucson, Arizona, indicates strong associations between substance abuse and homelessness among American Indians. This article takes a comparative approach to describe and analyze precipitating factors and survival patterns of those who are both homeless and who suffer from substance dependency. Possible precipitating factors presented through case studies consider the complex interaction of childhood fostering or adoption into non-Native families, different types of involuntary institutionalization during youth, and the personal impact of accident, trauma and loss. Coping strategies and keys to survival are examined, including the role of the extended family and close friendships, American Indian and mainstream organizations that offer formal and informal services, the existence of anchor or key households, the helping relationships and sobriety groups among homeless individuals, spirituality, and cultural resiliency.