• Indigenous wealth is about decolonizing and revitalizing what it means to be healthy and live in abundance. 
• Most Indigenous languages do not have a word for "wealth." Instead, they have words that convey living reciprocally, focusing on health, and being a good relative.
• Indigenous wealth is shared: when we have access to shared wealth, we can restore the health of our communities and nations.
• Indigenous wealth building creates spaces where Indigenous people have access to their language, lifeways, spirituality, and ceremonies.
• These spaces help community members thrive and truly feel like themselves. Colonization has created unhealthy patterns and separated many Indigenous people from their teachings. Building Indigenous wealth is a form of community care that helps us reconnect and heal. (source)

We envision building wealth as a process, as a narrative, as connectedness, and as family well-being.

Guaranteed income (GI) is a type of cash transfer program that provides regular, unconditional, and unrestricted cash transfers to individuals or households. This differs from typical social safety net policies by providing a steady, predictable stream of cash to recipients to spend however they see fit without requiring that they perform specific activities—like working, going to school, or seeking employment—to remain eligible. While guaranteed income is always unconditional, it may be targeted toward people below a certain income threshold. GI Pilots provide cash transfers to a limited group of participants for a specific period of time to collect data that can inform policymakers and researchers as well as contribute to ongoing public discourse around guaranteed income policy. (source: Jain Family Institute)

Income has the potential to significantly change life course events when provided during pregnancy and early childhood. Think healthier pregnancies, better birth and postpartum experience, better parent child bonding, more time for healing and recovery. The impacts go beyond the time after birth into early childhood - including reaching milestones, and better school performance. Some studies have even found improved emotional and family health during teenage years in families that had unconditional cash income.

Guaranteed Income is a powerful health intervention that can support healing, and we believe can work to heal historical trauma, especially when offered at an important time in a family’s life. The legacies of colonization, genocide, forced relocations, boarding schools, loss of traditional cultural practices and food systems still have incredible health and societal impacts that lead to economic and health disparities for Indigenous communities. The collection of symptoms due to these experiences is known as Historical Trauma (HT). 

In King County alone: 

• Indigenous are disproportionately living in extreme poverty. We make up less than 2% of the overall population in King County, and yet represent over half of people living at 200% below the poverty line (Source: King County Public Health)
• We experience very high rates of housing insecurity. 6% of King County's AIAN population is homeless, which represents the largest group after the Black community. (Source: Seattle Times)
• Our babies die at the highest rates of any community. This is often hidden because of the way racial data is collected. King County overall infant mortality rate is 3.9 per 100,000 live births. The AIAN rate is more than 3 times the average with over 12.2 per 100,000 births. (Source: King County Public Health)
• We have our babies younger and have less access to prenatal care. Native women are 9x more likely and Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian women are 6.5x more likely than white women to be teen parents. They are also 4-5x less likely to receive adequate or any prenatal care. Maternal age and prenatal care are associated with infant mortality. (Source: King County Public Health)
• Indigenous womxn experience disproportionate rates of sexual and intimate partner violence. Nearly every Native American woman in Seattle surveyed by UIHI said she was raped or coerced into sex. Of the 148 Native American and Alaska Native women, more than half the women — 53 percent — were homeless at the time they answered the questions. (Source: The Urban Indian Health Institute)

These statistics reflect the legacies of inequity and oppression that have been ongoing since first contact.

Poverty is not a reflection of moral value; it is a policy choice. Indigenous communities and Indigenous pregnant people are some of those most impacted by structural oppression. The impact of poverty during pregnancy and in early childhood are multiple. Compared to beneficiaries of structural racism, urban AI/AN infants have significantly higher mortality rates, increased poor health outcomes in early childhood (such as diabetes and obesity), and decreased access to adequate health care and nutrition. Having access to money and resources is so critical for food, housing, and health care. Guaranteed income during pregnancy and the first 1000 days increases pathways toward liberation for Indigenous families to improve health across a reproductive life span.