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The American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Homelessness Symposium will bring together leaders, scholars, and advocates to discuss Indigenous homelessness through the lenses of innovative legal frameworks, human rights, Indigenous conceptions of home/belonging, and transformative systems change. Dr. Andrea Garcia, Mayoral Appointed Commissioner for the Los Angeles City/County Native American Indian Commission, will serve as moderator, guiding the event as we explore the unique challenges of Indigenous homelessness within the context of ongoing settler colonialism, and what emerging housing and service approaches are being used to respond to this crisis.

The symposium will feature presentations from Dr. Cathy Fournier, who will examine Canada’s definition of Indigenous homelessness and its broader implications in policy and research, and Joseph Berra, who will lead an exploration of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) and its connection to housing rights and the LandBack movement. Both of these presentations will be complemented by panel discussions that will center Indigenous experience, highlight culturally informed services to native communities, address the responsibilities of researchers collecting or working with native data, and outline the systems-level changes necessary to respond to intergenerational trauma and health disparities faced by indigenous communities in LA. These conversations will help us build a collective vision of a future in LA where home is more than housing, and encompasses cultural safety and a place where healing can begin.

Please join us in this vital dialogue that builds on the incredible work of Indigenous scholars, front line providers, community based organizations, and community members. We hope to see you there!

Speakers

Andrea Garcia – Mayoral Appointed Commissioner for the Los Angeles City/County Native American Indian Commission, Durfee Stanton Fellow

Andrea Garcia is a citizen of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation on her maternal side, and Mexican on her paternal side. Andrea works at the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health where has the privilege of focusing exclusively on the health and wellbeing of the Native American community through her clinical work, larger community initiatives, and through research. As a Mayoral appointee for the Los Angeles City/County Native American Indian Commission, she serves as Chair of the subcommittee on homelessness as well as for the ad hoc Natives in LA COVID-19 Response Working Group. She also has the privilege of serving as Board chairperson for United American Indian Involvement, and Vice Chairperson for We Are Healers. Through all of her work, research, and volunteer endeavors, Andrea is most interested in centering the brilliance and inherent wisdom of Native people in addressing the structural determinants of health.

Cathy Fournier, PhD – Senior Scholar, Indigenous Homelessness, Canadian Observatory on Homelessness, York University

Cathy is currently Director, Indigenous Homelessness/Houselessness Prevention at the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness (COH). Her research involves working with Indigenous communities and community partners examining Indigenous homelessness and homelessness prevention through a lens of social and structural dynamics of Indigenous Peoples’ health and wellness, social justice, Indigenous values, and Indigenous concepts of home.

Cathy has settler and Indigenous ancestry (French, Mi’kmaq, Scottish and Algonquin) and is actively involved in the urban Indigenous community in Toronto. She was an Oshkeebewis (ceremonial helper) at the Native Women’s Resource Centre of Toronto from 2018 to 2024 where she worked with an Ojibwe and Cree healer helping Indigenous women recovering from trauma. Before pursuing a career in academia, she was a complementary and alternative health practitioner for 20 years.

Joseph Berra, Esq. – Human Rights in the Americas Project Director, Promise Institute for Human Rights, UCLA School of Law

Joseph Berra is Human Rights in the Americas Project Director with the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law. He leads the Reimagining Human Rights in the Americas Initiative for the Promise Institute. His teaching and research interests include international human rights, the Inter-Amerian system for human rights, the rights of Afro-descendant and Indigenous peoples in the international framework, and migrant rights. Berra coordinates projects with organizational partners in the U.S. and Latin America to engage students in human rights advocacy and the Inter-American system for human rights.  Current projects include collaboration with Indigenous organizations resisting extractivist industries in their territories, litigation at the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, Indigenous migrants in the U.S.,  and work in support of local tribes and the Indigenous Education Now! Coalition of Los Angeles. Recent work is focused on climate justice and climate migration from a human rights perspective. He recently organized the visit of the Inter-American Commission to UCLA for its 186^th period of sessions in conjunction with the Reimagining Rights in the Americas Conference.

Before entering academia, he was a successful civil and human rights litigator.  He is the past Executive Director of the of the Caribbean Central American Research Council (CCARC) and currently serves on the CCARC Board.  In addition to his law degree, Berra holds an M.A. in Social Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.Div. from the Universidad Centroamericana (UCA) in San Salvador, El Salvador.

Pamela Villasenor – Executive Director, Pukúu Cultural Community Services

“For the first time, Pukúu will be led by not only a California Native woman, but one from the Fernandeño Tataviam Tribe that founded Pukúu,” said Board Chair Samantha Ortega. The Fernandeño Tataviam Band of Mission Indians (Tribe) established the non-profit as the social services branch of the Tribe for the betterment of their tribal citizens and Native Americans living in their homelands. Today, Pukúu carries on that legacy with programs that continue to uplift and support the community, the community in which Villaseñor was raised. You can learn from Villaseñor directly by watching her talks on the Tribe’s website at www.tataviam-nsn.us/videos.

Danielle Tobey – Consultant, Tribal Housing Programs

Danielle Tobey She/Her (Mashpee Wampanoag/Cape Verdean) is an enrolled member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. She is a private consultant for Tribal housing/rehousing programs. Ms. Tobey previously served as Family & Children’s Services Coordinator for Torres Martinez Tribal TANF, advocating for families per the Indian Child Welfare Act and leading homeless systems integration within the organization. She is also a senior consultant for the Change Well Project within the Tribal Technical Assistance team.

With over 18 years of experience coordinating supportive services for people struggling with health, mental health, and developmental challenges, she operates from the premise that safe and adequate housing is a basic human right. Her work focuses on finding and removing systemic barriers to permanent housing and integrating culturally specific practices.