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Supplemental Information Regarding the Fort Lawton Proposal 

The Seattle Indian and Alaskan Native community has taken the initiative in attempting to meet its own physical, cultural, vocational, and educational needs. Thus, a volunteer Kinatechitapi Indian Council health clinic, staffed almost entirely by Indians, has acted to fulfill needs unmet by the U.S. Public Health Service and the State Department of Public Assistance. An Indian Fine Arts and Heritage Program, utilizing Urban Racial Disadvantaged monies, has been developed for the Seattle public school system, again with an Indian staff. Community organizers have sought to develop Halfway Houses aimed at facilitating the adjustment of new-comers to the urban scene and of prison inmates returning to society. Culturally oriented programs - including craft and dance classes, sports events, and pow-wows - have been instituted through the agency of one or more of the approximately 25 Indian and Alaskan Native organizations in the Seattle area. All these programs suffer from a number of defects, primary among which are scatter and resulting duplication of effort leading to inefficient utilization of all too scant resources.

No central agency exists in the Seattle area to coordinate activities and services. A central clearinghouse for information about programs, as well as an instrument for the centralized mobilization of community resources, is required. Even more important is the need for space itself. Fort Lawton is uniquely suited to adaptation as a multi-purpose cultural, vocational, and educational center. Because it is an active military base, its facilities can immediately be occupied and transformed to service the Indian and Alaskan Native community through on-going programs and staff. At the same time, it provides a highly expandable base for development of larger and more innovative programs, as funding becomes available. Its potential as a resource base will itself attract such funding. Such a service center for Indian people would be new, in fact the first such facility in the nation. Just such decisive action is precisely what is needed, however, and we Indian and Alaskan Native people must take the lead in shaping our own destinies. The implications of such a Federal commitment would be nationwide.