The destitute Indians on East Flagler Avenue probably are... - UPI Archives (2024)

MINNEAPOLIS -- The destitute Indians on East Flagler Avenue probably are unaware the Twin Cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul are No. 1 in the Urban Institute's rankings for overall quality of life.

John Goodbear, an Indian with a broken leg, could not be expected to know the Washington-based institute employed in its selection process such indicators as housing and income. Goodbear has neither.

'I went down to welfare and they gave me the cold shoulder,' said Goodbear, 28, a welder by trade. 'It kind of made me mad. I do think they're going to give me some food stamps. Without this busted leg, I could get by.'

Goodbear, a Winnebago, said he got the broken leg in a fight with some whites, one of whom worked him over with a steel bar.

Inside the United Faith Mission, under a sign saying, 'When I fail, Jesus, forgive me,' Goodbear said he often comes to the mission for coffee 'or when they have the soup line.'

At the mission, Goodbear met an Indian volunteer who has taken him and several other homeless Indians off the streets and into her modest house.

'Indians have an unspoken brotherhood,' he said. 'They help each other. When you're cold, an Indian will give you a blanket. If you're new on the street, they'll tell you where you can get some soup or a sandwich.'

There are an estimated 20,000 Indians in the Twin Cities, many living well below the poverty line near the bars and missions on Flagler Avenue in the Phillips neighborhood of South Minneapolis. Some are transients from Minnesota's Leech Lake and Red Lake reservations who come in search of work.

Despite the many federal programs designed to aid the First Americans, many still live in a nightmare world of poverty complicated by alcoholism.

Bryan Mason, 20, is an alcoholic Indian who had just lost a menial job for drinking. Mason, who started drinking at 16, said he had been sober 'for about a week.'

He said he had been arrested many times for petty theft. 'You know, picking things up in stores,' he said.

Mason is trying to stay sober so he can cope with street life at a time when the nights are getting colder.

'I've had to sleep under the bridge,' said the young man who came from Red Lake. 'I thought things would be better here.'

So did Mona Blue, 30, who also has slept under one of the bridges over expressways in the Phillips section. 'We sleep under the bridge, in parks, anywhere,' she said.

A Sioux, Mrs. Blue said she has four children on a reservation at Sisseton, S.D.

In the Twin Cities, she said, homeless Indians sometimes are harassed by white youths. 'They don't understand you're just trying to sleep there,' she said.

'Yeah,' agreed her friend Goodbear. 'And it's bad when the police chase you out of a place where you're sleeping. I've spent all night walking in the cold. For some people, going to jail is no big thing. You can get warm there.'

Goodbear said alcoholic treatment centers for Indians 'are filling up now because it's getting cold. That's a hustle.'

Another hustle on Flagler Avenue is selling your plasma for the current price of $10 a pint, which is enough for four pints of high-proof liquor in the nearby package stores that look like cages.

Across the street from the mission is the Minnesota Plasma Center, a modern building that has been defaced by a crudely lettered sign which reads 'Nobody for President.'

A more official looking sign on the door says, 'No Shirt, No Shoes, No Donate.' Another sign inside reads, 'Return donors receive $3 when you bring in an acceptable new donor.'

The manager at the center, a private business, is Rosemary Burkhalter.

'They can give plasma twice in a seven-day period,' said Ms. Burkhalter, a registered nurse. She said a physician is always present to check prospective donors.

'We see an increase in business at the end of the month,' she said, when food stamps and the money from welfare checks have run out.

The American Indian Movement, the most militant of the Indian organizations, got its start and flourishes in ghettoes such as the Phillips neighborhood, where AIM also has Indian critics.

Some estimate the local urban Indian unemployment rate at 60 percent and the school dropout rate at 50 percent. The suicide rate for Indian teenagers is double that for white youngsters. The average lifespan for Indian men is 44. They often die violently or of alcohol-related ailments.

Executive Director Elizabeth Hallmark of the Minneapolis American Indian Center in Phillips is angry at President Reagan and his administration's budget cuts.

'We know he's not done yet,' said Mrs. Hallmark, an Indian born in Bellcourt, N.D. 'He talks about a safety net but he continually slashes programs for the poor. He's taking from the needy and giving to the greedy.'

Mrs. Hallmark was particularly critical of cuts in job training programs under the Comprehensive Employment Training Act and in welfare and food stamp programs.

'Where are these people going to go?' she asked. 'Where is the safety net? There was no fat to trim. We were already down to the bone marrow and that's what Reagan's cut.'

Mrs. Hallmark said urban Indians want to maintain their identity as Indians.

'Don't throw urban Indians into the melting pot because we don't want to be part of it,' she said in a interview in her office.

'We don't celebrate Columbus Day. Columbus was the original boat person. That was when the Indians' problems started.'

Mrs.Hallmark is a firm supporter of AIM, the organization that spearheaded the seige at Wounded Kneee, S.D., and many other Indian protests against the government.

So is Artley Skenandore, executive director of Little Earth of United Tribes, Inc., which runs a federally funded and predominantly Indian housing project in Phillips.

Skenandore, an Oneida who once was sheriff of Wisconsin's Brown County, is critical of the way Minneapolis police deal with Indians. When there is trouble at the housing project, he said, police overreact with too many men and weapons.

'The old John Wayne image that a good Indian is a dead Indian is still prevalent in law enforcement,' he said.

Skenandore said AIM 'should be credited with creating an awareness of Indian identity. It's a motivator for Indian development.'

The Rev. Jerry Alger, 44, who describes himself as a halfbreed, runs the United Faith Mission, He could not agree.

'AIM is ruining the Indians,' said Alger, who considers the organization violent. 'We're here to rescue souls for Christ.'

Alger, a burly man who grew up on Leech Lake Reservation and still is a roofer by trade, said, 'I used to be an alcoholic on the street. There weren't too many churches looking for an ex-alcoholic to be a pastor so I started this mission.'

Alger said glue and paint sniffing is a problem with Indian young people.

'We've got a beautiful young lady who comes in here who will sell her body to get a can of spray paint. A lot of kids 10 years old are alcoholics or paint sniffers.'

Alger said the proof that Indians want to work is the daily, pre-dawn line in front of a neighborhood establishment that hires day labor for 'cleaning, diswashing, pushing a mop or a broom.'

Evonne New, 36, an Oglala Sioux widow who serves as a volunteer at the mission, tries to conquer her seething rage.

'I hate alcohol,' she said. 'My mom and dad were alcoholics. I made a promise to God that I would help my people who were in the streets. The white man is inebriating the Indian. Working here is a way to put down my hatred.'

Mrs. New, who has had many jobs, including playing bass in a country and western band in Memphis, explained the high incidence of Indian alcoholism by saying, 'We can't tolerate some chemicals as well as white people.'

Others discount that theory, contending no race is predisposed to alcoholism.

Mrs. New, who has taken eight homeless Indians into the small home where she lives with her two children, said Indians need housing.

In a to-whom-it-may-concern letter she wrote to UPI headquarters in New York, she said, 'I've seen my people thrown out of apartments, rooms and emergency housing and displaced by Caucasians migrating from other states, Haitians Laotians, Cubans, Vietnamese, Hmongs and other refugees from wherever.'

Mrs. New's letter, neatly written on lined notebook paper said, 'Because my people are naturally shy and quiet-mannered and soft-spoken and very unaggressive, they are suffering quietly even though they are in agony. I took it upon myself to ask you on their behalf to bring this suffering to light in a dignified manner in any way you can.'

When a UPI reporter arrived at the mission to follow up on the letter, he found her mopping the floor. 'My line goes all the way back to Crazy Horse,' she said.

'I just hate it,' said Mrs. New, referring to the center across the street where Indians sell their blood. 'Blood is life. We've got a lot of vampiric people around here. We need a food store, not a blood bank.'

Mrs. New also hates Mr. Arthur's, a nearby bar and package store.

'They serve drunks as long as they have the price,' she said. 'There're a lot of fights there.'

The Rev. Scott Tohannie, 34, pastor of the Native American Church of the Nazarene, was quick to say his was not the 'peyote church.' But he said there were some 'smoke lodges' in the neighborhood.

The Rev. Tohannie does not agree with the opinion of his friend, the Rev. Alger, that the Reagan administration 'stinks.'

'I'm against the welfare state,' said Tohannie, born on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona. 'I support the president and what he's trying to do. I really believe in free enterprise.'

'I know our people can't get jobs,' said Alger. 'Where does free enterprise come in there?'

Down the street, at Branch No. 1 of Catholic Charities, unemployed Indians are drinking coffee, making peanut butter sandwiches and playing cards. There is a bowl of tobacco and some cigarette papers. A man whose hands are steady enough can roll himself a free smoke.

'The Branch,' as it is known, is crowded because this is the end of the month and government checks have been spent.

Gary Hanson, 34, a Poma from California, said he has no job and no income.

'I tried to get back in the Marine Corps,' said Hanson, who served three tours in Vietnam and was discharged as a buck sergeant two years ago. Hanson said he has sold his plasma to get money for food.

'I tried to get welfare and food stamps but they said I'm not eligible because I'm able to work.'

Hanson said he can't find a job so he just does a little work around 'The Branch.'

'I did my best for this country but it doesn't seem to be doing anything for me,' he said.

Two blocks from the missions and bars of East Franklin is Phillips Junior High School, where about 25 percent of the 570 pupils are Indians.

'We have a problem with drugs,' acknowleged principal David Roffers.

Of the budget cuts, he said, 'We haven't felt the real crunch yet.' But, he said, 'Fewer kids are getting the free lunch now.'

The high dropout rate for Indians does not affect Phillips Junior High because students must stay in school until they are 16.

Roffers said he saw no difference in performance levels of Indians and other students 'but in many ways the Indian kids are less aggressive.'

'I don't think,' he said, 'they have found their place in the system yet.'

Mrs. Barbara Carillo, an Indian who counsels Indian youngsters at the school, said truancy is a problem.

'If they get behind in class, they skip school,' said Mrs. Carillo, who grew up in the Phillips neighborhood. 'They say, 'What's the use, everyone knows more than I do.''

Kelly Day, a huge black man, counsels the students at Phillips on problems of drug abuse.

'Indians tend to gulp alcohol,' Day said. 'They don't have the social controls. And they're under more stress because of unemployment and lack of housing.'

Day said youngsters speak of buying 'dime bags of pot,' which are $10 packets of marijuana, and half-pints of peppermint schnapps. He spoke of pupils who regularly experience blackouts and hangovers.

Day, who leads group therapy sessions at the school, said pupils 'drink and use drugs for two reasons -- pain and pleasure.'

The Chemical Awareness Program in Minneapolis public schools, which Day said teaches youngsters 'how to have fun without using,' has been reduced by budget cuts.

Mrs. Ruth Emerson, the school cafeteria manager, spoke of children without lunch money who hang out during lunch time in the corridors outside the lunchroom.

'I'm sure the mothers just don't have the money,' Mrs. Emerson said.

Teachers at Phillips sometimes buy lunch for pupils who have no money.

Four blocks away, at United Faith Mission, the Rev. Alger said he had voted for Reagan but now regrets it.

In the last presidential election, we all had visions of grandeur,' he said. 'Now it's all beginning to fall in on us.'

Across the the street, a young Indian man fell -- quite literally - into the gutter.

Alger and others at the mission rushed to the aid of the man, now unconscious and bleeding from the head.

Alger said quietly, 'Somebody call an ambulance.'

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