Indigenous people in the United States experience one of the highest maternal mortality rates of any ethnic group. A report filed this year by the Washington State Department of Health found that American Indians and Alaska Natives in Washington are eight and a half times more likely to die during pregnancy than white people and are twice as likely to die during pregnancy as Black people. The report found that 80% of the maternal deaths were preventable, and that racism, poverty, and cultural stigma contribute to the high mortality rates.
To address these disparities, the Seattle nonprofit Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services recently launched the Nest, a guaranteed basic income program exclusively for Indigenous families. The program, the first of its kind, is slated to run for the next five years and will provide monthly cash assistance to 150 Indigenous expectant parents and families until their child’s third birthday. The Nest’s director, Patanjali de la Rocha (Kalanga/Tagalog), a doula, community organizer and perinatal health educator, said that the program had already had more than 300 applicants. The application process is still open and will close in March.
Cash assistance programs can improve children’s well-being throughout their lives by alleviating early childhood poverty and bolstering their physical safety and food security — all issues that disproportionately burden Indigenous communities. Historically, racism has permeated similar government programs, which have often excluded people of color. A steep decline in direct cash assistance programs from 2001 to 2015 fueled household food insecurity and child homelessness for the deeply poor. The decrease in these programs has often been justified through racist narratives concerning which social groups are “deserving” and “undeserving,” with the so-called “undeserving” disproportionately identified as people of color. Even today, cash assistance programs often over-police people of color.
The Nest hopes to begin to address the historical inequities involving monetary assistance and change the harmful narratives surrounding poverty, thereby improving Indigenous children’s early lives. Support is provided by the Perigee Fund, a philanthropic organization run by child psychologist Lisa Mennet, the Democratic party’s single largest donor in Washington state.
High Country News spoke to de la Rocha about the Nest and how direct cash supports Indigenous parents. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
High Country News: What is the Nest, and who is eligible to receive assistance?
PDLR: It’s a guaranteed basic income program for Native and Pacific Islander pregnant people. Guaranteed income is not a new idea, but it’s had a resurgence in the United States, particularly after the expansion of the Child Tax Credit during the pandemic. There are now over 100 different cash assistance pilots nationally, and the Nest is one of them. The Nest’s income is unconditional, so you don’t have to behave in any specific ways to receive it. It’s also unrestricted, meaning we don’t tell people how they can spend it. You have to be at least 12 weeks pregnant and planning to parent to qualify, and then it provides $1,250 per month from pregnancy until your child’s third birthday. You have to be living in King County, Pierce County, or the Tulalip reservation, and there is an income limit. We use the combination of area median income and the self-sufficiency standard to determine our limit.
HCN: Why is cash assistance the right way to address Indigenous maternal mortality and other issues Indigenous mothers face?
PDLR: The maternal mortality of Native people is the fastest-growing of any ethnic group in the United States. There are high disparities that are rooted in historical trauma and collective violence from colonization, genocide, forced relocation and boarding schools combined with lack of access to basic health care. Guaranteed income helps not only on an individual level, but it also helps people heal intergenerationally.
We’re giving folks the resources to support the biological needs of a baby, which are affection, sleep and fat. Giving folks a guaranteed income during this time helps to support a baby’s biological development. Those first three years of a child’s life have huge impacts on health and life outcomes across the lifespan.
Guaranteed income helps not only on an individual level, but it also helps people heal intergenerationally.
HCN: How does the Nest differ from other cash assistance programs?
PDLR: Black and Indigenous communities have a lot of historical systemic mistrust, and we considered that in our program design. If someone told me that they were going to give me $1,250 a month for three and a half years, I’d wonder: What’s the scam? Even as a community-based organization, we still have to work to build people’s trust. So, in our process of creating the application, we asked easy questions. The required documentation is low-barrier. People can take pictures of their ID with their phone, for example. Once folks get the money, we check in with them every six months. There’s other optional supports that they can receive, but they don’t have to do anything beyond that once they’re in the program as long as they remain eligible.
We worked with the Indigenous community to make sure our messaging and the way we do our application process and onboarding process uplifts the worthiness of Indigenous parenting. We want to heal some of that harm.
HCN: What are the harmful narratives about cash assistance programs, and how do you go about dispelling them?
PDLR: Guaranteed income is narrative work. There’s a strong evidence base that guaranteed income works, but there’s little political buy-in because there’s a stigma against poverty. That means that the guaranteed income movement is working to shift the narrative that poverty is an individual’s moral failure to the idea that it is a policy failure. But I would go further and say that it’s not a policy failure. Our society was founded on slavery and free labor on stolen land, and it’s a requirement of capitalism to exploit certain people.
We aren’t here to convince anyone of the worth of our communities or honor those like harmful narratives around poverty. We want to highlight the incredible brilliance that exists in Indigenous communities.
We are in the position of being privately funded, so we have a lot of freedom in terms of who we serve and how we want to tell our stories. And we’re lucky to have funders who support us in reclaiming narratives.
HCN: In addition to the cash assistance program are you planning to support participants in other ways?
PDLR: Absolutely. We are primarily a direct services program. While we don’t have the capacity to serve everyone in the Nest, we are offering other cultural support such as doula services, a home visiting program, and a financial sovereignty class. A lot of guaranteed income programs offer financial literacy training for participants. What we’re doing is a little different. It’s taught by Native folks and is rooted in healing, recognizing that colonization has caused trauma and money loss. The class is rooted in the land and in traditional values. It isn’t just about money, it’s about reclaiming wealth and abundance.
HCN: What are the Nest’s future goals?
PDLR: It would be incredible to expand this program. In Washington, there’s a movement for a statewide guaranteed income. A bill that would provide cash assistance for communities in transition, like pregnant folks or people experiencing homelessness, has been introduced twice, and it has not passed. There’s also been a movement in Seattle to use some of the city’s general fund to support a guaranteed income.
The Nest is a five-year pilot, so we have a ways to go. I’m hopeful that the stories that come out of our work will help bolster the cash assistance movement. It would be amazing if some of this work could just shift the policies around the way that WIC (the federal supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children) and TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) are distributed. If we can change some of the institutional policies around how welfare is currently distributed to make it more humane and accessible, that would be incredible.
Natalia Mesa is an editorial intern for High Country News based in Seattle, Washington, covering the Northwest. Email her at natalia.mesa@hcn.org or submit a letter to the editor. See our letters to the editor policy.
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