Indian Health Board of Minneapolis celebrates future health care campus
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The Indian Health Board of Minneapolis celebrated the groundbreaking of a new wellness center on Friday afternoon. Like several celebrations that were set for early May to kick off American Indian Month, the community event was postponed due to fatal shootings.
Those celebrations are starting back up.
The south Minneapolis clinic is currently located on East 24th Street. The new health care campus will be located on East Franklin Avenue, in the area also known as the cultural corridor of the urban Native American community in Minneapolis. Construction has been underway for several weeks.
“We wanted to be placed on the Native corridor. So, over the years, we’ve been purchasing properties that are congruent with each other, and we started developing a larger plan of a healthcare campus,” CEO Dr. Patrick Rock said. He’s a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and a family medical doctor at the clinic.
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The health care campus will be called Menaandawiwe Wellness Campus, and it will provide three key services: Indigenous health, medical and dental. According to IHB, their facility also incorporates traditional healing into its services.
The planning process for the Menaandawiwe Wellness Campus started almost a decade ago.
Rock says the nearly $24 million project is one that needed to be built and funded “from the ground up.” He says funding came from several sources, including federal, state, grants and in-house services.
“When people see this new building, it's actually a commitment from many, many partners to support urban Indian health here in the Twin Cities,” Rock said.
U.S. Sen. Tina Smith was at the celebration. She helped to secure over $2 million towards the project.
“This is a very strong community, but there has been under-investments in the health of this community,” Smith said. “This community-driven project, I know, will continue to have a big impact on the health and wellness of this community here on East Franklin.”
The significance of IHB
IHB was founded in 1971, during a time when the American Indian Movement was also gaining traction in Minneapolis. Elladean Wikstrom and Reid Raymond are both founding members of IHB.
The two, alongside other founders, worked together to write the initial proposal for the organization.
“Native people, when they went to try to get in to see a doctor, they would be turned away or told they couldn’t be seen, that they had to go back to the reservation,” Wikstrom said.
According to a 2021 report from the Minnesota Department of Health, Native American women, children and families experience the greatest health disparities in the state. The report acknowledges disparities caused by historical trauma, racism and colonial systems.
The document reads, “Oppressive systems have denied American Indians access to adequate health care, employment, and food and nutrition.”
Both Wikstrom and Raymond say one of the reasonings for establishing IHB came after the death of an Ojibwe woman who was sent home from the hospital without proper medication.
“That was an example of what was happening overall, not only here in Minneapolis, but throughout the country,” Wikstrom said.
Since the founding of IHB, it has continued to grow and now provides medical, dental, counseling and recovery services, among others.
“IHB is always just a solid organization that supports and just adapts to the community's needs. It's always been here, always will, and we're looking towards the future,” said IHB board chair Joni Buffalohead.
A conscious design process
IHB is working with DSGW Architects and Woodstone to design and construct the building. When people visit Menaandawiwe Wellness Campus, they will walk through an entrance shaped and designed after a jingle dress cone.
Rock says this was a conscious effort in the design process.
The jingle dress dance originated in Minnesota in the early 1900s during a global influenza pandemic. Dozens of cones are sewn onto a dress while the sounds mimic rain. The dress and dance are widely known to be healing in Native communities across the United States.
“It’s not just an urban Indian piece, or it’s not just an Ojibwe design, but it’s meant to facilitate [the] healing process,” he said.
High on the building’s facade will be constellations from Indigenous stories. At night, those constellations will be lit up. The side of the building will be designed with flowing ribbons, meant to represent a ribbon skirt or shirt.
Construction is expected to be completed by May 2027.
“We want to see a legacy. We want to see this ongoing investment in healthcare in the Indigenous people of the Twin Cities,” Rock said.
