Indigenous-led warming center in Minneapolis serves as a resource in response to cold temperatures
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In south Minneapolis, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, also known as MIWRC, has a space for unhoused people to warm up, find resources and eat a hot meal. The organization has been around for over 40 years now and has worked to help Indigenous women and their families find support and resources for housing, mental health or cultural practices.
Every Tuesday, the organization will open their community room to act as a warming center. The service is a newly added extension of their existing drop-in office that operates Monday through Friday.
The warming center got its start in early January during frigid temperatures. CEO Ruth Buffalo says nearby encampment fires were one of the initial reasons they opened their doors. Indigenous people living in those encampments had nowhere else to go while temperatures dipped below zero.
“We have the community room, the gym, that just sits open, vacant a lot of the times, I think majority of the time, it's left sitting there vacant. And it’s a pretty big space that could be used for a lot of things on a daily basis,” Buffalo said.
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South Minneapolis community members were quick to jump into action at the resource center. For many they are helping “relatives,” a term for fellow members of the Indigenous community.
Allison Haro has been volunteering at the center since it opened in January. She said she’s 18 months into sobriety and has found a passion for helping others.
“I was like, hopefully one day I can get sober and be able to come back and help our relatives, give them the guidance that they need or just give them the support, because a lot of them think they don’t have the support,” Haro said.
She said that even though she can only dedicate a few hours of her time, she finds volunteering and helping relatives to be fulfilling.
“Us, Indigenous people, we don’t get a lot of the support that we that we should be getting out in the community. You know what I mean? So, like, us as Indigenous people, we have to stick together because we're powerful as one but stronger together.”
Elder community member, Margaret Percy, gets up bright and early to cook at the warming center. She cooks both breakfast and lunch, sometimes dinner when the space is open overnight during cold temperatures and heavy snowfall.
Percy has lived in Minneapolis for over 40 years and says she was in a similar position at one point in her life. She began cooking for unhoused relatives several years ago. To many of them, she is known as “grandmother” or “auntie.”
“I leave them nice and full when I leave,” Percy said as she served blueberry pancakes for breakfast. “It makes me feel good inside, that I can do something for these people. It annoys me sometimes, the way people treat these people. They’re good people.”
Haro says relatives need to know that support is there through various ways of help, such as access to health clinics or housing organizations — even in the form of emotional support from volunteers and community.
“It fulfills my heart to know that they’re happy, even with just a plate of food,” Haro said. “Or to give them some good, clean, warm clothes to wear. Their hearts are full. Their hearts are happy with just that. So, we try to just give them that support so that they know that it’s there.”
When the space first opened, the funding for the shelter was community-led through fundraising. Towards the end of January, the Minneapolis City Council awarded the organization $100,000 in emergency funding. Those funds will be used to help keep the center going through the end of the year.
However, Buffalo says it’s the community-based efforts that are truly important.
Many of those who utilize the warming center shared with her that they feel safe and protected because it is familiar and that they are surrounded by people they know.
“Some of the relatives, they may have potentially been children here when their parents or their mom was going to treatment, and they may have played out on the playground. There’s a lot of history people share about MIWRC, sort of being present or being a part of their life.”
The warming center is expected to be open every Tuesday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. throughout the rest of the year.