Stimulus Dollars Make Bode’wadmi Trail Houses Possible for Gun Lake Tribe

by Levi Rickert, editor-in-chief in Native Currents. Discussion »

WAYLAND TOWNSHIP, MICHIGAN - Money received from a Native American Housing Block Grant, which was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was used to build nine homes along Bode’wadmi Trail for the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians.

61 People Employed

The Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians, commonly known as the Gun Lake Tribe, was one of 104 American Indian tribes and Alaskan villages that won were awarded the stimulus dollars from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development of the 327 that applied.

104 HUD Grants Awarded

“One of the main objectives of the stimulus was to put people to work… as of the end of September, we have had 61 people who had been employed,”

said Melissa Brown, the housing director for the Gun Lake Tribe.

Bode’wadmi is the traditional name for Potawatomi.

The Bode’wadmi Trail homes are going to be made available first to elders, those 50 years-old or older, and then to tribal members above 18 years of age, if enough elders are not placed in the homes. Ownership of the homes will remain with the Tribe; occupants will rent the homes.

9 Homes Built

The new homes are another feather in the cap for the Tribe formally “recognized” by the federal government in 1999. The Tribe opened its Gun Lake Casino on February 10, 2011, after a decade-long battle, to overwhelming success.

Tribal members overwhelmingly named the housing development “The Settlement” because the land historically was known as the Bradley Indian Settlement. Bode’wadmi Trail is located near the Bradley Indian Cemetery and Bradley United Methodist Indian Mission in Wayland Township, Michigan.

Wayland Township is located about halfway between Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo.