NATIVE AMERICAN HEALTH CENTER INC
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Mission Statement
Native American Health Center’s mission is to provide comprehensive services to improve the health and well-being of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and residents of the surrounding communities, with respect for cultural and linguistic differences.
About This Cause
NAHC provides its members with primary medical and dental care, clinical behavioral health care, preventive services, and social services. Its broad range of community-based, culturally-appropriate services are integrated into a holistic system of care founded on the principle that an individual’s health is affected by factors such as financial security, work, housing, and community and social issues. Though the organization remains rooted in its commitment to American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN), NAHC’s services and programs are open to all individuals. A growing number of low-income Bay Area residents who have limited or no access to mainstream health care systems, and those who experience alienation due to the limitations of those systems, seek care at NAHC. Nearly half-a-century ago, the Bay Area American Indian community organized to open a health center dedicated to serving Urban Indians. The drive to establish the new health center arose as an act of cultural resilience in response to the Federal Indian Relocation policy, and as a reflection of the values represented by the subsequent American Indian Movement (AIM). The Indian Relocation Act of 1956 was one of many government efforts to push American Indians and Alaska Natives to assimilate into mainstream culture. From the early 1950s through the 1980s, AIAN from all nations who were living on reservation lands were pushed out by the federal government to relocate to major urban centers. The government promised to provide them with moving expenses, education, housing, vocational training, employment, and even medical insurance once they moved. Though thousands of American Indians left their communities to move to cities, the Relocation program failed to deliver the benefits it promised, leaving many homeless, jobless, disconnected from community, and alienated from their traditional support systems. Making matters worse, the government dissolved some of the reservations and terminated the tribal status of numerous groups, making it impossible for many people to return to their ancestral homes. San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose were among the first cities identified as relocation centers for this ill-conceived program, along with Los Angeles, Denver, Salt Lake City, Chicago, Dallas, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. With relocation centers in its three largest cities, the Bay Area became home to one of the largest intertribal American Indian urban populations in the United States. Tragically, the illusion of the government’s promises of a better life lifted like fog when thousands of AIAN arrived in the Bay Area to find scarce jobs, housing, or access to affordable health care. In response to these circumstances, the American Indian Movement grew in the 1960s alongside other civil rights activist movements organizing at the time, and Urban Indian populations came together as a multi-tribal community to organize for greater self-determination. During the American Indian occupation of Alcatraz Island from 1969-1971, multi-tribal representatives voiced a shared vision for health, education, vocational training, and social service programs run by and for American Indians. Reports from tribal representatives revealed that many Native Americans in the Bay Area at this time were living in hiding, unaccounted for since they did not have the jobs, housing, or access to health care and education they had been promised. The end of the Alcatraz occupation gave rise to a wellness center that would serve the Native American community and honor their cultural and spiritual values. The Native American Health Center (NAHC), initially known as the Urban Indian Health Board, began in San Francisco’s Mission District in 1972.