Sustainable Housing Initiative

Conscious Alliance is proud to support a new sustainable housing project on Pine Ridge Reservation by partnering with the University of Colorado and the Native American Sustainable Housing Initiative (NASHI), a nonprofit design-build program seeking to improve housing conditions on tribal lands through research, education, and outreach activities. CU Environmental Design students are currently teaming up with students from Oglala Lakota College (OLC) on Pine Ridge who are studying Construction Technology to offer this project called ‘Designing for People and Place: Sustainable & Affordable Housing for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.’

Many of the houses on the reservation are substandard, lacking electricity and working sewage systems, plagued with mold, and too small to house extended families. Together students from CU and OLC are designing and building energy-efficient homes that are affordable and meet the cultural needs of those on the reservation.

The project will address the need for environmentally sound and economical housing, and increase the capacity, knowledge, and resources of OLC students to build sustainable and energy efficient homes that are suitable for their community members on Pine Ridge. The project will also give Lakota students at OLC the chance to acquire the necessary skills to foster future economic development opportunities in sustainable housing development and construction.