A new supportive housing community in Warm Springs features 10 one-bedroom units and a duplex for people transitioning out of homelessness.

The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs secured a $2 million federal grant to continue a project renovating an abandoned trailer park into stick-built homes for tribal members.

The grant will pay for six new two-bedroom homes, adding to eight homes under construction from a previous federal grant in what the Warm Springs Housing Authority hopes will become a 45-unit development.

The award comes from the latest round of Indian Community Development Block Grant program funding through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and was part of $16 million for tribal entities in Oregon, Washington and Alaska.

“By supporting infrastructure and affordable housing, we are fostering resilience and sustainability within these vibrant communities,” said Andrew Lofton, northwest regional administrator for the federal housing agency, in a news release.

The units will be affordable rentals — and potentially home ownership units — for households earning less than 80% of the area median income, using a formula from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to determine rent payments.

While the project will provide much-needed housing, it comes with the added benefits of cleaning up an abandoned and dilapidated trailer park that became an eyesore over the years, said housing authority Director Danielle Wood. Building on the old trailer park site is advantageous because it already has water, sewer and other infrastructure that’s lacking on other parts of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, Wood said.

“We have opportunities to go and reclaim infrastructure in these abandoned lots,” she said.

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The federal grant adds to a larger effort to increase housing supply on the reservation and combat rising homelessness numbers.

Homelessness among Native Americans and Alaska Natives has jumped by 53% since 2015, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Indigenous people are about four times as likely to be homeless than average, according to the alliance.

In Central Oregon, Indigenous people make up nearly 10% of the homeless population, but only 2% of the overall population, according to the 2024 Point-in-Time Count.

This fall the tribes celebrated the opening of a 10-unit permanent supportive housing project in Warm Springs, funded by a $4 million grant from the Oregon Department of Housing and Community Services. Last year the tribe received two federal grants totaling nearly $10 million to build housing.

The units will add to an existing stock of about 300 units owned by the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs.

“I think it’s gonna add to what we’ve already got going,” Wood said.