Bago-Ga Napo: Tule House Elders’ Village at Big Valley Rancheria

MASS, through the Sustainable Native Communities Design Lab, have partnered with the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians of the Big Valley Rancheria to design and plan for eight units of modular housing to help bring dignified elder housing to the community at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, the Big Valley Rancheria has many elders that live in situations that are overcrowded and lack reliable access to amenities, resulting in the risk of multiple health issues. This situation was further exacerbated by COVID-19, and BVR identified the elder population as the most vulnerable population of the community during this time.

With funding from the CARES Act, Big Valley Rancheria secured a parcel of land and worked with design consultants and mod manufacturers to modify home designs and specify materials for rapid development. The project’s first phase assembled six units of solar ready one-bedroom, one-bath homes, grouped into two clusters on the eastern and western halves of the site. A second phase is anticipated with infrastructure in place to receive two additional homes for full site buildout. Site development features shared access paths to communal deck ‘islands’ and pier foundations that will secure the site against potential flooding.

Big Valley Rancheria sees the rollout of these homes as the first step in a replicable approach to flood-responsive developments for the Big Valley Pomo community which is in the process of growing the Pomo Nation through purchasing fee-simple parcels and bringing them into Tribal trust over time while continuing to build pathbreaking Tribal water and Tribal wastewater networks to serve a growing set of sovereign Tribal lands.