Our Story

WULABITK (ROOTS): OUR STORY 

Regional Context: Addressing Dual Crises

Since time immemorial, the Wiyot people have lived along Shou’r (the Pacific Ocean) and around Wigi (Humboldt Bay). Until the onset of settler-colonialism in the 1850s they have lived in reciprocal relationship with over 40 miles of coastline, extending inland about 10 miles, living in balance with the plants, animals, earth, water, and air across multiple ecosystems and watersheds. Today, this unceded ancestral territory is marked by the negative effects of decades of extractive practices around fur, minerals, timber, fishing, water diversion, and more recently, real estate speculation. This has left the region to face increasing economic inequality alongside environmental degradation and destabilization. 

Dishgamu Humbodlt was created to address these challenges and help restore balance to Wiyot ancestral territory - now a collection of highly interdependent yet disparately governed cities and towns, as well as the population center of Humboldt County and the northern California coast. Our deeply rooted environmental knowledge and territorial-scale perspective make us uniquely equipped to address the scale and complexity of the challenges before us.            

Affordable Housing

A key symptom of this imbalance is the lack of access to affordable, safe, and healthy housing. This not only impacts the ability of Wiyot people to remain in their homeland, but threatens the ability of the entire community to thrive in right relationship to the land. Short-sighted or profit-driven responses to current housing market pressures threaten to destroy natural resources, put communities in the path of environmental hazards, and ignore the needs of historically underserved communities. The current market creates many contradictions: over a thousand houseless people living alongside vacant buildings; residents in subsidized housing choosing between economic advancement and housing security; and supposed solutions only adding fuel to the current crisis. Dishgamu Humboldt seeks to establish radically alternative forms of housing development that remove the profit-motive and empower communities. 

Understanding the scale of our region’s housing needs and the communities most impacted helps us set priorities for new housing construction and affordable housing preservation. 

It is clear that those with incomes below the area median are the most vulnerable in our current housing market. Below are example median incomes for certain demographics in Humboldt County, compared to the area median of $54,752.

Acute Housing Shortage in Wiyot Territory

According to Humboldt County’s state-mandated Regional Housing Needs Assessment, the county must produce 3390 new units by 2027. The vast majority of these are either assigned to or likely to be built within Wiyot Ancestral Territory.

Environmental Hazards

Our region is growing - yet environmental hazards limit the areas suitable for new development and threaten already urbanized areas. Many of these hazards have been exacerbated or caused by human-driven climate change. We cannot only seek to avoid increasing   hazards, but must also proactively combat their cause. This dynamic calls for a strategic approach to both land conservation and housing development. By mapping current and projected environmental risks, we can make informed decisions about how to acquire and use land, as well as how to direct development in ways that support community resilience and reduce carbon emissions that drive climate change.

Wildfire

While the coastal communities of Humboldt County are less susceptible to direct damage from wildfires, escalating fire danger throughout the rest of the county - and other rural communities across California - has led to an increased demand for housing in safer zones such as Eureka and Arcata. At the same time, these coastal areas often suffer from the accumulation of wildfire smoke and poor air quality. Regional wildfires are driven both by historic drought as well as overstocked forests.

Sea Level Rise

Most of the population of Humboldt County is centered around Wigi (Humboldt Bay) where the land is sinking at the same rate the sea level is rising, increasing the extent of the coastal inundation zone and tsunami hazard zone. Many buildings in Eureka and Samoa are currently in these zones. The area also relies on a natural gas power plant that is located within the current tsunami hazard zone.

Seismic

Major fault lines cross Wiyot ancestral territory, including Alquist Priolo Zones that slice through densely populated areas of Arcata and McKinleyville. Offshore seismic zones contribute to extreme tsunami threats. Much of the low lying area around Wigi (Humboldt Bay) is a liquefaction zone, including most of the City of Arcata.