Tiny houses serve as models.
Harriet Hoskyns-Abrahall, who resides at the Lenbrook retirement community in Buckhead, has lived in 15 countries. Born in England, she grew up in India, earned a law degree and lectured at the University of Edinburgh, worked with the British consulate in Bombay (now called Mumbai) and spent many years on the management team at the YMCA. Today, she’s involved with the YMCA of the Seven Council Fires initiative that’s building tiny homes on the Cheyenne River Reservation in Dupree, South Dakota, for the Sioux Nation, a part of the Lakota Nation.
“After a group of 17 of us over 60 retired from the Y, we didn’t want to stop contributing and asked what we could do to help,” Hoskyns-Abrahall says. “Out of 47 projects vetted by the Y, we selected the tiny homes initiative on the reservation known for Chief Sitting Bull and the Wounded Knee Massacre.”
The project began in 2021 to help solve the housing crisis on Native American reservations. It was funded by 600 donors who raised $1 million to build four identical tiny homes designed with input from tribe members. A fifth home is in the works. Because of the harsh weather conditions in summers and winters, volunteers come in waves for three weeks in the spring and fall. Hoskyns-Abrahall has traveled to Dupree four times but due to an injury, she wasn’t able to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony in September. To further contribute, she wrote a series of eight pamphlets about the Lakota Nation.
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