PHOENIX INDIAN CENTER

After years of using volunteers to help maintain the location on Wall Street (Downtown), the Center received funding and created a more formal structure.

In 1954, the Center incorporated with the State of Arizona as a private non-profit "501(c)(3)" status.

Today, the Center is the primary resource of social, economic, educational, leadership, employment and training for urban American Indians residing in Maricopa County.

The Phoenix Indian Center is the oldest urban-based nonprofit organization serving the needs of American Indians.

The Phoenix Indian Center provides services for both youth and adults along with targeting the family structure as a whole.

It is our goal to keep families in tact and help them maneuver through the difficult situations they encounter within their extended family unit.

Adult services provided are employment counseling/job training and job readiness classes, adult education (GED) classes and Life Skills classes.

Youth services include substance abuse prevention programming, cultural enrichment, in-school support groups and suicide prevention awareness.

Family-based services are case management, language and culture classes, and on-site childcare for customers utilizing PIC services.

History and Facts

The Phoenix Indian Center is the oldest and the first created Native American non-profit organization in the Nation. It was formed in 1947 as an outgrowth of Native people moving to urban Phoenix not only to sell their crafts and goods but as a result of the Federal Government's Indian Relocation Act.

The Federal Government's Indian Relocation Act (PL 959) created a mass migration of American Indians from rural, reservation settings to large scale cities across the United States during the 1950-1960's. The act was an attempt to assimilate American Indians into the prevailing non-Indian city life culture and remove their practice of Native culture and traditions through the break-up of reservation systems. As a result of the Act and a period well-known as the Federal governments "termination period," several Indian Centers were formed in the major "relocation" cities across the country. These Centers provided a place for American Indians to connect and socialize with other Indians and to receive various necessary services. Phoenix was designated as one of the original "relocation cities."

The Indian Relocation Act began the network of a large urban American Indian community in the Phoenix metropolitan area, resulting in members from several different tribes moving to the area. Today, well over 90,000 American Indians reside off-reservation in Maricopa County, ranked second by county with largest number of American Indians (U.S., Census Bureau's 2006-2008 American Community Survey (ACS)).

The Phoenix Indian Center has evolved over its several years of existence adding several social service programs, educational and school-based prevention programming, workforce development and language and culture programming. Each year the Center also looks at new, needed services for our ever growing Native population in the Maricopa valley. But as the Center evolves over its nearly 60 years of existence, one thing has always held true - it provides a home environment for Native people looking for opportunity and finding a difficult and challenging, foreign and unfamiliar environment in the Phoenix valley.

* Is the oldest, continuing American Indian Center in the Nation, operating for 63 years (since 1947);

* The Center was founded by Leon Grant, Omaha Tribal member, now residing in Chinle, Arizona;

* The Center has assisted nearly every, direct and indirectly, urban Indian residing in metropolitan Phoenix;