Robert Young once was a successful Seattle business owner who thought poverty was "someone else’s responsibility." But a visit in 1994 to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota changed his thinking—and the course of his life—dramatically.

"Pine Ridge looked like a Third World country," recalls Young, 45, who was shocked at the widespread poverty he saw: homes with no heat, no electricity, no running water. He returned to Seattle vowing to do something about the problem.

A year later, he came back to Pine Ridge, along with a crew of volunteers, to build a new home for one of the residents, Lakota elder Katherine Red Feather, 75. "It was the hardest work I’ve ever done," Young admits. But it also was the most meaningful, planting the seeds for the nonprofit organization that Young would start to assist American Indians in improving housing conditions on their reservations.  

Red Feather Development educates and empowers American Indian nations to create sustainable solutions to the severe housing crisis within reservation communities. While focusing public attention on the intergenerational poverty and acute community development problems that plague American Indian reservations, Red Feather teaches affordable, replicable and sustainable approaches to home construction. Red Feather organizes volunteers, and, alongside tribal members, builds desperately needed homes.

Of the 2.5 million tribal members living on American Indian reservations, more than 300,000 are homeless or living in life-threatening conditions. Thousands more live in substandard, over-crowded conditions. Many homes lack running water, electricity and sanitation. Elders are often isolated with few options for help should they need it.

Robert Young is recipient of numerous awards and recognition including Oprah's Angel Network's "Use Your Life Award" and the Volvo for Life Award.

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