While every community is different, the similarities are vast, especially as it pertains to having people of different backgrounds living in the same place.

"How can we expand our world view to honor and acknowledge other people's values," said Maureen Hansen, the district director for the 3rd Judicial District in Iowa.

In Sioux City, Iowa, of those in the criminal justice system, many are indigenous.

"In the entire eight judicial districts in Iowa, 66% of Native Americans that are on correctional supervision reside in our district," Hansen explained.

Maureen Hansen leads the department that works with people on probation and parole in this part of Iowa. She also helps them adjust to life after prison. With Native Americans being incarcerated at a rate 38% higher than the U.S. average for all other groups, Hansen and her team have acknowledged the changes needed to better serve this community.

"I think our jobs have taken a more social work approach than the criminal justice approach or kind of having a balance between the two," said Sara Anderson, a community treatment coordinator for the district.

Anderson organizes workshops, training, and books speakers, who educate their staff on native customs and history.

"If we just would immerse ourselves in different cultures and go outside of our comfort zone, then any of those biases that we may or may not be aware of get challenged," said Kashe Utesch, another community treatment coordinator.

People like Anderson and Utesch work directly with people whose current outcomes rely heavily on corrections understanding and respecting Native history.

"Still in 2022, we have clients that because of generational trauma, because of the boarding schools we had here, don't want to go places and struggle with that," said Utesch.

Will Myer, a juvenile probation officer, points out this is far from how the Indigenous community was always treated.

"Traditional probation was always pounding a square peg into a round hole. If you look at any government policy with Native people, it's always been this is what works for me it better work for you," Myer said.

He points to some prison systems using traditional medicine as the only option for treating sickness, when Indigenous people may use other treatments and have for hundreds of years.

"Sometimes they aren't treated with respect. Sometimes social workers, probation officers, judges, they make a choice to have a disrespectful attitude," said Terry Medina, a former probation officer.

As a Native man and a former probation officer, Medina says understanding cultural differences is crucial.

"As non-Native, we need to respect that, and how can we let them have some of their Native possessions in their properties and respecting those boundaries with them," Hansen said.

Now, on the other side of the criminal justice system, Trisha Etringer wants more incarcerated Natives to have this experience as opposed to the one she had.

"This is really personal when it comes to working with the probation and parole officers here in Sioux City, Iowa, because I was part of that system," said Etringer. "To go back to your office now and say, 'Wow, I didn't even realize. Maybe I had a client that was a part of the Indian boarding school era. This makes a lot of sense.'"

This community is just one example of the positive effects respecting and understanding culture can bring.

"Community corrections is about having a healthy community; it's about having a safe community," Hansen said.

"We see people getting better. We see people getting stronger and people feeling better about themselves," Myer said.

"It can adapt how we work with our clients, but it can also adapt to how we raise our next generation to have a better cultural understanding," Anderson said.

SHONTO, Arizona — Living conditions on the Navajo reservation resemble a third-world country. Households lack necessities taken for granted in much of America, including running water, electricity and internet access.

"I did not grow up with running water. It's normal. You just work 10 times harder than anybody else to obtain water," Shanna Yazzie, who grew up on the Navajo Nation and is raising her children there today.

Yazzie is a project manager with the Navajo Water Project, an indigenous-led nonprofit working to bring running water and solar power to homes on the Navajo Nation.

Dirt roads and worn gasoline pumps are a constant reminder of generations left behind. Through numerous treaties, the U.S. government made promises to maintain and support the needs of Native communities in exchange for land. But calls to address these failings have often been ignored.

"What's really struck me has been their resilience. It really is a strong sense of community," said George McGraw, founder of DigDepp. "And that's what's really allowed them to survive — despite a world around them that in many ways is organized to erase and destroy their culture."

Left vulnerable to the deadly pandemic, challenges on the reservation were put in the national spotlight. At one point, the reservation had the highest rate of COVID-19 infections per capita in the country.

Now, these basic needs are within reach for tribal communities and reservations across the U.S., with the newly-signed infrastructure bill promising to address decades of unfunded projects and broken promises.

"This infrastructure bill is really like a once-in-a-generation opportunity to work on this problem," said McGraw. "It's hundreds and thousands of projects, all shovel-ready."

The bill allocates $3.5 billion for the Indian Health Service (IHS). The agency says the funding will be enough to address more than 1,500 projects nationwide on its list of water and sanitation issues, including water lines, bathrooms, sanitation facilities, and water treatment plants.

"It's really difficult to understate what impact that will have on native communities. To take, you know, decades of projects that have sat there unfunded and really languished and push them all forward," said McGraw.

He says 30% of Navajo homes don't have running water. Families must travel for miles to haul back every drop they need to survive.

The infrastructure bill also provides $4 billion in funding to fix roads and $2 billion to expand internet access.

"We're going to be watching that process really closely, assisting where we can, representing communities and making sure their voices are heard. But it will not solve the problem. It will not close the water gap fully in the United States. That's going to take significantly more investment," said McGraw.

Advocates are calling for better data collection on the problem.

"We're using old data to estimate access," said McGraw. "We're going to have this new influx of money. What collection mechanism do we have to prove that that money is getting where it's needed? That that number is shrinking? And it's something that we're talking to federal agencies and to lawmakers and to tribal officials now, but I don't have a good answer to that question now."

But he says the bill is historic and gets tribal communities on the path to finally accessing life-saving infrastructure needs.

"It gets us, you know, into that fight," said McGraw. I have a lot of hope."