The filing that moved the group-housing count
Friendship House Association of American Indians filed an application and a letter with the San Francisco Planning Department on 26 March 2026. The filing amended the group-housing unit count at The Village from 21 to 36.
The change came at the request of the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development. Mission Local reported the filing and the office behind it.
The count covers group-housing units.
Six floors and the uses stacked on them
The Village rises six stories at 80 Julian Ave. near 15th Street. The site sits near 16th and Mission streets.
The first two floors hold culinary and tech training, small-business mentorship and an incubator for Native businesses.
The third floor houses a behavioural-health clinic with the Native American Health Center. The health centre operates at 160 Capp St. between 17th and 16th streets.
The fourth and fifth floors hold transitional housing for women who graduate from Friendship House recovery programmes. The sixth floor holds a women's addiction-recovery lodge.
The rooftop carries a garden and a children's play area. The courtyard carries a redwood grove and a traditional sweat lodge.
A September 2026 groundbreaking
The project breaks ground in September, according to the project director Peter Bratt. The construction period runs 18 to 20 months.
Developers expect to announce a formal date for a groundbreaking ceremony sometime this summer.
A September start against an 18-to-20-month build lands completion in spring 2028.
The 80-bed programme at 56 Julian Avenue
The Village sits a few feet from an 80-bed substance-recovery and prevention programme at 56 Julian Ave. Friendship House runs that programme, and the same organisation develops The Village.
The relationship is the project's operating logic. Women who graduate from the recovery programmes move into the transitional floors. The sixth-floor lodge serves the same population.
Waukazoo founded the organisation in the 1960s
Helen Waukazoo founded Friendship House in the 1960s. She died in 2021.
Waukazoo was born in 1941. She was taken from her family on the Navajo reservation at Crownpoint, New Mexico, at a young age. A boarding school in Utah sent her to San Francisco to work as a house cleaner under the Indian Relocation Act.
She became a community activist and founded the organisation. Bratt said Natives live in urban centres and remain largely invisible and underserved. He said Waukazoo held the idea of bringing the village way of life to where Indian people were living in urban centres.
The director who leads the project today
Peter Bratt directs the project. He and his brother, the actor Benjamin Bratt, have a long history with it.
Their mother was an Indigenous woman from Peru. She took part in the Alcatraz occupation and lived with her sons during it. She was a friend of Waukazoo.
Bratt described the project as a critical moment and a testament to Waukazoo's vision and dream. He said the day will likely be emotional for him, and that the community already carries excitement about it.
A campaign roughly 90 percent raised
The organisation has raised approximately 90 percent of its capital campaign target, Bratt said. The group has raised some $74 million and needs a remaining $10 million.
The funding comes from city, state and private dollars.
$74 million raised against $10 million outstanding puts the campaign target near $84 million.