One woman's journey to solve the housing crisis with empathy, love, and Cherokee heritage

In 1992, Wilma Mankiller gave the commencement address at Flagstaff’s Northern Arizona University.

Several years earlier, Mankiller had become the first female principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, that community's highest executive office. “Mankiller” is an old Cherokee word for “keeper of the village” – an apt description for a woman who devoted much of her adult life to the tribe.

“Even in my own community I have heard people talk about the environment, housing, homelessness, or any of the problems that we have: ‘Well, they're going to solve that problem.’ In American society, it is always, ‘They're going to solve that problem.’ I don't know who ‘they’ are,” Mankiller told the graduates. “I do not think that a great prophet is going to come along and save this country or save us and deal with all of these problems in a vacuum. We all have to take part.”

Three decades later, Mankiller’s sentiments resonate. The Cherokee Nation is a sovereign entity in the northeastern corner of Oklahoma, with over 450,000 citizens. The same challenges Mankiller mentioned in 1992 – the environment, housing, and homelessness – endure, but so does the spirit of “taking part.”

At 41, Amanda Thompson embodies the spirit Mankiller evoked. Thompson started her career as a nurse, but a few years ago, she found herself drawn to another calling. Now, she says, “I want to solve the housing crisis.”

She’s tackling it uniquely by starting a company that manufactures small, even tiny, modular homes. In a moment of great division over identifiers of personal diversity, Thompson is making the most of hers, both as a Cherokee and as a woman.

“I see what she's doing as both new and universal, but also reclaiming of traditions and roles that have historically been associated with Cherokee women and women in matrilineal Indigenous societies more broadly,” said Gregory Smithers, a professor of Indigenous history at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Her work has had an impact. Gary Merritt, a formerly homeless construction worker now employed by Thompson's company calls Thompson and her husband Jake “the best people I've met since I've been in Tulsa" in over 35 years.

'Our own children can't afford a place'

Thompson started her working life as a nurse, a career she’d heard paid well, she said. At the time a single mom, “working my butt off,” she found herself increasingly noticing how many people were struggling to afford housing, and how living arrangements often played a role in the care and health of her patients and other community members.

In the greater Tulsa area, “our own children can't afford a place,” Thompson told Paste BN. She also saw the need among older people, particularly those on fixed incomes who relied on in-home care, including her own mother in the years before she died.

Those instincts are confirmed by several regional studies. In 2024, the Cherokee Nation released the results of a housing study pointing to the need for nearly 9,000 new units. A year earlier, the city of Tulsa, which borders the Nation, had determined it too needed several thousand additional housing units to meet demand.

Thompson, her husband, Jake, and a partner spent time trying to think of creative ways to address the housing shortage. Jake had extensive experience in residential construction – but it was in the luxury market, and the group knew that was a different world. Much to their disappointment, that was what they saw being built around them – new homes that no one they knew could afford.

Then one day someone had an idea. “We said, let’s go talk to some of these shed building companies and see if maybe they can help us mass produce,” Thompson said, “but do it to housing code so we can do actual homes. And so we did.”

The shed manufacturers were a kernel of the idea that stuck: small homes, built in a factory, not out on a site where the mercurial Oklahoma weather could cause expensive delays.

“We knew we wanted to do it indoors, so we can just keep it assembly-line style and mass produce them,” Thompson told Paste BN. “We didn't go into it thinking small. It wasn't like, we're just going to build one or two, for this person or that. No, we want to literally tackle all of it. Give us all of it. Anybody across America that needs housing, let's do this thing.”

By 2024, they were ready to launch Prime Craftsman Homes, but Thompson still found herself with questions. How would she market the products? To whom? And as a woman, would she be taken seriously?

Then one day, a "God thing," in her words, happened.

An accelerator for Native women

Kathy Taylor was mayor of Tulsa from 2006 to 2009 and has served in Oklahoma state government as well. Taylor is also an accomplished entrepreneur and businesswoman: as the vice president of Thrifty Car Rental, she and her husband purchased the company, then spun it out through an initial public offering.

When she was named dean of the University of Tulsa’s business school in 2021, Taylor put her varied background to work launching entrepreneurship initiatives for Cherokee women.

“I researched around the nation and could find no group that specifically supported native founders,” Taylor said in an interview. "I do think that safe space and networking and mentorship with others who may be facing similar issues is important.”

She helped launch the University of Tulsa Cherokee Women's AcceleratHER Fellowship, which the university describes as “a program designed to empower Cherokee women founders and help scale their businesses through strategic guidance, mentorship, and access to capital.”

When Thompson saw an announcement about the program in her email, she saw it as a sign. Along with nine other Cherokee women, she became part of the second cohort in a 12-week program that received mentorship, advice, and funding.

For Taylor, seeing a younger generation of female entrepreneurs is “exciting,” she said, “although I have to say as I look at the statistics, the progress that I had hoped we would have made in the last decades is not where I wish it was.”

But Thompson’s idea, both in terms of getting homes constructed quickly, and also addressing the specific need for affordable homes, is “so important,” Taylor said. "Women-owned businesses generally not only have a for-profit impact, but a social impact as well."

The accelerator did what it was intended to: ramped up Prime Craftsman Homes' business. In early 2025, the company completed nine tiny homes for Eden Village, a homeless community in Tulsa. Thompson recently learned Eden Village wants the company to build 27 more.

In all, the company has built 47 homes since mid-2024, and has recently become certified to be a contractor for the Cherokee Nation, a step Thompson hopes will lead to more business – even though she’s already had interest in her products from people all over the country.

'We want to build humans too'

For Thompson, the construction process is just as important as the finished product.

One example: the Cherokee Nation has a work program for released felons. “They are having a hard time getting a job, so I'm going to partner up with them on that,” Thompson explained. “I would love for them to come here and reset. We don't just want to build buildings, we want to build humans too, you know.”

Merritt is among those Thompson is "building." The 64-year-old was homeless when he met Thompson – occasionally living in his car, or renting a hotel room for $75 a night. Now he lives on the premises of Prime Craftsman’s factory, offering his services as a carpenter, security guard, and anything else that’s needed. Thompson has plans to make him the owner of one of Prime Craftsman’s manufactured homes.

“The little homes are perfect for a person like me,” Merritt said. "I've been through a lot, you know, being out here in the streets, having to go to being homeless, not knowing if I'm going to have food the next day." Amanda and Jake, he said, operate "with the love of God."

Cherokee culture honors a concept called “Gadugi,” said Smithers, the VCU professor, which means working collectively for a common good. “It would seem to me that (Thompson) is very much doing that, bringing people into her circle of mutual respect and empathy and reciprocity.”

Thompson's efforts also belong in a long line of Cherokee women "leading efforts to be keepers of community and to provide leadership within a communal context," Smithers added.

Building a housing business has nudged Thompson into spheres she's never occupied before. Sometimes she has to wear a business suit, even though it can feel intimidating, she said. And other days she's handing out hard hats to workers on the floor.

"Yes, it's an odd place for a woman to be in construction," she said. "I don't care. This is not about male or female or whatever. This is about a huge problem that we're facing that I want to solve."