Tribal

Potawatomi people have called the land in the lower Great Lakes area home for hundreds of years. Around the turn of the nineteenth century when American immigrants first came to southwestern Michigan, they would have found the Potawatomi leader Leopold Pokagon and his villagers living in what is now Bertrand Township, Michigan.

The descendants of this group, about 4,300 tribal citizens today, are the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi. The Pokagon homeland is identified as the ten counties of LaPorte, St. Joseph, Elkhart, Starke, Marshall and Kosciusko in Indiana and the four counties of Berrien, Cass, Van Buren and Allegan in Michigan.

Tribal Resources

Transportation 

Transportation services are available for Pokagon Band citizens and members of federally-recognized tribes with a Pokagon Band Department of Health Services referral in an effort to reduce barriers to health care. When all other means of transportation are exhausted, members are eligible to receive transportation to and from medical appointments, as long as they live within the ten county service area and have satisfied Health Services eligibility requirements.

Pokagon Tribal Transit Feasibility Study Here

Eligibility Requirements

Door-to-door transportation servicesto Pokagon Band Health Services are available to members of the Potawatami and other federally recognized tribes for the following referred health-related appointments.

1. Clinic, dental and eye glass appointments 
2. Doctor and non-emergency hospital appointments 
3. Dialysis 
4. Physical and behavioral therapy 
5. Wheelchair transportation

NOTE: Transportation must be referred by the Department of Health Services (DOHS) -and must be for medical appointments only. For more information and scheduling, please contact transportation's main office number, (269) 782-4141 extension 267.

Michigan's Federally Recognized Tribes