Firesteel Blog

Stand Against Racism: Racism in the Healthcare System

It is April 27th Stand Against Racism event day! We continue our Stand Against Racism blog series with a look at challenges in the healthcare system. 

Poor health is often associated with homelessness. Health problems present a barrier and financial burden that often affect the ability to work and pay rent. (Check out this fact sheet)  Crystal Ybarra was a recent Americorps VISTA with the YWCA Seattle I King I Snohomish and is currently experiencing significant health issues. She is a woman of color and a single mother. She has faced significant challenges at other points in her life including housing difficulty. Here are her thoughts on her present illness. 

Stand Against Racism: White privilege, housing, and the changing nature of systemic racism

We continue our Stand Against Racism blog series as we lead up to the April 27th Stand Against Racism event day.

Rick Derksen and his wife recently moved to Seattle. His house hunt brought him to a home just off of Martin Luther King, Jr. Way where the Central District, Madrona, and Leschi meet, not far from downtown Seattle. They wanted to live in an area with racial and cultural diversity.  Rick shares his discovery of how he unwittingly participated in gentrification, an example of systemic racism that, in some ways, has replaced the restrictive covenants of the past. How does he deal with this knowledge and the accompanying feelings? Read on.

Stand Against Racism: Seattle’s Housing History

We continue our Stand Against Racism blog series as we lead up to the April 27th Stand Against Racism event day. 

I recently was searching for a new rental and spending lots of time on Craigslist. Every time I move, I always consider what neighborhood I would prefer to live in and the characteristics that come with the neighborhood. Diversity is important to me but it seems odd that diversity is a characteristic that can be applied really to only a few neighborhoods, and those neighborhoods have changed over time. Why is this? I've come across a few resources that give great insight into the history of Seattle housing. We live with a legacy of structural racism that has shaped our neighborhoods. That racism may not be as overt today, but there is even more power in its current subtleties as it continues to influence our housing choices. 

Photo Friday: National Volunteer Appreciation Week

We're introducing our first weekly feature! Think of it as a theme for a specific day that you can come to expect. Today we begin "Photo Friday." From people to places, we'll be sharing images that tell stories. With this week being National Volunteer Appreciation Week, how better to start it off than by highlighting a community volunteer! 

Making Change By Telling True Stories

Dan Lamont is a photojournalist. In 2010 he created multimedia stories on family homelessness as a Seattle University Journalism Fellow funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Mechanisms and avenues for telling these stories have changed. The old publishing venues and supporting business structures have crumbled. What has come to take their place is exciting and rife with potential but still unformed and unpredictable. Those who want to report on important social issues must find new ways in this noisy new media environment. Here Dan shares some creative new media opportunities for supporting social change.

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