by Kevin Schofield
This weekend’s read is a report from 2021 analyzing the results of the “War on Poverty,” declared in 1964 by then-President Lyndon Johnson. This isn’t the first attempt to decipher whether the “war” has been won or lost, nor will it be the last. But it turns out to be an interesting dive into the issues around how we define poverty.
Continue reading Weekend Reads | The War on Poverty, 60 Years Laterby Ronnie Estoque
Byrd Barr Place has served the Central District community since the 1960s. The organization’s recent renovation of the historical building Firehouse No. 23 at 722 18th Ave is allowing them to return to the space with increased programming capacity, which includes food and energy and housing assistance as well as financial tools to more than 1,100 households every week.
Continue reading The Central District’s Byrd Barr Place Expands Programming in a Renovated Historic Spaceby Zelda Foxall
Chardonnay Beaver’s recent article for the South Seattle Emerald, “The Call for a National Moral Revival – Part 1: The Poor People’s Campaign Then and Now” reminds us that more than 50 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King led the Poor People’s Campaign to put the focus on poverty. The aim was to bring together all races through this common struggle of being poor in America. And yet, here we are today, still fighting poverty.
Continue reading OPINION | The Child Tax Credit Has One Last Chance for Expansion in 2022by bigg villainus
As I’m preparing to leave Seattle, I will live out of my car and travel the nation advocating for prison abolition and building solidarity with other abolitionist communities. And as I prepare to leave, a haunting thought sets in. I am once again going to be houseless, in a pandemic no less.
Continue reading OPINION: Seattle’s Curbs and Cornersby Tammy Morales
When it comes to addressing gun violence in our community, it’s time to put our money where our mouth is. Organizations like Safe Passage, Boys & Girls Club’s SE Network, Rainier Beach Action Coalition (RBAC), and Urban Family invest time in our communities, support our young people, and build community. They have been doing essential work long before Omari Wallace was shot and killed on March 18. In fact, we were supposed to be having a Zoom meeting about the increase of South Seattle shootings when we learned that a young man walked into the Emerald City Bible Fellowship and shot 19-year-old Wallace who was there attending a meeting.
Continue reading OPINION: Gun Violence Is a Symptom of Povertyby Carolyn Bick
Every day, Lynda Greene and her fellow staffers at the SouthEast Seattle Senior Center field about 30–45 phone calls from community elders trying to schedule an appointment to get vaccinated against the novel coronavirus.
Most of these callers are crying. Most of them are Black.
Continue reading Elders of Color Face Major Hurdles Getting COVID Vaccineby Rich Stolz and Anna Zivarts
Following years of local advocacy and heightened scrutiny by the movement for Black lives around enforcement practices, Sound Transit has announced a new approach to fare enforcement on public transit: the fare ambassador pilot program. This pivot from a punitive system to a supportive one is long overdue. Sound Transit and other agencies must see this process through and fully divorce its transit fare system from the court system. Failure to pay for a transit ticket — whether due to poverty or misunderstanding — should never place transit riders at risk for devastating legal, financial, or physical harm.
Continue reading OPINION: No One Should Go to Court Because They Can’t Afford a Transit Ticketby Villainus (formerly Bypolar)
People have blamed the houseless crisis in Seattle on a lot of things: mental illness, chemical dependency, even laziness. In truth, they point a finger in every direction except toward the root cause: gentrification.
Continue reading OPINION: War Against the Poor, Weeding of the Emeralds
by Kelsey Hamlin
When it was all over and I said,
“I realized college doesn’t usually happen for people like me,”
Your face tensed
and you asked what I meant.
by Bypolar
The Northwest Daily Marker published an article by Jason Paulus arguing that these shanty towns that have been popping up all over the city are breeding addiction and killing addicts. He argued that we must ban addicts from housing, requiring sobriety and enrollment in treatment to be housed.
Because we are approaching the cold and rainy seasons, Jason, it seems like you are the one trying to kill addicts. Paulus takes the stance that people experiencing houselessness must hit rock bottom before they can get clean, because that is what he needed.
Continue reading OPINION: Burning the Slums, a War on the Poor
