Jan S. Gephardt's Artdog Studio

Nurturing creativity with art, animals, and science fiction

Tag: homelessness in US

Can the New Year bring new attitudes?

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On December 31, 2018

In Artdog Quote of the Week, Equity and Equality Issues, Response to Disasters, Social Justice

The Artdog Quote(s) of the Week

I’d like to wrap up our month-long focus on homelessness in the Quotes of the Week with some thoughts about the future: specifically, the generation that is growing up homeless right now. What does homelessness do to a child? It’s devastating. And the ill-effects can last for decades. Even a lifetime. Complacency isn’t an option.

Can we do a reset? I fear it’s an uphill battle. But another year is coming, a whole season of fresh starts and new beginnings. Can we have hope?

Better to ask: can we dare (or bear) not to have hope?

IMAGES: Many thanks to StoreMyPic for the quote image from Cyndi Lauper about youth homelessness; to MoreFamousQuotes, for more of the above; and to Stephanie Guzman’s Pinterest board for the “The Greatest Cruelty” (unattributed) quote-image.

What is poverty, and what should we think of the poor?

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On December 17, 2018

In Artdog Quote of the Week, Social Justice

The Artdog Quote(s) of the Week

We celebrated Human Rights Day last week, but human rights should be part of our values every day, all year long. As noted in last week’s quote, housing is listed in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as one of the fundamentals. Yet homelessness is a widespread phenomenon, both in the USA and around the world.

IMAGES: Many thanks to Nyamnyam via Pinterest, for the quote-image from Bryan Stevenson. Unfortunately, Nyamnyam.mobi doesn’t seem to exist anymore. I did find a Nyamnyam.net that appears to come from a similar place philosophically. You might enjoy their page. Many thanks also to QuoteHD (also here), for the Sheila McKechnie quote-image (see also her foundation), and to Liberals are Cool via Summer Rain, for the “Poverty is not a lack of character” quote-image.

Universal human rights

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On December 11, 2018

In Uncategorized

The Artdog Quote of the Week

Yesterday was Human Rights Day, when this post was originally supposed to go live (many apologies!). But human rights are important every day. My theme for the December Quotes is homelessness. I think this excerpt from the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, ratified 70 years ago in 1948, is fittingly consistent with that theme.

IMAGE: I created today’s image. The background photo is one I took last September in Dallas, TX; the words, as credited, are from the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25(1). Please feel free to use the quote image if you wish, but kindly include an attribution to me (Jan S. Gephardt) as the creator and a link back to this post. Thanks!

No accident

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On December 3, 2018

In Artdog Quote of the Week, Education, Equity and Equality Issues, Response to Disasters, Social Justice, USA Patriotism

The Artdog Quote(s) of the Week

I recently realized that I’ve talked about habitat loss several times this year on this blog, but always in the context of plants and animals in the environment, never about humans losing their homes, except in the context of natural disasters.

But there’s an ongoing, not-too-dramatic-looking but heartbreaking and needless disaster unfolding in our country. Not the addiction epidemic, although it’s related. It’s a crisis of homelessness.

I’ll focus mainly on the US for my thoughts about homelessness in my December Quotes of the Week, because that’s a political system and society in which I participate. But it’s a global problem that all too few people are thinking about or addressing.

It’s time we started improving our record. Practical steps:

(1) Educate yourself. Start on the Internet but don’t stop there.

(2) Contribute as you can to a local, well-run homeless shelter or food bank.

(3) Educate others. Post, tweet, talk, participate.

(4) Advocate for change. Write, call, or otherwise communicate to local, state, and national government that you care about this issue!

IMAGES:Many thanks to Quote Addicts, via Joyce Naren’s Pinterest board , for the Linda Lingle quote-image; to UNDP (the United Nations Development Program) and the Summer Rain website, for the Nelson Mandela quote-image; and once again to Summer Rain for the Mahatma Gandhi quote-image.

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