Kathryn Talks About Social Justice

One really great community organization in Champaign that I don’t think we’ve talked about is Crisis Nursery. They are an organization located near OSF in Urbana that provides free childcare and resources to families who are struggling. Crisis Nursery is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and requires no fees or income eligibility. They also have a 24 hour crisis line to help parents with anything they need. The main programs that Crisis Nursery has are Safe Children and Strong Families. The Safe Children program includes childcare and the crisis hotline. The Strong Families program aims to provide long-term resources for families and plans helpful programs. I think the fact that they tackle both short-term and long-term solutions is great and is the best way to truly help people. Another thing that is really great about Crisis Nursery is that they have a very open policy on who can receive help and why. On their website, they say that, “a crisis can be any situation placing str...

          I think the biggest and most important first step that we can take to solve homelessness in America is to provide longer-term, private housing for those in need. A couple days ago I found an article about how Finland has reduced their homeless population by 35% since implementing their “Housing First” policies in 2008. Housing First provides unconditional, private apartments and facilities. They realized that short-term or night shelters do not provide a stable ground for people experiencing homelessness to jump off of. The program leader, Juha Kaakinen, said this about their approach: “We decided to make housing unconditional…to say, look, you don’t need to solve your problems before you get a home. Instead, a home should be the secure foundation that makes it easier to solve your problems.” I think we saw an example of this in the documentary “Sheltered,” when Elizabeth moves into her own temporary apartment.         ...

 Before I start the blog post I just want to give a quick content warning for death and sexual assault.     For my blog post I want to talk about the recent tragic death of Lauren Smith-Fields, a 23-year-old black woman who was found dead in her apartment after going on a date with a white man she met on a dating app. Despite the fact that the man, Matthew LaFountain, was the last person to see her alive and called the police to report her death, he was never questioned or arrested by police. The police also did not contact her family, and ignored several pieces of evidence found at her apartment, like a sedative pill and a used condom.     When the Bridgeport Police Department was asked if they would investigate LaFountain's involvement in Lauren's death, they said, "No, he seems like a great guy." The Bridgeport Police even hung up on Lauren's family multiple times and told them to stop calling. On what would be Lauren's 24th birthday, her family and many su...