We asked the mayor of Spokane and the City Council to provide warming shelters for the homeless almost a year ago. The city council acted. Mayor Condon refused to act. Mayoral Candidate Nadine Woodward believes that homelessness can be solved with law enforcement. Mayoral Candidate Ben Stuckart and City Council have proposed short term and long term solutions to homelessness. Last year we had four warming shelters open and they were insufficient. This year we have only one.
We have all been to many meetings and rallies at the end of which no one knows what they can do. If you participate in demonstrations, rallies and social media you need to go to your local coffee house and have a discussion with five to ten individuals about what you can do about racial and social justice and community development. Begin building the community you want to live in. We want to build 100 of these coffee discussion groups. You may want to come to one of these listed below. Or start your own and let us know. Be sure to invite someone from the affected classes.
There are now several First Thursday* Coffee and Discussion groups:
*These groups originally started out on the First Thursday of each month. Now they meet on the dates and times established by each group.
Call to Participation
Those interested in racial and social justice
Those interested in community development
5-10 people meeting regularly for deep discussion
Willing to meet regularly to plan strategies and take actions
Contact TEXT (509) 934-3933 for more information.
Pass this out at every march, rally and meeting you attend
198 Methods of Nonviolent Action source
Practitioners of nonviolent struggle have an entire arsenal of “nonviolent weapons” at their disposal. Listed below are 198 of them, classified into three broad categories: nonviolent protest and persuasion, noncooperation (social, economic, and political), and nonviolent intervention. A description and historical examples of each can be found in volume two of The Politics of Nonviolent Action, by Gene Sharp
Indigenous People’s March Spokane 2019
Martin Luther King Jr Day March 2019
Conscious / Cohesive / Connectivity
ORIGAMI
As with the ancient art of paper folding/shaping, we’re all in this together. 4comculture.com is a focused effort to guide and shape the good energies and efforts of various groups in Spokane into something singular, something beautiful, something wonderfully effective. With your permission and your help our goal is to be a one stop, centralized, trusted connection point for what’s happened, what’s happening and what we can do together to affect what happens in the future of our community. In this age of Facebook, Instagram, the Internet and Inboxes, there’s no excuse for “I didn’t know, I wasn’t aware, and I would’ve helped.”
Make a huge statement by clicking Contact Us in the menu under the banner above and typing “Yes I care” in the Subject line of the Contact Us box that appears, also sharing your name and email address. Part of our mandate, that we take very seriously, is to never abuse your trust, share your information or misuse your very very valuable time.
Images by Robert Lloyd, www.4comculture.com
The exhibition is a subtle reminder of where bigotry begins. I am placing myself outside my comfort zone in order to build my path to tolerance as an artist and a human being. I’ve often heard it said that we are all in this together. Now I am seeking a consensus on where we can build common ground, around issues that we can support together. If you would like to help build a grassroots movement click on the image below and print it. Gather signatures and email addresses and mail them to: Robert Lloyd 3314 S. Grand Blvd. Spokane WA 99203.
Those of you in the Spokane area who have seen the show and would like to receive a print collect at least 25 signatures and email addresses and bring the list to the reception on Oct 4 4:30 – 6 pm at the JFK Library at Eastern Washington University. You will receive an unframed 11×14 matted print at the end of the show.
“A Path To Tolerance”, selections from over a decade of quiet observations, will be on exhibit at the EWU Downtown Gallery in Cheney Washington. It includes the exhibit “If You Really Knew Me”.
Below is a review of “If You Really Knew Me” by Jeff Mooring.
I am seldom moved enough to feel compelled to write about art. Somewhere in my head it’s the equivalent of trying to tell someone about a great song, instead of just playing it for them or droning on and on about a game that happened days ago. But compelled I am. The art in this case is the exceptionally well-conceived and executed work of a longtime friend Mr. Robert Lloyd.
Let me start by saying it’s one thing to capture the beauty and energy of a subject which he’s done, but Mr. Lloyd has surpassed that with his vivid, brilliantly colored, larger than life portraits of several women. His subjects, these eye-catching women, are of varying races, ages and stations in life. It’s my understanding that Robert achieved this dazzling effect with some high-tech, modern day alchemy of photography and computer technology. The details of which are far beyond my pay grade and simply don’t matter much when standing in front of these works. But imagine if you would, you stand being transfixed by each portrait and then you’re made aware, as they say in the TV infomercials, “but wait there’s more”. With a quick and easy loading of an app called “Cherry Pix” you can simply aim your phone at a portrait and the image comes to life and you get to hear the story of triumph behind each and every one of these beautiful souls.
The technology I believe is called augmented reality. The film clips were captured, edited and packaged by a local team at Community Minded TV and this collaboration was backed by an entity called The Alliance for Media Arts + Culture. It all comes together seamlessly due to exceptional talents and craftsmanship to be one of the most moving experiences in art that I’ve seen in my 30 some odd years of viewing.
The show titled “If You Really Knew Me” is on exhibit at the East Central Community Center, 500 S. Stone, with plans to travel. Do yourself a favor and make some, take some time… to see this exceptional effort with stories and images that are moving and interconnected in ways that I won’t spoil for you. It costs nothing to enter and may well give you an experience of relating to the lives of these beautiful women that you won’t soon forget, and you’ll feel compelled to tell others about, as have I. If You Really Knew Me by Robert Lloyd
Jeff Mooring
Homelessness is a national issue. This photo was taken in Washington DC September 2017.
This point-in-time count is a snapshot of people who are homeless in Spokane, counted by local teams on one night in January, a statistic that is limited by a variety of factors and not considered the complete picture. Because more homeless people were in shelters, and fewer were outside in hard-to-find places, it was easier to get a count, according to McCann and city officials. That might apply particularly to the chronically homeless, who are more likely to use emergency shelters.
In particular, the city’s super-tight rental market – with an estimated vacancy rate of 0.7 percent – makes it very hard for people to find affordable housing and pushes the homeless numbers upward. Nearly 500 people are qualified for federal housing vouchers but can’t find a place to use them in town, said Dawn Kinder, the director of the city’s Community, Housing and Human Services Department.
This year’s count showed:
1,090 homeless individuals, an 11 percent increase over last year. Eighty-seven percent of all people counted were in shelters. Around three-quarters of those were in emergency shelters, and one quarter were in transitional housing.
