feature

Seattle’s Unlikeliest City Council Candidate

His wardrobe is humdrum, his speech informal, and reason for running ad hoc. His name is Eric Smiley. You may have met him at a bus stop or in the tunnel stations, because that’s how he’s trying to compete with the large sums of campaign money backing other councilmember candidates.

But he also just wants to hear what Seattleites are concerned about. There’s one thing distinctly unique about Smiley, however. He is homeless, and has been for three years.

via Seattle’s Unlikeliest City Council Candidate — South Seattle Emerald

UW Shooting Victim Doesn’t Want Shooter’s Gun Rights Permanently Revoked

Red Square the night of the shooting. Photo by Zenwa Shimabukuro

“I’m gonna say something that a lot of folks won’t like,” says Joshua Dukes, the man who was shot on the University of Washington campus while protesting a speech given by alt-right icon Milo Yiannopoulos on Inauguration Day. “I don’t think Elizabeth [the shooter] should be permanently stripped of her gun rights.”

This is something Dukes’ lawyer didn’t release a statement on, but a matter Dukes himself wanted out in the public. If Elizabeth Hokoana is found guilty of first degree assault (a class A felony) as charged by the prosecuting attorney’s office, she will no longer be allowed to own a firearm (Marc Hokoana, who is charged with third degree assault, a class C felony, wouldn’t face the gun restriction.)

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“[Elizabeth] needs to be held accountable, but we also need to look in ourselves if we want to address the root of the problem and not a symptom,” Dukes says. “Their guns make the symptoms worse, but the root is deeper.”

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UW researchers spearhead landmark study on the elder LGBT community

Professor Karen Fredriksen-Goldsen is a faculty member at the School of Social Work and director of the Healthy Generations Hartford Center of Excellence at the UW. Photo by Niva Ashkenazi

“Those people were growing up and coming of age at a time when same-sex behavior and identities were highly stigmatized and criminalized,” Fredriksen-Goldsen said. “But also providers don’t know how to address their needs in a culturally competent and sensitive way. That combination has just led to invisibility.”

Barack Obama signing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act at the White House. White House photo by Pete Souza

As the GOP continues to adjust its own plan, healthcare professionals and advocates are doing some serious groundwork around the ACA, which has had a tremendous impact on the Asian Pacific Islander community.

One of these advocates is Stephanie Liou, a medical student at the UW. She advocated for the ACA in its inception, and now she’s advocating for it to stay. And she’s not alone. Doctors across the nation are getting behind the ACA, to the point where there are numerous health providers underneath the Protect Our Patients coalition calling legislators, and continuing to educate the public about ACA myths and facts.

Locally, there’s a group of physicians in Washington who have never done advocacy, but are now taking action, writing opinion pieces and convincing colleagues.

“Doctors have been kind of historically a-political, and really it’s becoming this movement across the country for doctors and health professionals standing up and saying, ‘look, whatever your political ideologies are, this is going to be harmful for patients,’” Liou explained. “It’s appalling to me that the landscape I face when I graduate next year is that I can only take care of a certain population who can pay for it. So this do-no-harm idea has been really core to a lot of the advocacy we’re doing.”…

In addition, APIs are impacted the most by the ACA. In 2012, a DHS study predicted that nearly 2 million Asian Americans would be covered by the ACA given that the community is disproportionately impacted by chronic illnesses like cancer, diabetes, and Hepatitis B, because they often skip out on screenings. The most frequent uninsured group was Korean Americans (at 25.5 percent uninsured). As such, an ACA repeal would reverse disparity gaps like these that were closing.

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Breaking down stigmas on homelessness one conversation at a time

Bolen called homelessness a disease, but that’s not a reason to stereotype. Homelessness impacts people in nearly every aspect of their life, especially the parts many take for granted every day.

“I wanted to take my shoes off and my pants off and just walk around in my underwear,” Bolen said, getting a few laughs from the class as he chuckled himself, “because you don’t have that luxury when you’re homeless.”

via Breaking Down Stigmas On Homelessness One Conversation at a Time — South Seattle Emerald

Action Items for those at a loss, Part 3

in A sea of fake information continues to spew out of the White House and extremist or alt-right websites, making it harder for people to find accurate information on urgent issues, like Islamophobia or anything to do with Muslims. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is formulating its second go-round on an Executive Order banning refugees […]

via Action Items For Those At a Loss, Part 3 — South Seattle Emerald

Action Items for Those at a Loss, Part 2

As a new year approaches, people continue to ask what actions they can take to improve the lot of the world. Locally, a sea of community faces come together time and time again, but feel like they’re in some sort of limbo, no matter how much they want to help. This is […]

via Action Items for Those at a Loss, Part 2 — South Seattle Emerald

Kelsey Hamlin | journalist