Items

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  2021-10-15

  A muffled voice

  My six-year-old son often forgets he’s wearing a mask. We’ll leave his school, the grocery store, anywhere really, and he’ll spend the entire car ride home with his mask still on. He’s even tried to eat with it on a few times! I can always hear when he’s forgotten to take it off because it muffles his voice. He talks constantly, I like to say that he actually voices his internal monologue, so I can tell exactly when he takes his mask off even if I can’t see him. When I hear that he’s still wearing his mask, I often think about the instability of being a child (and raising a child) during a global pandemic. His life and his routines have changed so frequently in the past year and a half, but he has been incredibly adaptive and understanding the entire time. Hearing his muffled little voice always makes me appreciate this awesome kid of mine while also making me really consider these chaotic times we’re living in.
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  2021

  ASU COVID Resources

  This is the Arizona State University-specific COVID-19 resources for students. I wanted to include this University's specific resources because one of the people I interviewed attends ASU as a student and I want to provide this source as a supplement for some of the difficulty that he mentioned having in finding resources while living as a person experiencing housing instability. The website houses all messages and updates the university has sent to students with regard to the Coronavirus. The site focuses on health and staying healthy for students but seems to lack a clear guide on how to access resources and aid that students may qualify for.
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  2021-03-28

  Arizona Department of Housing

  The two main parts of this website are eviction protection and foreclosure protection. The eviction and foreclosure programs have become more robust as a result of the pandemic and the way that it has put more strain on people's housing situations. The site also has a specific section regarding assistance specific to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID health focuses on mortgage assistance for homeowners. There seem to be some gaps on this site for renters who typically have closer proximity to housing instability and would need more assistance ensuring that they don't experience homelessness. I want to specifically examine the gaps that this site has and the specific type of assistance that it does offer.
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  2021

  Housing Resources Tempe

  I chose this article because it provides a list of housing resources for Tempe. The resources covered here are section 8 housing and other rental assistance programs. The city has its own stated homeless assistance program. In their section for COVID-19 assistance. Specifically, in the COVID-19 section, it states that there will no longer be in-person meetings due to safety reasons and that things will either be done over the phone or online. For my research, I want to focus on how these measures leave behind a lot of people who may not have access to a phone or internet and how that exacerbates the issues people experience with housing instability because they are unable to get resources. I want to really focus on processes with this resource.
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  2021-01-22

  New Found Art

  During quarantine I’ve had a lot of spare time, but wasn't completely sure how to spend it. Most of the time, when I’m not busy with school work, I’d watch Netflix, but that got pretty boring after a while. Recently, however, I’ve picked up a paint brush, a canvas, and some paint and have started painting. I’ve always loved art but constantly found myself making up excuses and never setting aside time to actually paint. These past months have helped me reflect on myself and realize there are more things to do than just sit around and be sad about the current situations in which I have no control over. It's important during these hard times to find something that makes you happy, even if you are not the best at it, so that life in quarantine is a little easier. Even if I would have never thought in a million years the majority of my junior year in high school would be spent inside my house I consider myself lucky as my family and I are healthy and safe. Despite not being able to see my extended family and celebrate holidays or birthdays with them there's always a way to make the most with the people you have. For my mom's birthday, since I couldn’t go out to buy her anything and don’t own a credit card to buy something online, I had to figure out how to give her a special gift during a pandemic. My new found happiness from painting was that special thing, and so I decided to paint my mom a scene from one of her favorite movies “The Karate Kid”. Finding something I enjoy really helped me cope with the instability and unexpected changes during this pandemic. It gave me both a hobby and goal, as I’m motivated to get better at painting.
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  2020-04-20

  Military Stop Movement

  Beginning in mid-March I began working a minimum hour schedule in order to ensure that as few people as possible were in the office. We assumed the pandemic would blow over soon and that like with most other things the Department of Defense was just overreacting and rolling out guidance that would expire quickly. On April 20 it became apparent that this was not the case. The PDF seen here shows that this was not something that was done with a lack of care or critical thinking because stopping all DoD movement is not done lightly or easily. This order also began my additional two more months working from home or in my workplace with a severely cut back schedule. This stop movement also impacted my life by forcing me to stay in Germany for months longer than expected, as well as numerous friends and coworkers who were suddenly left with no way to leave the country after shipping all of their household goods or their vehicles. Essentially it through thousands of people into a state of instability that could only be rectified by the passing of time until the stop movement expired.