Please select and answer TWO (or more) of the following questions following the film:
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
2. Who makes the decisions that affect your community?
Who’s missing? How can community members gain access to power? How would you change the process? What decisions would you make differently?
3. What compelling stories do you want to tell about your community?
How would you reshape the media coverage that exists? Which voices are missing? What messages and ideas? Who are your audiences? What images and symbols would you use in communicating with media?
4. How can you make things better in your community?
What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action?
5. What initiatives are already underway that can improve health outcomes on the local, state or federal level (e.g. living wage campaign; a drive for universal preschool; mandated paid sick leave)?
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
I live in a pretty diverse neighborhood. there are areas that are not as populated like others and I would say rent and maybe lack education affects health in my community. There is a clear difference between the people that have completed high school and college and the ones who just completed high school. The ones that completed just high school might have a harder time making ends meet.
How can you make things better in your community?
What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action?
I start by making more people aware that there is help when trying to look for schools. Also providing information on how they can get started because that is probably the most important thing that is holding most people back. The greatest challenge is getting people to believe that they can go to college and get a good education.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
There are a lot of assistances available in my community which helps the growing community with issues regarding social services, senior citizen services, youth services, regarding crime prevention, development projects, etc. The organizations that provide these services can greatly reduce stress for the members of the community. An example is a daycare service. Most parents have work and not much time for their kids. They work a lot because they want a better life for their kids. However, one downside is that some of the kids would act out but nothing serious. Another example is youth services where youth can help serve the community & gain work experience or volunteer hours. Their parents don’t need to worry about where their kids are. As mentioned in the film, less stress means stronger immune system, and a strong immune system means better health.
2. Who makes the decisions that affect your community?
Who’s missing? How can community members gain access to power? How would you change the process? What decisions would you make differently?
One organization that makes decisions for our community is the Brooklyn Chinese-American Association. Some of the stuffs they handle are social services, senior citizen services, early childhood educational programs, youth services, adult educational programs, crime prevention and victims assistance, naturalization services, community economic development projects, etc. There are various centers around the community for certain specific purpose such as daycare, senior citizen, etc. You can also get involved by providing the organization with support by donating (monetary/goods), or by volunteering.
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
– Housing affects health in my community because housing developments are not always properly clean, especially my building. Most of the people living in these developments are people who did not finish school or people who can not afford to live anywhere else (like myself). Most of these people can not afford proper health care which is another reason for low health rates. The schools in this area produce some of the lowest tests scores, and are not really great schools. Not receiving the proper education can lead to more health problems because one wouldn’t know what risky behaviors caused their sickness.
What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action?
-The greatest challenge would probably trying to get the community itself to change. Most of the people here are so used to the poor lifestyle, they aren’t willing to try to change. Because of the poor education offered they don’t know the steps that should be taken for change. The community needs more serious workers that are willing to better the community. Hiring the tenants to do the cleaning is not working for them so that needs to be changed. Federal funding has allowed NYCHA to start renovations on all of its developments. My priority for action is to graduate college and get a career to help my family move to a better community.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
My community is probably considered the working middle class. There are some families that are similar to those that were depicted in the film. People who make enough to pay rent, but not much more than that. People who work two or three jobs. People who work and go to school at the same time. People that may need some government assistance like Medicaid. This is definitely a community that works hard to feed their families and provide the shelter. I think the major issue that affects health in this community is a language barrier. There are mostly Hispanic immigrants here, Chinese immigrants, and first generation children. A lot of the immigrants are not educated about Western medicine and the importance of getting checked up, taking medicine, the proper way to do these things. They don’t care to know either as they are already set in their ways. I feel like if there were more people who can medically interpret for them, it would be a lot better for their health.
5. What initiatives are already underway that can improve health outcomes on the local, state or federal level (e.g. living wage campaign; a drive for universal preschool; mandated paid sick leave)?
Locally, I do notice a lot of health insurance company trucks parked around the neighborhood like Fidelis, Emblem, Healthfirst and they often have Chinese people or Hispanic people in there to help people who don’t really know English get coverage. That helps a lot. Statewide, mandated paid sick leave is very helpful as well. People can take off work without suffering too much from it. Many people live paycheck by paycheck. They can now afford to go to the doctor when they’re really sick. There is also the free pre-K for all programs around that is crucial to changing communities as well as health outcomes. Refining children early and getting them engaged in school and socializing will pave a better future for them.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
My city is pretty divided by income levels similar to the one we seen in class today. With those income level differences also come with the separation of races. The same vibe that was depicted in the film is the same as in my city. The whites over here, while black and Mexican folks are over there. This was made clear to me during my high school time. I was exposed to so many different types of people from all backgrounds. However, we all had very different living conditions/income levels from our parents. Towards the middle of my city it’s a unique melting pot of all the cultures represented in New Rochelle.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action?
I think the greatest challenges are ones that relate to education. However, that is something that is extremely difficult to tackle. I’m not saying my education experience was bad, I’m just saying it should’ve been a lot more realistic in detail when the time came to really talk about life after high school—besides college. What I’m really saying is that there should be more talk of entrepreneurship in high schools than college, but that is just my personal opinion. In all honesty, my community as a whole has gotten a lot better over the years and I don’t really see any strong need for serious change. I do have some interest in promoting the art scene in my city that’s about it. There are many many opportunities for young people to get involved in positive afterschool activities. Personally speaking the Boys and Girls Club I went to afterschool during middle school were some of the greatest and fun years of my life. There are lots of things to get involved in that can keep you away from doing stupidness, which is important to any city.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
The one story of the man and his wife who saved up their small amounts of income just go on a Carnival cruise kind of hit home. Living in the projects where they spoke about people getting murdered. Probably living there because that’s all they can afford…no backyard or porch to run around in. No money for a car. That pretty much describes life and the community of where I currently reside, almost word for word. I think its pretty sad that when they were talking about the people who were killed, it didn’t seem like it was a shocking notion, it just seemed like life as usual.
2. Who makes the decisions that affect your community?
The government, NYCHA in particular. The problem, in my somewhat uninformed opinion, is that not enough money is spent on supporting our neighborhoods. The opportunities for jobs that pay above minimum wage in the area are pretty much non existent. Education comes at a price that can’t be afforded. After school activities for children to keep them out of trouble are always getting de-funded. When I moved to live in a house in upstate NY, it was almost a different world…most of these problems didn’t exist over there. I feel badly that there are people that will never experience the other side of the coin.
What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
Our health depends on many factors. Adopting a healthy behavior by eating well, getting well hydrated, staying active, getting the right immunization and avoiding behaviors such as smoking, using drugs or drinking alcohol, all influence our health, but health goes beyond that. To ensure that all members of a community are healthy, we need to understand the social determinants of health. These include the social and physical environment where we live, work, play and interact with others. Health is also determined by access to economic opportunities. Examples of health determinants include availability of financial resources that allow a decent and safe housing, availability of jobs, and access to health care services when needed, access to easy transportation, access to affordable and quality education, access to green spaces and recreational activities, and so on. I am not sure about easy access to health care services, but I know that most of the members of my community have access to education whether it is quality education or not, green spaces and recreational activities, decent and safe homes and easy access to transportation and to local food markets.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action?
To make things better in our community, we need to find out what is wrong, what is holding the community back, build on what is good to make the community better and initiate a sort of wake-up call by bringing some awareness among the members of the community. Being said, I believe that chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension are some of the health issues prevalent in my community, which is represented by a high percentage of Hispanics. So, my priority is to reach members of my community through health fairs to create awareness about these chronic diseases, open the eyes of the community about the long term consequences of these chronic issues, work to prevent diabetes among at-risk populations, and encourage all people with diabetes and hypertension to get the best care, treatment, and information about how to manage their diseases.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
The community that I live in I think I would consider Middle class. For example from the film i watch in class it show how middle class people work in order to pay for their rent and other stuff it just like the community i live in people would work for many hours to just have enough money to paid for rent not get kick out the apartment. Also they would need to worry not to work over time because if they do they would not have medical coverage and when they get sick they would not go to the doctor because the bill payment would be to high for them to afford. The issues that affect, health in my community would be Jobs and language barrier because most people are immigration and they don’t know English and some aren’t able to find jobs that paid high amount that they can afford a living some have to work two different kind job in order to support the family. Also with the language problem some might have problem going to the doctor because they would not understand what the doctor is saying and the doctor would not understand what the patient are saying and they would not get the right treatment .
4. How can you make things better in your community?
What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action?
I think the way can make my community better is let them there is many way to get help. For example there are many centers they can go get help from and most of the place they would help you what you need help with if the place they go and don’t have that service they can refer to a different place to get help.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
The public schools in my community have the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), providing low-cost and free breakfast and lunch services. This help kids/children in my community afford a healthy meal. For working parents that helps them take care of their child’s meal in the time they are not available. Parents will not have to stress about providing meals for their children on weekdays during the school days.
5. What initiatives are already underway that can improve health outcomes on the local, state or federal level (e.g. living wage campaign; a drive for universal preschool; mandated paid sick leave)?
On the federal level, the no child get left behind act helps the disadvantage obtain an education although not very efficient. Also on the federal level, The National School Lunch Program providing healthy low-cost free meals are already underway.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
There has been a lot of housing development going on around my neighborhood. There are old buildings but the past few years, investors have been buying up the houses and renovating it. Some building are taken apart to be rebuilt then raising the rent to the point which people with low income can’t afford so they would have to relocate. These investors are basically kicking out the residents who been around for many years.
5. What initiatives are already underway that can improve health outcomes on the local, state or federal level (e.g. living wage campaign; a drive for universal preschool; mandated paid sick leave)?
The past few years, I have seen new health care centers for seniors opening around the neighborhood. Now local seniors wouldn’t need to worry about not having anyone taking care of them. Also there has been a lot of providers offering health care in recent years. Especially in Lower East Side in Manhattan, there would be different groups of providers offering health plans. I believe most Chinese people don’t really have a health care plan and the reason for that is they understand English so they don’t know how to sign up for it. It’s good that health care providers are bringing health to them with a translator so that increase the chances of them having a health plan.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
I think our health care system is not very good. Countries such as England, Canada etc has health care for all its people while in America we only have health insurance if we can afford it or if we live below the poverty line. Still in the US, Americans are struggling to pay rent, mortgage, utility, food and gas bills. How can we afford health insurance? A college education is not free for all here in America. When you take a loan and can’t get a job to pay the loan back. The interest on it builds, so if you were making payments before and now lost your job. The amount goes back up with interest. My sister is a single parent, moved to Florida to try to make ends meet. She works for minimum wage, child support is $100-200, she has to pay rent, a babysitter, utility (gas, electric, phone) buy clothes, she gets food stamps, Medicaid and still cannot live in New York. She does not get enough sleep. Is tired all the time, depressed and under a lot of stress. Housing is so close. There is no room to breathe. Disease is spread much easily in a overpopulated area. MTA fares are going up and the service sucks. The taxi’s charge to much to go to such a short distance. We get taxed twice, Federal and City tax. There is so much deductions from my paycheck. I don’t think there are any white people that go to the public school in my area, it’s all people of color that go there. There are rats everywhere, that’s a health hazard, they spread disease’s. There is feces, garbage and bacteria in the Gowanus Canal. Some areas in NYC are left to deteriorated.
2. Who makes the decisions that affect your community?
Who’s missing? How can community members gain access to power? How would you change the process? What decisions would you make differently?
New York City is divided into 59 geographic Community Districts, each one having a respective Community Board. The Community Boards are municipal bodies of up to 50 representative Board Members. Board Members are appointed by their respective Borough President. Half of them are appointed at the recommendation of their local City Council Member. They serve in a voluntary capacity for two year staggered terms. Board Members are your neighbors – people who live, work, own a business, or have some other significant interest in the Community District. The Community Board hires a District Manager who is responsible for running the District Office.
A community boards is only as strong as its members, and membership can only be as strong as the application pool from which members are selected. So I will become a member of the community board and voice my opinion on the change that I want there. If that does not work they I will contact the office of the mayor or the mayor himself, Bill de Blasio. I can lobby for change, lower heating bills, lower electric bills in the summer for AC, rent stabilized apartment or low rent apartments. We need to fight to keep the MTA fare down. We need more efficient service. It is very difficult to live in the city because the cost to live here is very high. We need to fight to pay less taxes.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
I have seen a lot of organizations that provide services for seniors and children in my community. It’s helpful for working parents who are not able to take care of their children in daytime so they are less likely to get stressed.
There are many immigrants in my community and there are a lot of people who don’t have health care because they are immigrants, the insurance rates are higher than usual or everything is not covered. I guess this is why the government is pushing people to have a health insurance but many people are not secured of having health insurance when they think it’s unnecessary.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action?
My community is getting better environment lately. There are many organizations that offer social and legal services for free. One time I went to the center to get help because I had SSN issues and most people who were there at the center were unkind and unfriendly.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
I believe housing mostly affect my community because I saw 2 – 3 homeless in my community daily. The prices of rent has been increasing every years and I saw two of my neighbors moved out of my apartment and it would be awhile before someone else move in.
5. What initiatives are already underway that can improve health outcomes on the local, state or federal level (e.g. living wage campaign; a drive for universal preschool; mandated paid sick leave)?
Last two months ago, the government started to plant a lot of plants around my community. I also started to see a lot of Health care Bus parked around my community offering to help with medicaid.
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
My community, Staten Island, has many problems that affect health. For example the use of heroine and popping pills has started to become a problem. It was a problem for a long time but recently it has escalated quickly. I also believe transportation to be a problem, especially during the winter. Every time it snows the buses cannot drive in certain places because it is too slippery. The snow is usually neglected by sanitation and it is hard to drive our cars around.The other boroughs are usually tended to first and then the news makes it seem like traveling will be safe when in fact that is not the case on Staten Island. School cancellations are very rare because of the snow because the city assumes that public transportation will get everyone around. They never take into consideration that everyone on Staten Island drives and it would not be safe to drive in such weather conditions.
How would you reshape the media coverage that exists? Which voices are missing? What messages and ideas? Who are your audiences? What images and symbols would you use in communicating with media?
Staten Island is known as the forgotten borough and that is exactly what it is. The media recognizes that and still they do not do anything about it. I think the community needs to start to speak up about the problems that are happening on Staten Island so people realize that we are just as important as the other boroughs. There are a lot of problems on Staten Island that need to be fixed but they will not fixed if no one is listening. The audience is New York and we all have to show everyone that we are also part of the bigger part of the community. We need to show what goes on on Staten Island to the media such as the neglecting of plowing snow to get their attention.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
I would believe that in the community i live in people work hard to pay their rent and do what they have to do to survive. Some may take more then 2 jobs and some may get help from other family members. I don’t know a lot about my community, but i figure that most people there speak English and aren’t subject to the problems that others face from communication issues.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
I could go around informing people about new health benefits and any health programs to get everyone covered.
Who makes the decisions that affect your community?
The decisions that affect my community are made by the homeowners of the community. I live in a condominium where renters are not given the right to attend the monthly and annual meetings, to call maintenance on their own to report issues (they must go through their landlords to report issues) and subject to discriminatory leasing (more about that below). The landlords who own several apartments or blocks of apartments tend to rent to older white people, since the community is safe, and at most one flight of stairs to get to the apartment. The surrounding neighborhood is mainly greek, Italian and middle eastern, but the vast majority of both owners and renters are elderly white people.
What compelling stories do you want to tell about your community?
Since before 9/11 there was a large influx of middle eastern families in the areas surrounding my community. So as such, many potential renters (since very few people were willing to sell their condo’s in an up and coming neighborhood) were middle eastern. And 4-5 blocks north of the condominium is a predominantly Latin American community who also took interest in renting in our neighborhood. However, landlords were still renting to mainly white couples, families or elderly. The rent prices didn’t jump as quickly as the surrounding neighborhood which was rapidly becoming gentrified, so high rent wasn’t an issue until around 2010. However what little minority families moved in, paid slightly higher rents, and typically left after one or two years as the community itself is very small town-ish and newcomers were often all alone and the gossip of the community.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
I lived in a pretty diverse neighborhood, however in the recent years that has changed. Income inequality is a major issue, with the improvement of the neighborhood the rent has increase drastically and lower income families has slowly left the neighborhood. With the change of the neighborhood it seems that the income inequality is more and more noticeable, from the schools to the building that each group occupy. This has resent in health issues in lower income families, mostly with the elderly.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
What are the greatest challenges? What additional resources are needed? Who are your natural allies and how will you begin creating alliances and partnerships? What are your priorities for action?
I believe that my communities greatest challenge is affordable housing. Although there has been an increase in housing development in the recent years there hasn’t been any affordable housing created within those developments.Our great supporter have to be government officials and community representatives, being able to fight and negotiate with developer to included affordable housing within their buildings. There has been some initiative done that resulted in having affordable housing in the upcoming years with the new domino housing development. However, I feel that there has to be more done for people, mostly the elderly, that have lived in the neighborhood for a great majority and prevent from the rapid increase of rising rent.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
2. Who makes the decisions that affect your community?
Who’s missing? How can community members gain access to power? How would you change the process? What decisions would you make differently?
many things affected in my community. Where i live in is mostly White, Russian, Jews. It’s pretty much middle class community and the black people who live there are educated with descent salaries. public school is different, as a parent you have access to your kid progress on-line and they reported everything’s happening in school every day even a fire alarm check, most of these school are talented.
Residents, community meeting board make decisions of what they want or accept in the community. Residents should participate in the meeting for their voice to be heard. This is a routine for all communities and most of the people don’t even know where and when these meetings will be held. I just moved to my community but it is the same mixed up of where i lived before. I can look at info on-line and print some flyers to pass on to my neighbors. Encourage them to participate, and vote for whom they like to represent the community in the house.
4) My current community is fine but the community that I grew up in needs lots of work. The crime rate is through the roof the police community relationship is horrible and there are no programs or activities to keep the youth busy and out of the street. The young boys in the neighborhood are killing each other for no reason and I feel like the parents are not stepping up in knowing what’s going on with their children and their activities. I think more community leaders need to be involved in changing the community. More programs need to b put in the neighborhood to keep the youth from the street. The voices of the youth need to be heard they need to speak out and let it be known the things they need to be safe in their neighborhood and ways that changes can be made.
5) Minimum wage needs to be increased since the cost of living has increased the housing market is high and people cannot afford to raise a family on $8 an hour it is impossible. Daycare and UPK should be made available to everyone. Some places will not offer you child care if you are not already enrolled in a program but they don’t think if you have no childcare how can you work or go on interviews. Some jobs need to be more realistic with their hiring process they are only looking for individuals that have experience but if no on wants to give them a chance how are they going to gain experience. There needs to be more access to care for senior citizens, more affordable housing units, easier access to their meds and better means of transportation for them. Paid sick leave and maternity leave should be available for parents for as long as they need with pay and have no limits
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
I live in a Caribbean community. There is a clear distinction between those who have a steady income versus those that are being supported by welfare. While our houses are similar, the property of those who work is better maintained. And there is a clear income difference by just crossing the street because the houses become bigger and much more maintained even the streets are better.
5. What initiatives are already underway that can improve health outcomes on the local, state or federal level (e.g. living wage campaign; a drive for universal preschool; mandated paid sick leave)?
I believe the mandated paid sick leave is a very good place to start to improve health outcomes on all levels. If people had the security of their jobs hanging in the balance then of course they will go to work making themselves sicker as well as those around them and especially for those in one income households health become secondary to a paycheck.
>1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
My community compared to the film, I would probably fall in the middle class one, where my parents both work, but still stresses trying to basically pay the bills, provide for their children, get what is needed in order to have everyone healthy and eating healthy, and such. One issue my community has is that no one is willing to help out the community. They have their own world, and everyone is enclosed in their own homes. There is no block parties, no social events taken place for our community, or at least probably there is some that I do not know of because I am part of that “don’t care, don’t bother” group. But everything in our community is convenient. You’re sick? There is a doctor clinic nearby that is walking distance. Many supermarkets nearby are all walking distances again.There’s a bus stop a block or two (or more) away. Subway also is not that far away if you walk and can be connected by a bus. There are many schools that are nearby that I can think of that are all good. Racism? Everyone in their own world, if they don’t bother you, there’s no need to bother them back, much respect going around.
>3. What compelling stories do you want to tell about your community?
How would you reshape the media coverage that exists? Which voices are missing? What messages and ideas? Who are your audiences? What images and symbols would you use in communicating with media?
Our neighborhood’s media coverage is okay; good enough to have locals know that there is a website out there that is run by locals too. I don’t keep up with much of the voices or such about the community because like I said before, I got enough to care about in my life, I do not have time to care about the others living around me, and that’s the mentality for all that’s near me. We do have a news station that utilizes media constantly to try to keep up with everyone and tries to get everyone involved.
1. What elements depicted in this film reflect your community?
Which issues most affect health in your community, for better and worse: housing, jobs, income, transportation, racism, schools, social exclusion or civic engagement, land use and development…? How?
– My neighbor hood is pretty diverse but i would say that the more economically stable live in my neighborhood. There is the problem, however that more and more buildings and condos are being built up in my neighborhood which is increasing the property value and making it more difficult to afford the expense of living.
5. What initiatives are already underway that can improve health outcomes on the local, state or federal level (e.g. living wage campaign; a drive for universal preschool; mandated paid sick leave)?
– I can say that an initiative that has been taken that personally effects me is the mandated paid sick leave. Where I work, if you are sick and can’t work, then you will not make money for that day nor will you get paid while your are away sick. This helps a great deal for meal and everyone else who has expenses that they have to pay and cant afford to miss work to not get paid or force themselves to overwork while being sick.
4. How can you make things better in your community?
Making things better in a community starts with making an attempt to change what little you could change b yourself. Eventually you would need to influence others to join your cause. Most often, changes can not be made unless you possess a large amount of people who are willing to partake in your cause. Your natural allies in this case would be other people who live in you community who have the same ideals as you. To create alliances and create a following you must express your feelings on the topic to others who are willing to participate. Ideally you want to prioritize things that are easy to do but will have a big impact on the community; this way you build confidence by making a large impact very quickly.
2. Who makes the decisions that affect your community?
Unfortunately the people who make decisions regarding a community are the elected officials such as the mayor. The way community members gain access to power is by uniting and collaborating the efforts of many, towards a certain task or goal. This essentially boils down to power in numbers. if everyone applies pressure towards a specific decision being made in a certain way, the people who actually make the decisions would be very reluctant to defy the interests of the masses. If I could change anything about the system I would set things up in a way where individuals’ ideas where acknowledged and considered rather than simply brushed off.