Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Special Study: Vulnerability, Jacob Taylor

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Special Study: Vulnerability is a collection of creative nonfiction essays engaged in recovering the stories of homeless individuals living in Salt Lake City, Utah. The recovery project is focused on the years 2017-2023, with special attention to the events of Operation Rio Grande (2017-2020). The essays seek to, among other things, provide a critique of public policy, increase public awareness of the issues facing the homeless population, and elicit empathy from readers.

The Grove, Sabrina Blanchard

All Theses

none

Unveiling The Unseen: A Feminist Exploration Of Consciousness And Empowerment Among Homeless Women Through Consciousness-Raising, Scarlett Liu

CMC Senior Theses

Homeless women have been forgotten subject matter in the study and practice of feminist consciousness and consciousness-raising efforts. However, they grapple with the compounded challenges of both gender and homelessness within an oppressive societal structure. This thesis therefore seeks to conceptualize the consciousness of women, and particularly homeless women, in a feminist lens. Specifically, this thesis explores the Othering of women’s consciousness through the intellectual lineage of Simone de Beauvoir and Hegel, and emphasizes the role of material circumstances in shaping consciousness-raising efforts. Then, this thesis examines two unique struggles faced by homeless women – survival sex and homeless motherhood. …

Addressing Barriers To Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion In Massachusetts Community Mediation, Madhawa Palihapitiya, Jarling Ho, Shino Yokotsuka, Karina Zeferino

Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration Publications

This report presents over three years of systematically engaging, documenting and analyzing the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) needs/gaps and assets of state funded community mediation centers in Massachusetts. The report was compiled by researchers and an in-house DEI expert at the statutory state office of dispute resolution, the Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration (MOPC) at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The office has been serving as a neutral forum and state-level resource for over 30 years.

The report is based on qualitative research that falls into the category of community based participatory research conducted through a series of community …

The Rome Of The West: An Ethnographic Play With Music, Clayton Roma Bragg Webb

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Multidisciplinary Studies of Bard College.

The Poorest Country In The World: Critiquing U.S. Culture Through Relational Cultural Theory And The Saints., Molly Neton

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

In this thesis I critique the American socioeconomic system and culture through a multidisciplinary lens. Using the works of philosopher Karl Marx, economist Robin Kimmerer, and forensic psychologist Christopher Williams, I argue that there are three interconnected characteristics of our socioeconomic system that disincentivize us from creating growth-fostering relationships. These characteristics are the encouragement of overconsumption, the prevalence of hyperindividualism, and that people are valued for what they produce, not who they are. To counteract these characteristics, we must fight to create a Culture of Encounter, which is a culture with a radical dedication to seeing, hearing, and loving individual …

The Gray Bird Sings: The Extraordinary Life Of Betty Kwan Chinn, Karen M. Price Ph.D.

Trade & Scholarly Monographs

“Touched by childhood tragedy, Betty Chinn brings hope to those who have fallen on hard times. Left homeless as a child in China, Chinn became mute. When she came to America, she found both her voice and her mission: aiding those without shelter on our own shores. ” -Barack Obama, awarding Betty the Presidential Citizens Medal

She worked tirelessly to establish homeless shelters and to feed thousands in her community. As a child, she was separated from her family and exposed to the worst of humanity. Despite these monstrous conditions, she journeyed from fear to forgiveness and became a beacon …

Empowerment - The Fine Print Behind A Conflict, Dhruti Hirani

be Still

This piece is about the author’s realization of the power of conflict.

Socio-Cultural Determinants Of Women’S Homelessness: A Study Of Dar-Ul-Aman, Multan, Mahwish Rasheed, Tayyaba Batool Tahir, Zahid Zulfiqar

Journal of International Women's Studies

Home is an integral element of the Pakistani family system, and the idea of home is deeply embedded in Pakistani women’s consciousness. The prime objective of this study is to explore the socio-cultural factors responsible for women’s homelessness. This study highlights various determinants that lead women to leave their homes. The issue of women fleeing from their homes is a matter of disregard in Pakistan’s culture, such an action is considered as an issue of family’s self-image, respect, and honour. In the present study, Marxist and feminist lenses have been used to indicate women’s secondary status that is responsible for …

The Logic Of "Social Enterprise": The Big Issue Organization And New Labour Policy At The Millennial Juncture, Suman Gupta

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This paper explores the emergence of and policies and practices underpinning ‘social enterprise’ in Britain: that is, the concept that businesses could provide social services and benefits while returning profits to those who have invested in them. This paper argues that, in Britain, the concept was massaged into existence and adopted as a business and policy model at a particular historical juncture, in the later 1990s and early 2000s. The process involved a careful interweaving of linguistic maneuvers with financial calculations both at the level of specific businesses and at that of political regimes. This process is traced here with …

The Responsibility Of Christian Church Pastors To Include Homelessness Awareness In Ministry Outreach, Joy Nicole Hale

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The Christian church pastor has a significant role in addressing homelessness within their communities. They must be willing to defeat this giant. This responsibility is further highlighted by the opportunity of outreach ministries within Christian churches working with community resources to identify the physical, financial, social, and emotional needs of the homeless. Understanding the pastoral leadership shapes and influences the Christian church is a critical component to comprehending how the church illustrates hope and the image of God to the homeless population. Many American individuals are faced with the debilitating stresses of homelessness without adequate emotional resources to address their …

Dreaming Of Home: Youth Researchers Of Color Address Nyc’S Housing Crisis, Samuel Finesurrey, Waleska Cabrera, Meldis Jimenez, Brittiny Ando, Alanna Garcia, Alexander Garcia, Jayden Johnstone, Abdul Mohammed, Sheylany Paulino, Edwin Reed, Emelyn Saavedra, Gisselle Saavedra, Rajendra Singh, Aysia Smith, Marlena Syriaque

Publications and Research

New Yorkers are facing a housing crisis. Long-standing disparities of race and class in New York City have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Coronavirus and the looming eviction crisis threaten working-class communities, immigrant families and youth searching for housing stability throughout the city. This report is a call to action demanding that city and state elected officials, along with civic leaders, address the housing crisis that youth are inheriting. A team of youth housing fellows, housing organizers from the Broadway Housing Communities, and CUNY academics shaped this project around the ethos, “No research about us, without us.” The work …

Finding Home: (Re)Thinking Identity Through Texts As A Queer, White Woman, Lydia Pebly

Honors Projects and Presentations: Undergraduate

Within these four sections, I decided, for the purposes of this project, to focus on my interactions with Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa; Passing by Nella Larsen; Sister, Outsider by Audre Lorde; and Not Vanishing by Chrystos. Anzaldúa’s work focuses on her identity as a queer, Chicana woman inhabiting the U.S.-Mexico border. Passing details the experiences of a Black woman who can pass as white. Lorde’s work is a collection of essays which center her experience as a queer, Black woman. Chrystos’s work is a book of poetry centered in their queer, Two Spirit, Indigenous identity. Additionally, I draw from …

A Community's Responsibility To Help Unaccompanied Homeless Teens, Spokane Valley, Calvin Bruce Coblentz

Doctor of Ministry

Homelessness is ubiquitous in communities across America. There are 1.5 million homeless school children annually. Over 125,000 are unaccompanied homeless youth detached from family. Many factors contribute to their homelessness, such as poverty, physical and sexual abuse, neglect, family conflict, addictions, mental illness, and sexual orientation. As difficult as it is in an abusive home, life does not usually improve when they depart. Homeless teens experience high rates of violence, sexual assault and exploitation, substance abuse, pregnancy, disease, leaving school, incarceration, unemployment, suicide, and dependency as adults.

This study explored the problem of unaccompanied teen homelessness in Eastern Spokane County, …

Vile Methods: Bridging Divides And Expanding Churches' Understanding Of Creativity, Tyler Jack Kaufmann

Doctor of Ministry

Over the last 25 years, technology has made learning, sharing information, and connecting easier than ever before. Humans, especially in North America, have access to unprecedented amounts of information, ways to interact, and tools for relationship building. Yet, in the United States, humans find themselves in one of the most polarized times of the last 50 years. At the same time, the US church has been in major membership decline and its societal influence has decreased. Great numbers of the poorest US Americans are leaving the church and with that exodus gaps between social classes are widening as less spaces …

Review: Rooftoppers, Rachel Schwedt, Janice A. Delong

Ages 10-12

No abstract provided.

Messages From The Margins: How Mature Women At Risk Of Homelessness Sustain Their Psychosocial And Spiritual Lives, Catherine E. Tovell

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This community based qualitative study examined the psychosocial and spiritual lives of 10 mature women (age 50 and older) who were at risk of becoming homeless, in other words, the hidden homeless. A narrative inquiry research design was employed to explore the lived experiences of these women. Voluntary participants were recruited through Life*Spin, a community based non profit organization that works primarily with low income families and individuals in London, Ontario. The Executive Director of Life*Spin circulated the recruitment flyers and handbills throughout her networks of social agencies. Individual interviews were arranged with participants who met the inclusion categories of …

Time To Acknowledge Homeless Youth, Madison Frey

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

Today, there are many wicked problems that we face. Climate change, phone usage, substance use, and many others. This may lead to us then neglecting some of the other wicked problems that do not directly relate to us. Homelessness is a wicked problem that has been faced for generations, and many have overcome it and went on to talk about their hardships. What is not spoken about so often is homelessness in youth. It is an ugly truth that needs to be recognized and talked about. They face several issues with not only various parts of their health, but aspects …

Dictation From The Moon, Leland Monson

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Much of my poetry concerns twelve-step recovery, brushes with suicide, and other related incidents. With more poetry coming out, there was more recovery and other influences. Some manifested themselves through imitation. Sometimes they came through form. Sometimes inspiration manifested through language. Some came from goodness knows where. An accumulation of all of it, each poem follows one or more of these guiding principles.

Social Issues In San Francisco: Perspectives From Global Buddhisms, John K. Nelson

Theology & Religious Studies

A project of the students in the course "Buddhist Paths in Asia and North America", this wonderfully insightful collection of course papers combines research into San Francisco's urban problems with perspectives from Buddhist Studies.

The class was divided into twelve writing teams who then chose topics from a grid of ideas, firstcome- first-served. If one looks at the topics in this essay coming from Buddhist studies, you'll quickly see they are fairly fundamental and are found in almost any introductory course. What makes them special and relevant to our moment is in their creative application to the social problems and …

Locked Up And Locked Out: True Stories Of Individuals Who Experienced The Intersection Between Homelessness And The Criminal Justice System, Jean Johnson

Senior Honors Projects

JEAN JOHNSON (Criminology & Criminal Justice)

Locked Up and Locked Out: True Stories of the Interlocking Cycle of

Homelessness and the Criminal Justice System

Sponsor: Jill Doerner (Criminology & Criminal Justice, Sociology & Anthropology), Heather Johnson (Writing & Rhetoric)

Key locks work when a key made with teeth is placed into a cylinder with a series of pins and tumblers. If you don’t insert the right key one or more of the pins will remain in the way, preventing the key from turning and the lock will remain closed. According to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, tens of …

Learning From Experience: The Forest City Film Festival And Life*Spin, Madeline Braney

SASAH 4th Year Capstone and Other Projects: Publications

Madeline reflects on her experiences while interning with the Forest City Film Festival and Life*Spin. At the Forest City Film Festival, Madeline was responsible for social media and marketing, while at Life*Spin she compiled a business proposal for a Community Land Trust (CLT) in London, Ontario. Madeline considers connections between art and humanity and how the lessons she has learnt throughout the Community Engaged Learning course will inform and shape her future endeavours.

Review Of A Place To Stay By Erin Gunti, Ashley N. Riddle

Library Intern Book Reviews

No abstract provided.

Families Belong Together: The Path To Family Sanctity In Public Housing, Mckayla Stokes

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In its 2015 landmark civil rights decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court finally held that the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution guarantee same-sex couples’ marital equality. The Court’s unprecedented declaration that the right to marry is a fundamental right under the Due Process Clause strengthened married couples’ right to privacy because it subjects government actions infringing on marital unions to heightened scrutiny. The Supreme Court has the option to minimize the impact of Obergefell by interpreting the right to marriage very narrowly—as only encompassing the right to enter into a state-recognized union …

Relationships Between Characterizations Of Military Service: Bad Discharge And Veteran Homelessness, Ronnie Fairley

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Given the current global war on terror, there was concern that the influx of servicemen and women returning from the war with less than honorable discharge would increase veteran homelessness in the United States. Using Castro and Kintzle's military transition theory, the purpose of this nonexperimental correlational design was to determine relationships between military characterizations of service and veteran homelessness. The correlational research design was used to determine the relationship between military discharge and veteran homelessness. Data were acquired from archival data regarding separated American servicemen and women who served in the military from the Defense Manpower Data Center and …

Somebody Told Me You Died, Barry E. Maxwell

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Somebody Told Me You Died is a sampling of works exploring the author’s transition from “normal” life to homelessness, their adaptations to that world and its ways, and their eventual efforts to return from it. The collection dovetails into a final essay examining the struggle to comprehend and rise above a racist upbringing.

Intimations Of A Spiritual New Age: Iii. Martin Heidegger’S Phenomenology Of Numinous/Being Experience And The “Other Beginning” Of A Futural Planetary Spirituality, Harry T. Hunt

International Journal of Transpersonal Studies

The phenomenology of numinous or Being-experience in the later Heidegger is the focus in this third in a series of papers on a group of independent figures— also including Jung, Reich, Toynbee, Teilhard de Chardin, and Simone Weil—who beginning in the crisis years of the 1930s envisioned versions of a futural “New Age” spirituality to address a globalizing materialism and its disenchantments—and so also creating a context for much of contemporary transpersonal and consciousness studies. A preliminary consideration of Heidegger in the contexts of transpersonal psychology, religious studies, the macro-histories of Toynbee and Sorokin, James on “pure experience,” and spirituality …

On The Margins, Rowan Cahill

Rowan Cahill

Contested Development: A Poor People's Movement For A Better Los Angeles, 1960–2018, Deshonay R. Dozier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Zooming in on the historical development of Downtown Los Angeles’s (LA) Skid Row, this dissertation traces a continuity of abolitionist alternatives made by homeless and poor Angelinos from the 1960s to our present day. Skid Row is an important entry way into Los Angeles urban politics, particularly with respect to how forms of difference, at the axis of race, gender, class, and ability shape regional relations of property and the built environment. I show how these relations shape Downtown Los Angeles’s geography through carceral practices. These carceral practices, made by social services and policing, shape space by routinely containing and …

Through The Looking Glass: The Perpetuation Of Homelessness Through Awareness Media, Ashley Lauren Knight

Cultural Studies Capstone Papers

The definition of who the homelessness are has historically been defined by media. This project performs a genealogical analysis influenced by the work Foucault has done in Madness and Civilization to contextualize the way different forms of media through the years has constructed the homeless stereotype we live with today. By zeroing in on awareness media that is produced by independent documentarians, it becomes apparent the goal is not to educate on the systemic issue of homelessness, but more so to create an empathy-based connection between the subject and the viewer. This paper argues that an empathy-based production is not …