Social justice eludes many, impacts the whole community
December 30, 2024
Inequity strikes in many ways with effects across the community. With significant issues to address, organizations and individuals are finding ways to help in Whatcom, San Juan and Skagit counties.
Poverty, housing, civic inequity and food insecurity continue to impede social justice in the lives of many in our region, creating barriers, compromising health and limiting the ability to advance and thrive. Today’s retrospective into news from 2024 details some of the issues and lifts up the volunteers and organizations seeking to apply solutions.
The country’s entire food system was disrupted early in the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a shortage of farmworkers, closed restaurants could not buy produce, supply chains were broken and stores suffered shortages. People out of work could not afford food. A few years on, food insecurity continues for many. (Kai Uyehara / Salish Current)
“Disabled people still do not have the same civil rights as others,” said Andrea Lawson, owner and maker at MW Soapworks in downtown Bellingham, while standing in solidarity beside a banner for Disability Pride Festival in July. Lawson has coordinated with neighboring business WinkWink Boutique in organizing the annual festival to celebrate, connect and uplift equality for people with disabilities. (Andrea Lawson)
Mari Nishitani, one of four interns working during the summer with Lopez Community Land Trust, preps bales of local haylage in May for stormwater control on the Oystercatcher construction site. Six new permanently affordable co-op homes built in a new affordable housing project once again “unleash[ed] the power of community.” (Lopez Community Land Trust)
By Sstipsn Kalime (Thrisa Phillips Jimmy); Oct. 25, 2024
Along with the familiar role of heritage months in platforming diverse cultures, histories and contributions, Native American Heritage Month in October offers an opportunity to examine complex historical and ongoing issues, including centuries of broken treaties, forced displacement and cultural suppression. One potential way of addressing these legacies would be the establishment of a comprehensive truth and reconciliation process that acknowledges the U.S.’s colonial past. Coast Salish canoes arrive at Shipyard Cove on San Juan Island during a traditional canoe encampment along ancestral waterways in May 2022.(Nancy DeVaux / Salish Current)
Poverty impacts the community as a whole, note those working to help people in need find a path to financial security — and it hits hard for many during the winter holidays. The erosion of Washington state’s social safety net, along with sky-high rental and mortgage costs and the low level of affordable housing, has had a significant impact on people in San Juan, Whatcom and Skagit counties, where around one-third of households need support for essentials. Once a recipient of aid herself, Trudy Shuravloff now leads financial empowerment classes. (Courtesy)
Phase 1 of The Millworks in Bellingham’s Waterfront District opened this spring, with its 83 units of workforce and family rental housing representing about 10% of what the city needs to provide annually to meet its housing goals. A six-classroom child education center is part of the facility, making play areas vital to the design of project. (Whatcom Community Foundation)
Bellingham Queer Collective members paused for a group photo at the new Q Center in downtown Bellingham during a ribbon-cutting ceremony May 17. The group has organized to respond to social isolation and difficulty in making connections among the queer community. (Alexis Robinson)
Unity Village’s 22 tiny homes in Fairhaven are among local efforts to shelter people experiencing homelessness. A proposal to merge its residents with those from the Swift Haven tiny-home village near Civic Field in Bellingham prompted discussion about how the plan might work out. (Amy Nelson / Salish Current)
New local food plans cover the full process from “seed to sandwich” in addressing hunger, from farming through processing and delivery. Efforts in San Juan, Skagit and Whatcom counties aim to promote stronger, more resilient and just food systems — something more complicated, but with greater benefits, than relieving hunger in the short term. San Juan Island farmer Emma Rastatter inspects garlic sprouts in March 2023. (Kathryn Wheeler / Salish Current)
Fifty years ago in February, a decision by U.S. District Court Judge George Boldt provided a lesson in treaty law and tribal sovereignty as it established that 50% of the harvestable salmon catch would be allotted to non-Natives and 50% reserved for the descendents of the Native nation signers of the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott. Boldt’s ruling also underscored that the Native tribes are sovereign nations and that treaties are, as the U.S. Constitution states, the “supreme law of the land.” In 2011, then-Gov. Christine Gregoire was a puller in Swinomish Chairman Brian Cladoosby’s canoe during the canoe journey Paddle to Swinomish. (Richard Arlin Walker)
A new study on the health effects of noise from EA-18G Growlers flying out of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island indicates many on Whidbey are at risk from aircraft noise exposure, and residents from surrounding counties say they feel the impacts, too. The Navy League of the United States, Oak Harbor Council, has questioned the legitimacy of the study. A Boeing EA-18G Growler sits parked at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. (JosefAbraham, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
