Halloween is a time where the creatively inclined thrive. For others it proves to be difficult to muster up a costume out of thin air. So here are some cheap and easy ideas for the DIY and time challenged. (Because let’s be honest, you have procrastinated the hell out of this holiday.)
- iPad
This is a no brainer, time conscious and cheap on the wallet idea! Print out some of your favorite iPhone app faces, i.e. Twitter, Instagram YouTube. Then all you have to do is dress in all black and affix the apps onto your person. Everyone will instantly know what you are and it looks like you put more effort into it than you did!***To make your apps go from 1 star to 5 stars: Spend the night using a Siri monotone voice whenever people ask you questions. You and your friends will have a blast!
2. Your favorite pun, oxymoron or saying
Think of ’50 Shades of Grey’ or ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’, take your favorite saying and portray it literally! Paint yourself 4 or 5 different shades of grey or wear a crown and a staff holding stuffed cat and dog toys!***To take this costume to the next level, be as over the top with it as possible. Don’t settle for small details, go BIG or go home!
3. Basic
This costume is perfect for anyone who wants to exhaust minimal effort because Halloween is just too ‘passé’ for your taste. Dress up as someone who you don’t usually identify with. ‘Hipsters’ could go for more of the ‘lax bro’ look. You think Toddlers and Tiaras is abhorred? Dress up as Honey Boo Boo! You’re friends will get a kick out of your new persona and maybe, while taking a little time gathering research into your newest project, you’ll learn something new about people you didn’t understand before!***To turn this into a real affair by getting a group of people together to create the new-age Breakfast Club!
4. Twinning
For a couples costume, look no further than your closet– or your best friends. Be twins for the night, wear the exact same clothing or be the mirror image of your bestie. This will take meticulous detailing so that people understand what’s going on, but nothing’s better than sharing a great holiday with your favorite person!***To make this even better, do a little extra planning ahead. Things like finishing each other’s sentences or even being attached at the hip all night [literally, break out that duct tape] will make it a more fun experience for the pair of you.
Happy Halloweening!
Cover Photo Credit: Kevin Dooley/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Haitian American Communities Have Become The New Focus Of Housing Discrimination Fights
By Nate Nkumbu
Housing discrimination is an issue that is being faced by many cities across the United States.
In South Florida, housing discrimination is nothing new.
In a place where real estate is such an important part of the local economy, tales of housing discrimination are prevalent within minority communities.
Morgan Williams is the Director of Enforcement & Investigations for the National Fair Housing Alliance in Washington D.C. Williams explained in an email the history that housing discrimination has had the U.S.
According to Williams, in the 1930’s, a phenomenon known as redlining became a common practice in areas where minority people lived.
Redlining was a federal housing policy that explicit denying housing services to residents of certain areas based on the racial or ethnic makeups of those areas.
Williams said that the practice is still in effect today with banks often at the front.
“Today, some lenders structure their loan products, restrict broker services, site branch locations, and/or target their marketing on the bases of race, national origin, sex, familial status, disability, or other protected class,” Williams told RISE NEWS.
“In restricting lending services in a discriminatory manner—whether limits services in communities of color or that isolated prospective female borrowers on parental leave—the more subtle contemporary redlining practices have the same practical effect of limited credit access on a geographic basis.”
One such case that Williams talked about is Providence v. Santander Bank.
According to the Providence Journal, the city’s lawsuit alleged that Santander Bank had reduced lending in minority neighborhoods over a multiyear period while expanding its business dealings in “predominantly white neighborhoods.”
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Santander Bank bought Sovereign Bank in 2009 and as a result occupied a large share of the overall mortgage market in the city, meaning that people had few options outside of Santander.
This case saw the city of Providence settle with Santander Bank for $1.3 million in grants for lower income houses in return for dropping the housing discrimination case.
In South Florida, there are organizations that fight housing discrimination.
Each one has different experience with the issue.
Housing Opportunities Project for Excellence or HOPE is an organization that operates in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
Daniel Howe, an expert for HOPE said that that the most common cases that HOPE deals with are REO house.
REO houses are bank owned houses that are maintained and kept during foreclosure or unsuccessful sales.
Howe said that the REOs in richer, more white communities are maintained and well kept better that their Latin American or African American community, leaving areas of Miami looking dilapidated in stark contrast to the richer areas only a few blocks or miles away.
Photo Credit: Occupy Miami Photos/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
Another organization up in Palm Beach County has a different take on the housing discrimination in South Florida.
Vince Larkins is the CEO of Fair Housing Center of the Greater Palm Beaches.
His organization recently took the city of Boca Raton to court accusing the city of discrimination towards families with children.
During an interview, Larkins said that housing discrimination cases are prevalent in the Haitian Community.
“The level of discrimination towards Haitians is disproportionate to the number of cases we get at the the office,” Larkins said in an interview with RISE NEWS.
This assessment is followed by Marleine Bastien, executive director of Fanm Ayisyen nan Miyami, a organization based in Miami that helps Haitian families.
Bastien said in an email that the Haitian community often gets short shrift when it comes to housing.
“Most affordable housing seems to go to more politically connected and empowered immigrant groups like Cuban-Americans,” Bastien said.
“Those Haitian families that finally gotten through after long waiting periods often find themselves uprooted from their neighborhoods to Homestead, Florida City ….far away from their milieu ambient, extended families and friends.”
Just recently, Bastien’s organization fought to officially define the border for Little Haiti, an area that is the center of Haitian-American cultural and economic life in the city of Miami.
Last week, the city of Miami commission voted to make official the borders of Little Haiti.
Bastien said that there are plans for improvements across the area.
“Now we’re on a plan to revitalize the area and [create] a community land trust, to recoup spaces and land in the district/area and redevelop them for affordable housing,” Bastien said. “The second part of the plan is beautification and a CRA to bring resources to Little Haiti that strengthen businesses and spur growth.”
Florida is home to nearly two thirds of the Haitian American population. According to the 2009 census, Haitians Americans numbered at 830,000 people.
This community while growing in clout, is also at the heart of housing discrimination fights around the country.
Larkin pointed towards one case in particular with a Haitian family trying to buy a condominium. The family was flat out rejected by the condo’s owners, saying that they had a policy of “not allowing any colored people inside the community.”
“In the end, we were able to get the family into the house and won a settlement, but that family reached out to us first and were able to get their case heard,” Larkin said.
For Bastien, the work in Miami is not completely over.
She said that affordable housing isn’t much of reality anymore because the prices prohibited large sections of the population.
“It has been very difficult for folks to have access due to very limited resources,” Bastien said.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: John S. and James L. Knight Foundation/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Abuela Mami: The Startup That Is Bringing Homesick Cubans Back To Their Roots One Box At A Time
Have you ever felt homesick for South Florida?
I mean like really homesick? So much so that you day dream about the food found on Calle Ocho or in your grandmother’s kitchen?
Well, if you’ve ever felt that before, then you are not alone.
It was that feeling that helped create Abuela Mami, a Miami based food startup.
Humby Valdes, 40, grew up in Miami as a first generation Cuban- American.
He spoke Spanish at home and was raised with all of the Cuban culture comforts.
It was only 5 or 6 years ago that he went to work in New York and for the first time he felt he was away from Miami and from the tastes that helped make home for him.
In New York, he realized that things like some Cuban dishes (i.e pastelitos, guava, Cuban crackers) where hard to find. It was even hard to find Cuban Coffee.
“When you live in Miami you just get Cuban coffee everywhere,” Valdes said in an interview with RISE NEWS.
Valdes found himself constantly missing food and all of other Cuban goodies from Miami.
He thought it was a good idea to create a box full of Cuban goodies that could be delivered around the United States.
His mom and grandmother used to do something similar.
In December 2015, he got together with his brother Kiki Valdes, 35 and launched Abuela Mami.
In Spanish, Abuela means grandmother and Mami stands for mom, the origin of the name comes from Humby’s and Kikis grandmother Blanca del Rio and their mom Gladys Ferrer.
Abuela Mami’s purpose is for their costumers to have an emotional connection when they open their monthly box of Cuban treats.
You can also make one time purchases of either the Coffee Box ($25.95) or the Surprise Box ($19.99).
The most popular subscription is for the Surprise Box, which is just as it sounds.
Each box contains 4 to 9 items of handpicked Cuban culture goodies.
Boxes can include kitchen tools, games, snacks, sweets and coffee among other interesting things.
Abuela Mami is based in Miami and all of the products also come from Miami area suppliers.
With a little help from their 90 year old grandmother, the brothers ensure that the Surprise box is always a unique and intimate Cuban experience.
As it is still a growing business, Humby Valdes insists on the importance of making each box “as intimate as possible”, while making “sure that when people receive the box it comes straight from Miami, something that is coming straight from Cubans or Cubans Americans”.
“The connection that the subscription box has with family, the emotion that it gives to costumers it’s amazing, it is very humbling to be able to make people feel and connect to heritage and family”.
In the future the founders have been thinking of expanding the Surprise Box in a way so they can deliver boxes from other Latin American countries (i.e Colombia or Venezuela),yet for the moment they are focused only on Cuban cultural selections.
Humby Valdes also has some advice for young people who move away from their home.
“They [young people] are going to miss it and realize your mom and mother are not going to be there forever, [so] enjoy your family and heritage.”
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
Photo Credits: Abuela Mami
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US Warns It’s Citizens To Leave Burundi After Violent Clashes
Johannesburg (dpa) – The US Department of State recommended on Sunday that its citizens in Burundi leave the country as soon as possible after an outbreak of violence in the past days left at least 87 people dead. Armed groups operate in Burundi and gunfire and grenade attacks occur with frequency, a statement from the department… Read More
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