...Homeless to Harvard Homeless to Harvard is an inspiring story that tells the life about Liz Murray who dealt with the stress of her childhood and then went from living on the streets to graduating from Harvard University. I was emotional yet inspired by this story which is based on a young girl who becomes homeless due to her parent’s addiction to drugs and the lack of parental involvement in her life. Although she lacked the stability of a family, the challenges she faced throughout her life shows the biggest accomplishment she’s made in becoming a success. She was a homeless teen forced to take care of herself after her parents were not able to stop their own drug addiction. She had to grow up, believe that she deserved better and made a decision which ultimately changed her life. Liz Murray faced many obstacles growing up in an unprivileged home with addicted parents who cared for nothing but for their addiction. Her parents were so strung out on drugs that both their daughters were neglected. Liz grows up caring for her mother that is suffering from HIV and who takes drugs to cope with the pain. She spends every cent on drugs while her children are starving and eating out of dumpsters. She doesn’t care as long as she has her drugs because she can’t live without them, and still, even though she acts that way all the time, her daughters, especially Liz, love her. Living in abandoned apartments and eating out of dumpsters, Liz does her best to stay alive and on occasion, go...
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...教 育 创 新 管 理 An Interpretation of the American Dream in Homeless to Harvard 湖北工程学院新技术学院 魏 远 Abstract：As the leading figure of western countries, America has her special values. As an ideal of pursuing happiness and perfection, the American Dream becomes the motivation of them in their lives. Homeless to Harvard is a inspirational film which is based on Liz Murray’s autobiography Breaking Night. This movie tells a story about an ordinary girl suffers a hard circumstance when she grows up, but she never gives in. According to this movie, this thesis gives a brief introduction of the American Dream and explores it throughout the heroine’s touching experience, thus publicizing equality, freedom and struggle of American values and attacking abandoned attitude of life. Key words: American Dream; inspiration; Homeless to Harvard to studying. The death of her mother hits her heart deeply. As Liz slowly growing, she begins to understand that only reading and learning can change her life in the encounter with misfortune. At the beginning, she pursues getting a high school diploma. A major turning point for Liz is visiting Harvard University on a school field trip. She cannot imagine such a wonderful life before. While Liz walks towards her class, the school official tells her that her application is accepted and she is in the running for a full college education at Harvard University. During the interview, Liz tells judges frankly that she persists on getting rid of that dark world. Her...
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...Bryanna Soenarie SLS 1501 T/R 11:00 am- 12:15pm Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard Bryanna Soenarie SLS 1501 T/R 11:00 am- 12:15pm Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard In the book “Breaking Night: A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard” it’s about a young girl, Liz Murray as she grew up into the world clueless of life to now taking life as a prize possession. On the afternoon of September 23, 1980, the first day of autumn, Elizabeth Murray was born. Born to poor and drug addicting parents. Growing up with little to nothing as a little girl, Liz Murray has survived. Throughout the entire book she tells her personal story through motivation and lack of motivation. Murray lived in a filthy home with her sister in the Bronx, New York. Living off of a monthly welfare check, that barely lasted for a couple of day it was not cut it. Liz and her sister had no option to only eat egg and mayonnaise sandwich but at time from time they would eat ice cubes, tooth paste and even Chap Stick to quench their hunger pains. At the age of 11, Jean Murray, mother of Liz and Lisa confirmed to have AIDs. As her parents separated Liz was left all alone, on her own. Considering what caused Liz to lose motivation she revealed...
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...Homeless of Liz Murray and Murray Barr Elizabeth Murray has been homeless since she was born by her parent were cocaine addicts who spent most of the family’s money on feeding their habits. By her age 15, she was homeless and her mother had died of AIDS, and her father was on the streets. She told her mother that she made her vows to herself that her life would be different life, and made her decision that the best way to avoid that to go back to school, but she accepted at Humanities Preparatory Academy as public high school which they did not know she is herself as homeless. She did become more intelligence student and loved to learning she can do. At last, she finally accepted to enter into Harvard University after her 15 different of scholarships already awarded. Liz felt her parent made her feel loved and understood that her parent had disease that prevented them from giving her more than they did. Her father, with whom she is close and has developed AIDS,. Liz does not feel she has moved past of her childhood rather she stayed her part of everything about who she is. She has learned from her experiences and looked her new life. She now is brilliant and intelligent education and person. She can share with all the people how she felt her experience about her homeless life. About Murray Barr, I hadn’t known very well about his life, but I do know Liz’s life than Murray. I read his article which is showing no real reason why he was homeless considering he was ex-marine...
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...Works Cited Arnaudo, Pat. Homeless Strategies for Public Housing Authorities. New York: Housing & Community Development, 2012 Arnaudo focuses on different homeless programs that are offered here in the United States. It dives deeper in the McKinney-Vento Act. The grant program works as a source of federal funding for programs which provide services to homeless people. Goldade, Kate. Homeless Former Smokers’ Interest in helping Homeless Current Smokers Quit. Minnesota: American Journal of Health Promotion, 2012 Goldade purpose is to describe factors that associate with interest of homeless former smokers in helping homeless smokers quit. She discusses how to start saving money you would need to stop buying cigarettes and use that money to provide for yourself. Hopper, Kim. Reckoning with Homelessness. New York: Cornell University Press, 2003. Hopper draws on his strengths as an anthropologist and advocates providing a deeper understanding of the roots of being homeless and on the streets. Hopper tells the largely neglected story of homelessness among African Americans and vividly portrays various sites of public homelessness, such as airports. Hurley, Jennifer A. The homeless: opposing viewpoints. San Diego Calif: Greenhaven Press, 2002. Hurley starts off of how serious homeless is for society. She discusses how homelessness affects cities, rural communities, women and children and many more. She expresses that the hardcore homeless should be arrested and put...
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...complex problem in the American society given the ever increasing number of the homeless people as time goes. There is a need for the government and the American society at large to help the homeless since it is shameful for society as wealthy as America to have homeless people in the society. On the other hand, there are several people who are perceived to be homeless in the streets of America's cities but are capable of sustaining themselves. The opponents of assisting the homeless argue that such people have the potential to sustain themselves if the government and the society’s support system are withdrawn and therefore, assisting them only burdens the government and the society. For all the stakeholders to develop an effective homeless policy, there is a need for the development of mechanisms that will lead to a proper identification of the homeless. Identifying the correct population of the homeless people involves coming up with a proper definition of homelessness. Different definitions of homelessness are widely used in America. Those definitions are controversial since different stakeholders use a specific definition of homelessness to justify their action. One of the most effective and all-inclusive definitions is called the point in time definition. It is a one-time survey of all the institutions, the shelters, and all the other places on the street with a high tendency of getting the homeless people. This method of defining homelessness is broad, and most opponents of...
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...that you will witness a homeless person struggling to survive. Homeless has many causes and it is common among most society; it is normally associated with the urban poor. A few major causes of poverty throughout the world are unemployment or the high cost of living, and drugs addiction, these play a big role in causing people to become houselessness. Poverty is affecting thousands of Americans everyday and the number of homeless has increased significantly over the past decade or so. Due to the falling economy, homelessness is something that will be seen on every street corner of the big cities. Many individuals and families become homeless because they are unemployment and simply lack of money to afford a suitable residence. As the world population grows exponentially, people are finding it harder to maintain a job and a place to live. Without a job people are unable to afford to pay for mortgage or rent. Many must face the harsh reality of having to live on the streets. Due to that many of the people might think that they are homeless. However, Jim Burklo stated that people who live on the street that sleep under tarps and carry their belonging in plastic bags are not necessary homeless people. He then goes on and talk about another type of homeless people. This group of homeless people has money, good jobs, and houses but lack what one considers a true home. A place they feel security and where they know they can fit in. He compares homeless people to the other but...
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...examples and exercises for all organizations Institute for Children and Poverty, The Hidden Migration: Why New York City Shelters Are Overflowing with Families (2002). 21 Homes for the Homeless & Institute for Children and Poverty, Ten Cities 1997-1998: A Snapshot of Family Homelessness Across America 3 (1998). 22 Institute for Children and Poverty, The Hidden Migration: Why New York City Shelters Are Overflowing with Families (2002). 23 Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, Fact Sheet: The Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Homeless Youth. 1 (citing Richard J. Estes & Neil Alan Weiner, Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, Univ. Pa. (2001) (unpublished)). 24 National Coalition for the Homeless, Domestic Violence and Homelessness: Fact Sheet #8 (1999) (citing Virginia Coalition for the Homeless, Shelter Provider Survey (1995) (out of print)). Hubbard, G. (2004). Strategic Management: Thinking, Analysis & Action (2nd edition), Frenchs Forest, Pearson Prentice Hall Johnson, G., Scholes, K. and Whittington, R. (2005). Exploring corporate strategy (7th edition), England: Pearson Education Limited Porter, M.E. (1980). Competitive Strategy. New York, The Free Press. Porter, M.E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review. January 08, 1-19. Read more at Suite101: Using Porter's Five Forces to Analyse Non Profit Industry | Suite101.com http://www.suite101.com/content/using-porters-five...
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...change to the Boston Pine Street Inn. Boston Pine Street Inn is a homeless shelter that is made up of five facilities with 715 beds. 450 of the beds are standard emergency shelter beds and the rest “transitional” beds (Varley, 2013). It also managed 280 units of lightly staffed housing. With a budget of $27.5 Million, roughly 46% of it going toward emergency shelter beds and 16% to permanent housing, Pine street served 15,00 homeless people a day and 12,00 annually (Varley, 2013). Funding began to decline in the early 2000’s (Varley, 2013). In 2004 Pine Streets revenue fell from $29.6 million to $26.9 million. This led Director Downie and the Board of Directors to commission 2 studies to help find an answer to help balance the budget and use the funding wisely and efficiently. The studies commissioned were a Length of Stay Study and a Cost benefit analysis study. The studies showed great insight to where money was being spent and where resources were being allocated. The cost benefit analysis study showed that they had two programs, the Nursing Clinic and the Clothing program, were programs that could be outsourced and save Boston Pine Street Inn $1 million. The Nurse Clinic cut was not taken lightly and even caused a board member to resign in protest of the decision. Because the clinic was run by nurses it was not eligible for Medicaid funding, however they had a partnership with Boston Health Care for the Homeless and they did have Medicaid funding. This made sense to outsource...
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...Verbal and Non-verbal communication * Two forms of communication are Verbal and Non-verbal communication * 3 Types of verbal communication: oral, written, & visual. * Oral communication- information is sent verbally or orally by word of mouth * Written communication- communication is written via pencil, pen, markers, and typed words * 6 Forms of Oral communication: face to face, verbal /oral conversations, telephone, viral through video, radio, and television. References Alberts, J.K., Martin, J.N. & Nakayama, T.K. (2013) Human Communication in Society. Mio, J., Barker, L., & Tumambing, J. (2011). Multicultural Psychology. Javaid, S., Barker, N. C., Shahid, A., Jabeen, S., & Bailey, R. K. (2009). Disparities in Health Care among African Americans. Challenge, 15(2), 19-27. Samovar, L., Porter, R., McDaniel, E., & Roy, C. (2014). Intercultural communication: A reader. Cengage Learning. Wallace, S. P. (2003). Equitable Health Systems: Cultural and Structural Issues for Latino Elders. American Journal Of Law & Medicine, 29247 Verbal and Non-verbal communication * Two forms of communication are Verbal and Non-verbal communication * 3 Types of verbal communication: oral, written, & visual. * Oral communication- information is sent verbally or orally by word of mouth * Written communication- communication is written via pencil, pen, markers, and typed words * 6 Forms of Oral communication: face to face, verbal /oral...
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...board, I feel it is important to address some of the issues brought forth by a few members of the board. I am in support of having a shelter built for the homeless, predominately mothers and children of the underserved population. Times are tough right now and at any given moment any one of us may be only one humiliating step away from homelessness. A job loss, serious illness or any other everyday occurrence of life could cause us all to be on the streets. The concept that the working poor are lazy, did not earn high school degrees, are not using birth control, and lack responsibility for their actions is uninformed thinking. These stereotypes hinder us looking at the big picture. Every day we walk past people in the streets who do not fit the stereotype of homelessness (Voices, 2014). There are people who you admire like Cary Grant, David Letterman, Daniel Craig, Sylvester Stallone, Ben Franklin, Tyler Perry, and Samuel L. Jackson, Col. Harland Sanders, of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame, who were all homeless(Voices, 2014). William Shatner, who after Star Trek was cancelled in 1970, lived out of his truck for a while working in summer stock plays across the country. These people made great contributions to society. You don’t know what contributions others may be capable of making in the future if it weren’t for homeless shelters. Our country has been funding other world governments for decades. It is time we put money back into our society and become the power we once were...
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...solutions are responsibilities of the society Affected Population The meaning of being homeless in the United States helps define who is able to receive shelter and assistance from health and social service providers. In order to live a normal life requires having a home to live in. Yet people with no home and unable to afford anything can be found in all countries. The main reason is the individual cannot get the housing loans or welfare accessible to others. The causes of homelessness can be caused by family altercations or tragedy (or prison), or even a natural disaster. The larger proportions of homeless parents who are separated from their children in the US and the larger number of families in the homeless population are both likely because of the US social policy. Higher levels of inequality and lower levels of social benefits are associated with higher rates of homelessness. The Stewart McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 describes a homeless person as any place not meant for regular sleeping accommodation by humans. In 2005, an estimated 744,313 men, women, and children were homeless in the United States (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2007). Adults that are homeless are poor and have high rates and they don’t qualify for health care. There are also a large number of former veterans who become homeless. It is estimated that between 23 percent and 40 percent of homeless adults are veterans (National Alliance to End Homelessness). Poverty is related with...
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...Irma Serrata Julie Garza-Horne ENGL-1302-3705 03/06/2016 On March 6, 2016, The New York Times published Katharine Seelye’s “Heroin Epidemic Increasingly Seeps Into Public View”. It states that finally people are finally starting to notice heroin users and they’re overdosing in public places everywhere. Police officers are routinely finding drug users — unconscious or dead — in cars, in the bathrooms of fast-food restaurants, on mass transit and in parks, hospitals and libraries (Seelye). It’s an epidemic. In Philadelphia last spring, a man riding a city bus at rush hour injected heroin into his hand, in full view of other passengers, including one who captured the scene on video (Seelye). Users need the fix as quickly as they can get it,” said Edward James Walsh, chief of police in Taunton, Mass., a city 40 miles south of here that has been plagued with heroin overdoses in recent years. “The physical and psychological need is so great for an addict that they will use it at the earliest opportunity” (Seelye). It was all over the media. You can watch the video over and over, the man shooting himself up and just falling over. Nationally, 125 people a day die from overdosing on heroin and painkillers, and many more are revived, brought back from the brink of death — often in full public view (Seelye). In Cincinnati, a woman died in January after she and her husband overdosed in their baby’s room at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center. The husband was found unconscious...
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... There is a growing problem in our world today that some may not be aware of and it definitely needs some attention. The problem is homelessness among students. There are many obstacles associated with homelessness that could affect a student receiving an adequate education. This paper will review some of the problems associated with being homeless and how it affects school age children. Hopefully this review will provide a clearer understanding of the problem because in order to provide help we must understand the situation. Instead of the government cutting expenses associated with educational funds and resources, they must continue to provide the sources and make the public aware of availability. Homelessness: 3 Homelessness: Among Students 1.) Sparks, S.D.,(2014). Schools Still See Surges in Homeless Students. Educational Digest 79 (7), 31. Retrieved from Ebsco host October 13, 2014 This article explains that the number of homeless students in the United States continues to show a significant increase. There are multiple variables as to why the numbers keep showing an increase. The one problem of students today is the economic hardships of the school systems. They are having problems with maintaining themselves and have experienced...
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...influence on an individual. How you are raised, way type of family do you come from? Was it Nuclear or Binuclear? Can your environment determine your behavior? I could determine that both may have an impact on an individual, however I cannot agree with either side. How can anyone truly articulate an unbiased decision, and not mention the Creator of all? I believe there are some issues that will remain unexplained, for the purpose that God wants it to remain that way. Genetics at times can be unexplainable, for example the African American couple giving birth to a Caucasian child with blonde hair (Essence, 2010). Many would say that’s impossible, however as we can see it is very possible. Then it’s the story of Liz Murray, who graduated from Harvard although both her parents were addicted to drugs (Abraham, 2010). In 1963 there is an article entitled “A medical accident”; twin boys taken to the hospital for a routine circumcision, unfortunately one of the boys was seriously injured which resulted in losing his penile genital. With the damage irreversible the parents decided to raise their son as a girl. Allowing doctors to perform a reconstructing surgery that will allow him to have a vagina injecting him with hormones to allow his body to look like a female on the outside. (Henslin, 2010). The parents...
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