NFTs Meet Community Impact
Visit our website: https://maskedmeerkatgang.io
To learn about how we plan to change the world, please visit: https://phaction.io
“On a single night in 2020, roughly 580,000 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States”- The 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress
Imagine losing your home due to discrimination and then losing the right to be a human being. Thousands of people experiencing homelessness are trapped in this circumstance every day, and very little is being done to change this. It’s not that people don’t want to help. It’s that not enough people know what to do to help.
Though our federal and state leaders have come up with solutions to these types of social issues, nothing is providing sustainable change with lasting impact. Despite their efforts, reports show that for the fourth consecutive year, the number of people experiencing homelessness increased by two percent.
According to a survey completed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development prior to the pandemic, approximately 580,400 individuals lived in temporary housing or in unsheltered locations such as on the street, in abandoned buildings, in parks or in other places not suitable for human habitation (2020).
Unfortunately, the report almost certainly neglects the damaging effect of COVID-19 on the homeless population. The report also does not reflect the displacement of working class and homeless Americans in response to the coronavirus and sharp decline in jobs.
Now imagine your hardest day. You’ve just got home, kicked off your shoes, flipped the TV on to your favorite show, poured a glass of wine, bourbon, milk, or whatever it is that you drink, and drift off into a peaceful sleep.
Then a bulldozer destroys your entire house with you in it, destroying everything that you own and injuring you in the process.
On October 5, this became the reality of a man experiencing homelessness in Washington, DC. The bulldozer was part of a pilot program created to clear encampments occupied by those experiencing homelessness and deter others from living outside. Following the injury, the program was momentarily halted, but resumed on the same day.
Jesse Rabinowitz, an advocate for unhoused people with Miriam’s Kitchen, and many others believe that this incident was both predictable and preventable. “That somebody was nearly bulldozed underscores the sad reality that, in D.C., the lives of unhoused people, especially unhoused Black and brown people, are often considered disposable to those in power,” he stated. Another council member from Ward 1 wrote on Twitter that, “If the resident had not been able to communicate their presence, they could have died.”
The implementation of other programs have resulted in even greater destructive outcomes. Though federal policies such as the nationwide moratorium on evictions had slowed the pace of displacement, the Government Accountability Office has reported that multiple factors affected the program’s universal effectiveness. With the program’s abrupt ending, millions are faced with the unbearable crippling of the American dilemma: the search for affordable housing.
To make matters worse, HUD has stated that the number of individuals with chronic patterns of homelessness increased by fifteen percent between 2019 and 2020, thus exposing further challenges experienced once receiving initial assistance. In addition, 2020 marks the first time since data collection began that more individuals experiencing homelessness were unsheltered than were sheltered.
According to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Marcia L. Fudge, “The findings of the 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report Part 1 are very troubling, even before you consider what COVID-19 has done to make the homelessness crisis worse… Housing should be a right, not a privilege, and ensuring that every American has a safe, stable home is a national imperative.”
View the current state of the homelessness crisis here: State of Homelessness: 2021 Edition
During the cold, bitter nights of early January 2021, 5,111 men, women, and children slept in uncertainty, waiting for help that would never arrive in a place that they did not know. This did not happen overseas in Russia or China nor did this happen across our borders in Canada or Mexico- it happened right here, in the center of our nation’s capital.
Enough is enough. If we keep turning a blind eye to homelessness, it will only continue.
The team behind the Masked Meerkat Gang NFT has a plan to drastically change the lives of the homeless within Washington, DC, but we need your support.
We are going to find artists that are experiencing or have experienced homelessness, help them to create NFTs, enter their NFT collections into various marketplaces, and pay them through the royalties and profits generated from the NFT collection. All remaining profits will go towards empowering and uplifting communities impacted by homelessness around the United States.
Once the Meerkat Gang is completely sold out, we will repeat this initiative in other regions across the United States. As long as there is a person without a home, there is something that needs to be done and there is something that we will do. Everyone deserves a home; a place to call their own. Housing is a right, not a privilege.
The Masked Meerkat Gang aims to empower individuals of all backgrounds to revolutionize and amplify the impact that their art, NFT’s, and crypto presence has on communities devastated by homelessness in the United States. A portion of each ETH collected from this collection will be reinvested into the community to help minority, low income, and impoverished individuals exceed the unjust societal barriers and inequities that plague today’s societies and make it difficult to simply live.
You can help us by:
- Sharing this article with as many people as possible.
- Following and tagging us on Twitter with homelessness resources.
- Following us on Medium to stay up to date on the Masked Meerkat Gang Collection and on our progress towards impacting those experiencing homelessness.
- Joining our Discord to become a part of the community built on social and community impact.
- Assisting a person experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness.
- Donating to a local organization fighting homelessness.
- Telling a friend.
The more people that are aware of homelessness, the more chances there are to build a lasting, sustainable solution.
Please reach out to us on Twitter and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear your thoughts.
Follow us on Twitter: @MaskedMeerkats
Join our Discord for updates on progress towards human equity: https://discord.com/invite/3PGJxvnJ
For more more information about the Masked Meerkat Gang Collection, go to: https://maskedmeerkatgang.io/
To learn about how we plan to change the world, please visit: https://phaction.io
Statistics on Homelessness:
