Movie about the real lives of poor people!

We always want our children (when we have them) to do better than we have done, while not forgetting where they've come from. I know that Cheri Honkala, founder of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union and coordinator of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, is very proud of her son, Mark Webber, an actor turned director who has just made a movie very much based on the lives of poor people in Philadelphia, their trials, and how they organize to fight back. Go, Mark!

I doubt the movie is going to show around here, but I will definitely buy it when it becomes available, and then we'll show it at Arise's office. Here's th trailer and also a short clip about the making of the movie.

End Poverty! If not now, when?

I have noticed that it's taken a while for really poor people to feel the effects of the economic downturn. And why is that? Because we've got so little to lose! We don't own homes so we have no homes to lose. We don't have pension funds so the Bernie Madoffs of this world have nothing to steal from us. And for those of us who work at Taco Bell and Dunkin Donuts, it's only as working class and other poor people tighten their belts and eliminate their morning coffee and their lunches that our jobs become at risk.

But it's bad, it's bad. Not to complain, but I didn't put oil in my tank until January and when that hundred gallons is gone, it's gone. This past week I've been cutting a dose of a medicine I need in half so it will last me to payday today. I also found out that my fulltime hours will be cut in half in April, so if you hear of any jobs in the Greater Springfield, MA area, let me know. I'm very happy I'm done raising my family so I don't have to make these tough choices for three instead of one.

Middle and working class people are wondering how Barack Obama's stimulus plan is going to help them; poor people are organizing because we can't wait much longer. My organization, Arise for Social Justice, is a proud member of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, a national organizing effort to bring poor people together to fight for our rights. July is the next big convening. Below is information about a conference in Kentucky this July and a call for participation. If you're poor and you can get there, do it. If you're an ally, maybe you can help someone else get there. More details to come.

"Building the Unsettling Force:
A National Conference to Abolish Poverty"

Organized by the Social Welfare Action Alliance (SWAA) and the Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC)

Thursday, July 16, 2009 -- Sunday, July 19, 2009 Spalding University -- Louisville, Kentucky

This conference is being organized to provide a forum for people to share ideas, inspire, and motivate each other. We will strive for collective actions based in sound analyses - actions that can be taken locally, regionally, and nationally when we leave this gathering. Abolish poverty in these times of increasing joblessness, homelessness, hunger, and unemployment? We say "yes" and turn to the wisdoms of Martin Luther King, who envisioned an organized "unsettling force" built across racial lines that would spark a "revolution of values" to reorganize our society.
Community activists and organizers, social workers, human service workers, students, faculty and all who are concerned with meeting human need and claiming economic human rights are encouraged to propose workshops, roundtables, panel discussions, presentations, papers, skill-building sessions, and more. Participatory formats are especially encouraged. We also seek proposals for cultural contributions in the form of music, poetry, art, drama, and multimedia presentations. We invite you to submit your proposal by fax to 216-651-2633 or e-mail to mpardasani@fordham.edu. Please include the following:
• A cover page indicating title of the proposal and the names, addresses, and affiliations of all
presenters.
• A 200 word proposal linked to the conference theme.
• Proposed format & amount of time desired
Note: No presentations on Thursday. We may contact you for approval to combine presentations.
Updates at www.socialwelfareactionalliance.org. For questions or assistance, contact Manoj Pardasani (SWAA), 212-636-6622 mpardasani@fordham.edu or Larry Bresler (PPEHRC), 216-651-2606, lbresler@economichumanrights.org.

Ontario, CA tent city bulldozed

AP news is reporting that Ontario CA officials decided a tent city had grown too big-- some 400 people-- and are bulldozing it. Homeless people who can "prove" they're from Ontario can return after the land is leveled and the trash removed.

The blog News Raw - Morning was on hand for the evictions to dig a little deeper into what's happening at SoCal,, the name of the tent city.

Just found a picture of Bushville, the tent city in New York city set up by the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. About twelve Arise members, most of whom had left their own very real Sanctuary City in Springfield, MA to help protest at the Republican National Convention. We'll be back in 2008 at the John McCain annointment in Minneapolis in September.

News roundup from homeless and poverty blogs

New Orleans: The 13th Juror reports that Phil Mangano, executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, is not happy with Mayor Nagle's plan relocating homeless people from under a bridge into a large, barracks-like tent, and would prefer him to focus on long-term solutions...wonder why he was so quiet when the decision was made to tear down hundred of units of public housing. Tulane students are tracking new in New Orleans at their blog, Homeless of New Orleans. I got an email this week from the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign. Their national coordinator Cheri Honkala (I should say "our" national coordinator, seeing as Arise is a part of PPEHRC) had charges of impersonating an officer dismissed in court this week; fellow PPEHRC organizer JR Fleming, Chicago Coalition to Protect Public Housing, still has charges pending.

Nashvillian Kevin Barbieux' site The Homeless Guy is running a survey on whether liquor stores should sell alcohol to alcoholics. Stop in and vote. At Humanity for Homeless, you can sign a petition protesting the City of Santa Cruz CA's new 15 minute parking lot law. Lots of good organizing going on in Santa Cruz.Text from the petition:

• Anyone who remains in a Public Santa Cruz parking lot for longer than fifteen minutes, regardless if you have a car or bike on premises is in violation of the new Parking Lot Trespass law and is guilty of trespassing, punishable as an infraction with a fine ranging from $100-$200.
• This means no napping or reading in your car, no resting while your other half shops, no sleeping off too much to drink. No associating with others on land we all collectively own. This stifles free speech and assembly rights and is unconstitutional in nature.
• These types of laws lead to "No speech zones" with small inadequate "Free Speech Zones" nearby -- in a Country where Free Speech is supposed to be a basic right human right we all equally share.

Over at Chosen Fast, Guilford County North Carolina's Point in Time Count shows the homeless population was 981, a drop of 33 people over last year's 1014-- but a real decrease in the number of people going unsheltered.
Cleveland Homeless reports homeless folks not faring too well: "The FAA and Department of Homeland Security closed Aviation High School as the Overflow Shelter for homeless men in Cleveland on February 1, 2008. With the snow and the cold this week, how have homeless people faired since this decision was implemented? 2100 Lakeside shelter is bursting at the seams, and on Thursday February 21, 2008, 25 guys waited throughout the night for a bed to open."

I'll save more news for another post, but there's a blog really worth checking out and reading regularly: Save Feral Human Habitat. This blog from British Columbia is " about what’s happening, what we’re doing and what we could be doing. It’s about freedom of speech and the decriminalization of dissent. It’s about our right to eat and our right to sleep. It’s about the struggles right here in our communities to protect the land we live on and to protect the basic human rights of the people in our community. among other things " Treesitter photo from their site.
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New Orleans - it's NOT too late to make a difference

Before Katrina: 6,000 homeless people in the city. After Katrina: 12,000, some of whom have been camping across the street from City Hall. The mayor was going to kick everyone off last week, but now it's been postponed. What wasn't postponed, unfortunately, was the bulldozing of the first of four public housing projects.

The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) had joined community activists in trying for a temporary injunction. That failed, because the judge said City Council had voted to demolish the projects four years ago. The destruction of three other projects, however, may be able to be held off indefinitely. At lest 3,000 people who used to live in public housing remain scattered throughout the country.

It's not that public housing in New Orleans before Katrina was so great; it needed and deserved renovations. The N.O. Housing Authority wants to replace the public housing projects with mixed-income, mixed use developments. Sounds great in theory, but too often is just an excuse for the displacement of poor people.

The PPEHRC National Coordinator Cheri Honkala is calling on all of us to make sure HUD knows we are watching them. We want the existing public housing projects preserved and renovated. (Actually, we want a lot more than that, but let's start here.)

Secretary Alphonso Jackson

U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
451 7th Street S.W., Washington, DC 20410
Telephone: (202) 708-1112 TTY: (202) 708-1455

(press #6 for employee directory)

HUD Inspector General Hotline for complaints:

1-800-347-3735
TDD: (202) 708-2451

The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign is a movement of organizations to which my organization, Arise for Social Justice, belongs. Four years ago we marched together in NYC at the Republican National Convention. This year, if all goes well, we'll be together again in Minneapolis, MN.

You can check out some of Cheri's day to day postings from New Orleans here.