A 14 year old boy named Eduardo Loredo was hospitalized at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO, on July 2009. It was discovered that his heart was enlarging, making the pumping of the blood difficult. Eduardo has been at Children's for 3 months since July. Eduardo was given medication to improve his heart condition, but the medication did not have an effect on his heart. Doctors eventually told the family that Eduardo would need a heart transplant. Children's Mercy worked with St. Luke's Hospital to ensure that Eduardo would receive the transplant and Karina, Eduardo's mom, was told by St. Luke hospital that St. Luke hospital would pay for all the operation expenses. A few days Karina received a phone call from St. Luke's Hospital letting her know that they had made a mistake and Eduardo would not be receiving the heart transplant. Moreover, Children's Mercy hospital told Karina that in order to put her son on the waiting list for a heart, the family would need $100,000 as a down payment. Eduardo and his family don't have health insurance. On Wed. Oct. 14th, after being at Children's Mercy for 3 months, Eduardo was sent home by the hospital. He was denied being place on the waiting list and denied the heart transplant. The JCCC Latinos United Now and Always Club and the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign have made their priority letting everyone know in our community and the nation that EDUARDO needs a HEART transplant and that this inhumanity and injustice against Eduardo and his family will not be tolerated.


Please, help us spread the word and let us know if you know of anyone who could possibly help Eduardo.


Please contact:
The JCCC Latinos United Now and Always Club at: lunajccc@gmail.com

Labels: Health Care

Context:

According to 2008 census figures forty million Americans, roughly 13.2 percent of the population, live below the official poverty threshold of $22,080 for a family of four. This is an increase of 2.5 million in the last year.

However even this outdated figure is based on a faulty definition of poverty. The United States definition of poverty is based upon a 1960’s determination that Americans spend 1/3 of our after tax money on food, when today we spend about 1/7 of our income on food while the costs of housing, child care, health care, and transportation have grown disproportionately. Our current poverty figures obscure the high numbers of low-wage jobs and jobs with no health benefits, which indicate that many more people, by some estimates as many as 90 million, or about 30 percent of Americans, struggle to make ends meet. Thirty-five million, most of them children, live in households than cannot consistently afford enough to eat. Indeed when you take the PPEHRC definition of poverty: “the inability to meet one or more of your basic human needs,” the percentage of those who are poor is clearly many times higher than reported.

There used to exist a social contract in the United States The social contract is the understanding between the people and their government that determines how people’s needs are met and how social order is maintained. For generations, the old social contract represented the American Dream: employer-based health care for the entire family, pension and retirement, good living wages, the opportunity to own a home and receive a higher education, and much more. When we say the old social contract has failed us, this is not just theory and talk. We see the very real results of a broken social contract reflected in the plight of millions of poor and low-income Americans and our government’s current priorities. The following statistics only begin to demonstrate how the old social contract has been unraveling since the 1970’s:

• In 1980, CEOs made 142 times the average paid worker. In 2008, CEOs made a whopping 611 times the average worker. In comparison other countries set limits, so that CEOs only make a certain amount (such as 20 times) more than the lowest paid worker.

• Since 1990, if the minimum wage was to increase according to increases in CEO pay, the national minimum wage would be $40.49/hour today. It is $7.25/hour today instead.

• Today, Fifty three percent of workers have no pensions.

• Today, there are 150 million underinsured and 47 million uninsured (of which 9 million are children).

• Social Security benefits are now on average $900 a month per person and are quickly decreasing whereas the cost of living has steadily risen nationwide.

• Since 2008 there have been 300,000 foreclosures per month, a seventy five percent increase in foreclosures each year since 2005.

• There are 2 million people in jail today (which is more than China, North Korea, Iraq, etc.).

• Military spending is fifty four percent of the US government’s budget today whereas social welfare funding makes up only one to two percent of government spending.

• The experts predict unemployment will keep rising and stay high even after the economy is officially declared “in recovery” from the latest recession.


In the mid-1960’s there was public policy for a war on poverty. No such war on poverty has existed for many decades. In our 2008 presidential campaign, there was much rhetoric about helping the middle class, but no talk about the issues of the poor.

Instead of a war on poverty, there has been a war on the poor and a dehumanization of the poor. Examples abound. Cities across the country have passed loitering and other ordinances to keep the homeless out of downtowns and the view of its residents. The failure to replace New Orleans’s public housing and public hospital has been ground zero of a policy of economic cleansing.

Attacking the problem of poverty in the world’s richest country will take many approaches and the participation of many sectors of society. But without the participation and leadership of poor people themselves – those most directly affected – success will remain elusive.

As we work to build this unsettling force we face the enormous challenges from a power structure that has been successfully able to divide the poor against each other in a way that has made a coalescing of the poor difficult. They have pit interests against interests (Medicare vs. the medically uninsured, childcare vs. elderly services, homeless vs. homeowners). They have pit values against values (pro-life vs. pro-choice, welfare vs. minimum wage workers, God loving persons vs. heathens). They have pit the urban poor against the rural poor with racial undertones underscoring the divide.

To successfully build the unsettling force we need to shift the focus from competing interests and values to universally human rights. We need to consistently put front and center our economic human rights: the rights to food, clothing, housing, health care, education and living wage jobs. We cannot allow the poor and the consequences of poverty to remain hidden, and we cannot allow a “blaming of the victim” syndrome of those who are poor.


Action Plan


As we organize to build the unsettling force, our fight is to end poverty, not just manage it. In fighting for social justice:

• We need to continue broadening and politicizing the movement.

• We need to use more direct actions; do not be silent!

• We need testimonies that are not just about the suffering but also about possible solutions

• We have to unite!





National

From a national perspective actions over the next year will be focused in two directions: Highlighting the issues of poverty and the poor and legislative change


Highlighting the issues of poverty and the consequences of being poor

We must continue to shine a harsh light on poverty in the United States. We must do systematic documentation of human rights violations using the website and public events. Specific events over the course of the next year will include but not be limited to the following:


Be a participant toward raising issues of the poor in Pittsburgh at the time of the G-20 Conference. We will co-sponsor the September 20 Poor Peoples March for Jobs, participate in the week long tent city, and participate and lead other activities raising the issues of the poor during the week of September 20-25
Support and participate with the National Jobs for All Coalition with their First Friday Actions. On the first Friday of every month the Labor Department releases the previous months unemployment numbers, making it a time when unemployment and joblessness gets media attention. First Friday actions will include news conferences, vigils, pickets and other actions demanding jobs and an effective safety net.
March to highlight the issues of poverty from the Southbelt to the Rustbelt. In the Spring of 2010, a march will begin in the gulf coast of Mississippi and end at Detroit at the time of the U.S. Social Forum.
At the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit in June, 2010 continue the focus on eliminating poverty through actions and activities.


National Legislative Change

The Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign had put together an out of policy statement focused on the Rights to health care, housing and living wage jobs. This statement is intended to be promoted through the poverty caucus in Congress. In light of the conference in Louisville this statement was amended and added to. Below is the current statement


Out of Poverty Statement from PPEHRC


As we look to join the Out of Poverty Caucus in a national campaign to end poverty, the use of economic human rights should serve as an overall moral and legal imperative of what we should expect.

On October 7, 2008 in the second presidential debate, Barak Obama stated that health care is a human right. Since he recognizes health care as a human right, it is hoped that he recognizes the other economic human rights as well including the right to food, housing, clothing, education, and living wage jobs. As we frame our issues toward eradicating poverty, we should position our issues within the context of fulfilling our economic human rights, particularly using the full Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a guide:


“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

Consequently, below are policy statements that PPEHRC promotes:


With health care as a human right, we must have a health care system that is universal and guaranteed all equitably regardless of financial position. Over the last decades, it has been demonstrated repeatedly that this cannot be accomplished in the United States under private, market controlled system. Therefore, we must adopt HR 676 or the “United States National Health Insurance Act,” which would provide universal health coverage to all individuals in the United States and its territories. HR 676 would create a single payer, not for profit health care system, improving access to care for all and eliminating covered benefit health care costs for individual.


With all having a right to a standard of living adequate for the well being of ourselves and of our families including housing. We must transform housing from a commodity based on speculation and private profit to a human right guaranteed to every person regardless of income or situation. we can not tolerate 3.5 million people being homeless during the year, 1.25 million of them children, a figure that is rising as a result of the current economic downturn, and renters being displaced due to housing foreclosures. To provide for adequate housing, we must pass comprehensive legislation such as a strengthened “Bring America Home Act” that would affirm that housing is a human right and with the clear objective eliminating homelessness. Such legislation should:
Create new, affordable and adequate housing units through a dedicated and expanded federal Housing Trust Fund and other measures that will provide affordable rental properties for low income persons and families.
Create new decentralized additional public housing units
Greatly expand the number of housing vouchers (a minimum of 1,500,0000 new vouchers over 10 years)
Turn over vacant and foreclosed properties as subsidized housing
Establish protections for tenants facing evictions due to foreclosure.
Guarantee rental protections including from forced evictions and harassment.
For those who are still homeless, protection of their civil rights including the right to vote, to frequent public places, to utilize public facilities, and to enjoy equal protection of the law.
h) Ensure that the more than 688,000 homeless children in our public school systems are fully integrated with their housed peers, are provided support to succeed in school, and have homes in which to grow and thrive.

Consider the full scope of federal housing subsidies and take action to balance the disparity between housing subsidies for wealthy people and for poor people
Ensure that decent and safe housing is available to all at a cost that is affordable to every person and family


We also support the reintroduction and t the passage of the following legislation

Senate Bill 1668: The Gulf Coast Recovery Act. This legislation will speed up the repair and rebuilding of homes and affordable rental housing in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina; ensure continued rental assistance for both families that have moved back to their home areas and for families displaced by these hurricanes; and provide reimbursements to communities and landlords that were generous in providing assistance to hurricane evacuees in the aftermath of the storms.
House Resolution 582: supporting the right to housing for all children together with their families. The resolution recognizes that as Americans, we believe our children shouldn’t be denied the right to be housed together with their families based on what neighborhood you live in, or how much money you make.
3. Article 23 (3) of the International Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone who works has the right to just and favorable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity (and decent living as stated in Article 8 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights), and supplemented, if necessary by other means of protection.” Notwithstanding this human right, one third or more Americans are not receiving living wages for themselves and their families. Nothing illustrates this more that the fact that 42% of the 3.5 million persons who are homeless, have jobs. Therefore we must pass legislation that mandates a universal living wage. Such a living wage should allow persons and families to have to pay no more than 30% of the income for housing and allow families to be able to adequately pay for food, child care, clothing and other necessities. Furthermore, as unemployment continues to rise, we must have a job creation program that guarantees living wage-jobs.

At the same time, for those, who are unable to work, we must provide for a guaranteed income that allows individuals and families to meet their basic needs. Such an income should not be restricted to a five year time limit as current TANF regulations require.


Local, Regional, State

Although the national actions and activities shine a light and document the issues of the poor across the country, it is through our local, regional and state actions in which we have the greatest opportunity achieve substantive victories and systemic change. Below are some recommendations put forth at the Louisville conference.


State Budgets

Critical funding for welfare, health care, housing, child care, education and other critical needs comes from our state budgets. In these tough economic times, with state revenue not being adequately generated, we are seeing across that states across the country (Ohio, California and Pennsylvania to name just three) are choosing to balance their budgets by severely cutting or eliminating crucial services to the poor that were already inadequately funded.

The poor and our allies must become knowledgeable and sophisticated

In the budget processes in our states to fight the cuts and demand additional resources for our economic human rights. We need to document the stories of what the cuts and inadequate funding will mean to those who use the service and programs and continually publicize them along with other actions in our communities and with the legislators. We must demand that the legislatures raise revenue progressively to fund critical needs.


Housing

As the housing foreclosures continue unabated, it continues to be devastating to low income communities. At the same time the number of homeless continues to dramatically rise. To reclaim our right to housing there are several strategies that we should incorporate

Demands and activities for foreclosure relief including a moratorium on foreclosures
Housing takeovers of vacant foreclosed properties
Sit-ins (refusal to leave) in homes that have been foreclosed with the support and participation of neighbors in the community
Tent cities to dramatize the homelessness crisis
At the same time we must demand local low income housing units, and an end to vagrancy and curfew laws that are designed to keep those who are homeless hidden

In the gulf coast we must continue to support organizing efforts and continue to organize to replace low income housing for the poor in the region.


Education, Youth in the Movement

We have an education system that warehouses our children in the inner city and poor communities. Story after story was told how there is little interest in education in many of our communities with the emphasis on keeping order and regimentation. Adequate resources in the schools are lacking. Efforts to change the system should be led by the youth themselves with active support from the parents and the community.


Religion and Faith Communities

A successful movement to end poverty must integrate the faith communities into the movement. The movement must reach out

To churches and faith groups who can be substantial allies and participants in our actions. At the same time we must build bridges between the faith groups. This can be accomplished by concentrating on the similarities between the religious partners, and having face to face meetings.


Arts and Culture

Incorporating arts and artists in a movement to end poverty can have a profound effect in the movement, Musicians, filmmakers, painters, writers, graffiti artists, photographers, poets, DJs (and so many more) collectively monitor the pulse of the people. It is the artists who can take advantage of the positive possibilities that have emerged alongside the upsurge of poverty. Through their artistry—songs or spray can pieces, poems or plays, on screens or canvases--they express the hope, faith, and truth that resides in our souls.

Consequently, it must be an ongoing priority to integrate arts and culture in all activities in the movement to end poverty. This should be accomplished both by including artists in all actions as well as mentoring new artists into the movement.


Social Workers

How social workers can be active in the movement to end poverty:

Build SWAA chapters
In existing SWAA chapters, social workers can plan reality tours or truth commissions to highlight EHR violations in their communities. There was a lot of discussion about reciprocal relationships, esp. re: reality tours. How do reality tours benefit the (members of the) communities being “toured”?
Work with schools of social work to: offer field placements with PPEHRC groups, educate about economic human rights, develop guidelines for field instruction that include content on macro change, develop service learning opportunities, bring PPEHRC leaders to campus (and always try to use university money to offer honorariums).
Challenge other social work organizations- NASW, ACOSA, others- to focus on social & economic justice and human rights
Challenge Council for Social Work Education to include content on economic human rights and organizing in social work programs.
Educate and call for change within social service organizations (non-profit or otherwise)
Social workers can join and learn from PPEHRC groups.
Use Invisible Theater/Theater of the Oppressed models
Assist PPEHRC groups with organizational resources - photocopies, meeting space, etc.
How direct practice workers can be active in the movement in their work

Document economic human rights violations and talk about economic human rights- (rights, not "privileges")
Link people to PPEHRC groups
Breaking rules; bending rules - saying things you are not supposed to say. Prioritize rights over eligibility criteria
Educate people with resources about what people are doing to help themselves - connect the resources with the people.
Build authentic relationships across class-lines.

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

PA Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign and Kensington Welfare Rights Union holding a "Zero Evictions Rally" at the Philadelphia Federal Building between 6th and 7th on Market St. on December 3rd at 11AM to demand money for families to stay in our homes and not for war.

Download the flyer: ZeroEvictions2009event.pdf

STOP FORECLOSURES! Homeowners need a moratorium to stop foreclosures now!

www.economichumanrights.org / Contact: Cheri 267-439-8419

Labels: Cheri Honkala, KWRU, PA PPEHRC, Philadelphia, Zero Eviction Day

The Minnesota Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is calling for community support to fight the imminent eviction of Leslie Parks from the duplex where she has lived for 21 years. Tents are pitched on her lawn with signs like “10% of homelessness results from foreclosure.” Press conference to be held at Ms. Parks’ at 3749 Park Ave. South in Mpls. tomorrow, Wednesday, October 21st, at 4:30 pm.

The redemption period for the Parks’ residence ends November 20th , 2009. Now is the time for the community to show support for
our Minnesota Five women who are resisting foreclosure.


--Press conference--
Wednesday, October 21st, 4:30 p.m.
Leslie’s duplex: 3749 Park Ave. S, Minneapolis


Foreclosure evictions push people into homelessness. To highlight this crisis, tents will be going up not only in the Parks’ yard but in the yard of Ann Patterson who is in pre-foreclosure, desperately trying for months to negotiate with Wells Fargo to lower her mortgage payments. Both Ann and Leslie work full time. More encampments will go up on college campuses in the area. They will call attention to big financial institutions that get billions of dollars to avoid losses from their bad loans, while victimized homeowners still get thrown out on the street.

Winter is upon us. The current housing crisis is so DEEP that we are urging emergency passage of a foreclosure-moratorium bill that our governor vetoed last spring. This Wednesday we are launching a foreclosure moratorium petition drive throughout the city to let legislators know that ACTION IS NEEDED AT ONCE.

Labels: Ann Patterson, Foreclosure, Foreclosure Five, Homelessness, Leslie Parks, MN PPEHRC, Tent City, Wells Fargo

Eyes & Ears
Seeing is Believing
Source: http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0911&article=seeing-is-believing

Creating a better world first requires an act of imagination.
by Danny Duncan Collum

One day this past July I abandoned my blueberry patch to drive to Louisville and sit in a gathering of artists and activists—black, white, and Latino—who all said they wanted to help change the world. There were teenage rappers from the Mississippi Delta and young video artists from southeast Louisiana. It was a workshop session at the national conference of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.

The campaign, made up of more than 90 organizations around the country, aims to “unite the poor across color lines as the leadership base for a broad movement to abolish poverty … through advancing economic human rights as named in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as the rights to food, housing, health, education, communication and a living wage job.” Some of the campaign’s affiliates do things such as mass occupations of property to prevent home foreclosures. The campaign itself marched on the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis last year and is planning a march from the Mississippi Delta to the U.S. Social Forum in Detroit in 2010. They seem to be picking up the banner of the Poor People’s Campaign that fell after Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968.

Not long ago, talk of changing the world, much less abolishing poverty, would draw, at best, a cynical snort. But that was before “yes, we can” and all that. Today, hope is still a four-letter word, but you can say it in public again. But as we near the end of the first Obama year, it is also becoming painfully clear that even electing a smart and sane former community organizer—with big majorities in Congress to boot—was not enough to change the world. The last time I checked, big money still held the upper hand in Washington. There’s been a lot more help to mega-banks than to foreclosure victims. The smart and sane solution on health-care reform (single-payer) never even got a hearing, while the insurance and pharmaceutical companies were stroked and placated at every turn.

But presidents don’t change the world. People do. Presidents are pulled along behind great waves of popular uprising. That’s what happened during our last Great Depression, and Franklin Roosevelt knew it. That’s why he once famously told a group of progressive activists that he agreed with their proposal. “Now,” he said, “go make me do it.” And that’s what happened again in the 1960s when the civil rights movement forced President Kennedy to become a better man than he ever meant to be.

The Poor People’s Campaign meeting I attended this summer focused on the role of artists in a grassroots movement for economic human rights. Again, looking back at those two great periods of social change in the 20th century, they both were accompanied by a renaissance of popular art. Writers, artists, actors, painters, and photographers all had a place in the New Deal and the labor movement that fueled it. In the 1960s, African-American religion and music fueled the civil rights movement and all the ripples of social change it inspired. Acting for a better world requires, first and foremost, an act of imagination. You have to see the potential for change—in yourself and in your community. That act of the imagination can even lead one to see, as one rapper put it in Louisville, “that capitalist society is not eternal.”

That’s why, to the Poor People’s Campaign organizers, the arts aren’t just an add-on to political action. They are powerful motivators that can crack the shell of our American isolation.

Danny Duncan Collum, a Sojourners contributing writer, teaches writing at Kentucky State University in Frankfort, Kentucky.



Seeing is Believing. by Danny Duncan Collum. Sojourners Magazine, November 2009 (Vol. 38, No. 10, pp. 55). Eyes & Ears.

Labels: Building the Unsettling Force: A National Conference to Abolish Poverty, Martin Luther King, Obama, PPEHRC, Sojourner Mazagine

And from Picayune and Pearl River County

A trip down thru Hancock County over to Harrison County to the Long Beach Alderman meeting where the Mississippi Center for Justice had filed an appeal on the denial of permits for eight MEMA cottages. Voting 4 to 2 - the denial was overturned. A victory for the residents in attendance, Mississippi Center for Justice, and those who had showed up to support the effort including Cheri Honkala - an old supporter of homeless causes.

Labels: Beau Kring, Cheri Honkala, Katrina, Long Beach MS, MEMA

Chapter 2--Long Beach, MS.

Question:
-What are your regulations or restrictions on modular homes in the City of Long Beach?
-What are your objections to the Katrina Cottages?

These are not mobile homes they are modular, approved by the State Fire Marshall, and up held by judges. Perhaps you don't like them, we don't like your home either. But that does not give us the right to force you to move, just as you do not have the right to force these families to move. It takes people from all kinds of jobs to make a City and make it work. From politicians to pastors, mechanics to magistrates, council members and lawyers. No one has the right to tell another that they can not live here or have this type of home to be here and accepted it. This type of class posturing is unacceptable in our cities and violates everything that I, as a Veteran, have fought for. This type of action, makes my stomach turn and serves to strengthen my resolve to overturn it. I have been in the Military since 1984. I tell you this not out of boast, but to illustrate my dedication and commitment to the things I believe in. I do not give up and never fold at the sign of a fight.


Davis "Beau" Kring
WavelandWatchers.wordpress.com


Tuesday, Oct. 6th,
Long Beach meeting was a success for the 5 cottage dwellers who are beginning litigation with the City. They are safe for the time being. But for the other 17 cottage dwellers, the uncertainty continues.

Labels: Beau Kring, Long Beach MS, Waveland

MN PPEHRC: Recap of Week of Oct 9th
POLITICIANS CONTINUE TO STALL ON HOUSING CRISIS
WE DEMAND AN EMERGENCY MORATORIUM AND WILL LAUNCH A PETITION DRIVE
Where the MN 5 are as of October 9th
Barbara Byrd needing our support in district court coming up a week from Wednesday at 1pm, Oct. 21st
Linda Norenberg waiting to hear about possible offer from her lender
Ann Patterson told by Wells Fargo she must gather documents to prove that
Leslie Parks installing placard in from of her home ticking off foreclosures at 1.5 million estimated by www.responsiblelending.org; with 13 million in next 5 years...Hmmm, what crisis?

Rosemary Williams continuing to inspire others' resistance, welcoming flowers on Clinton Ave. home fence-Leslie has permanent flowers to give those who'd rather not leave fresh flowers to die. Read Rosemary's World Habitat Day comments (see link below).
Thurs. Oct. 8th: MN Clergy and Laity Against Foreclosure and Evictions
meeting at the Mayor's office
Rev. Loren McGrail arranged a meeting with mayor Policy Aide Cara Letofsky who gathered with clergy, the Mpls. Foreclosure project coordinator, and a foreclosure counselor. Rev. McGrail declared the meeting to be the beginning a "relationship" around how to deal with the crisis. Key questions raised were how to get the banks to do right, and how to pay for utilities once landlords bail out if a moratorium were issued. Mark Van Steenwyk will be setting up a Google group for the faith-based initiative.
Tues. Oct. 6th: Northside Community Summit: The housing crisis: What Can We Do?
Sponsored by the Bailout coalition and other groups, some attendees were renters whose voices NEED TO BE HEARD. The main result? "Contact your representatives." Gosh I never thought of that!!


Mon. Oct. 5th in Mpls: Ellison's Forum on the Foreclosure Crisis Identifying Problems and Sharing Solutions
Ellison kept repeating... politicians cannot lead on this-initiatives must come from the people! Leslie Parks and others raised the roof!




Monday, Oct. 5th in DC

Four of the MN Five at U.S. HUD in DC
We picketed outside and then attended sessions in conjunction with Zero Evictions Days and World Habitat Day. Security forces were diverted by Cheri and the MN resisters, but despite the secret service, Rosemary briefly was able to get to the microphone. We were joined by the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH), the National Alliance of HUD Tenants (NAHT), as well as the General Secretary of the Habitat International Coalition (HIC), the leading global housing rights coalition, headquartered in Santiago, Chile.
That afternoon Cheri Honkala led our MN/Mississippi/PA contingent to Capitol Hill for sessions with staff at the offices of MN Representatives Betty McCollum, Keith Ellison,Travis Childer (Miss), Barbara Lee and Maxine Waters (CA). They listened and took notes on our stories from THE PEOPLE (they usually hear from lobbyists). Most promising was the response from California legislative assistant Chris Lee who invited us to return to DC for a briefing on the crisis from the perspective of homeowners in foreclosure. Best of all, Ms. Waters' aide offered to help us if Keith Ellison lets us down!
For slides and an account of PPEHRC at World Habitat Day:

http://old.economichumanrights.org/m4ol/dailyreport/labels/International%20Alliance%20of%20Inhabitants.html


For further information
Contact the MN Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign
Cheri Honkala: 267-439-8419 Lynette Malles 651-497-4644

Labels: Foreclosure, Linda Norenberg, MN PPEHRC, Rosemary Williams, World Zero Evictions Days 2009

On the occasion of the UN’s World Habitat Day, poor people in the US are losing their homes at a record pace due to predatory lending and speculation and massive demolition of low cost housing, causing massive homelessness, unjust evictions and displacement across the nation.




“We are losing our homes to predatory lenders and landlords. We have driven all the way from Minneapolis, Mississippi and Pennsylvania to tell President Obama and Congress to restore our homes and stand up for our Right to Housing,” says Rosemary Williams of the Poor Peoples Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC). “We demand Zero Evictions and a moratorium on foreclosures to save people’s homes.”

“It is hypocritical for the US to host UN World Habitat Day when it is the only major nation that has not ratified the Right to Housing Treaty,” states John Parvensky, President of the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH). “With millions of Americans experiencing homelessness each year, it is past time for action to ensure adequate housing for all.” Signed by President Carter in 1978 but never ratified by the US Senate, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which includes the Right to Housing, has been ratified by 159 nations, including the European Union and the G8 nations.

“In Daytona, my family and neighbors face bankruptcy, foreclosure and homelessness within 30 days, while our landlord could walk away scot free with millions of dollars stolen from the tenants and other taxpayers,” says Erica Sipp, Vice President/South of the National Alliance of HUD Tenants (NAHT). “We call on HUD and Congress to support legislation and ratify the Treaty to Save Our Homes.” So far, the Obama Administration has not supported a Right of First Purchase sought by NAHT on Capitol Hill to stop the steady loss of affordable housing. More than 400,000 apartments have been lost due to owner or HUD decisions since 1996.

Headquartered in Philadelphia, PPEHRC is a nationwide movement of poor people with 114 chapters that has fought for the rights of homeless people, the poor and people of color in cities across the nation, including “Bushville” encampments at national party conventions in 2004 and 2008 (www.economichumanrights.org.) . NAHT is the only national tenant union in the US, representing 1.7 million lower income families who live in privately-owned, HUD subsidized apartments (www.saveourhomes.org). NCH is the leading advocacy organization for the 3.5 million Americans who are homeless each year (www.nationalhomeless.org)

On Monday, groups were joined by the General Secretary of the Habitat International Coalition (HIC), the leading global housing rights coalition, headquartered in Santiago, Chile, which has issued a global call for International Housing Rights Days of Action to coincide with the UN event. (See www.hic-net.org).

Labels: International Alliance of Inhabitants, World Zero Evictions Days 2009

Fair Valley Community is a mobile home park in Central PA. Recently, the land has been sold to Multi Ventures Inc. out of Baltimore who renamed the land Fair Valley L.P.. They contracted a company to "manage the land" or, more accurately,push the residents out.

Many of the residents of Fair Valley community were not given a fair deal for their homes. Most felt pressured into making agreements to sell their home for way under its value. Some were offered $500 for their homes when to estimated value would have been 8,000 - 15,000.

They have been paying taxes on what the property is worth.

They are told that if they do not leave with in this given time frame, their home will be destroyed. many of the Trailers are too old to be moved. If the trailer is new enough to move then the average cost to move a Mobile home is 7,000.

Fair Valley is home to many elderly folks who don't have the resources to move.

Read more at our previous post:
Human Rights Violations Happening in York, PA

Labels: Cheri Honkala, Deb Rothrock, Fair Valley Mobile Home Court, Justin Watkins, Multi-Properties Inc., Multi-Ventures, Natashia Euler, PA PPEHRC

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• Links to the great work of the Campaign's member groups
• Calls to action
• Information on important demonstrations, protests,
international strategies, data about poverty, and other economic human rights happenings

To access our pages directly, go to:

• http://www.twitter.com/ppehrcinfo
• http://www.facebook.com/ppehrc


We’re excited to use these new platforms to amplify the all the
movement building work that’s taking place. Building a movement's hard
work and we need all the friends we can get!!!

Arun
Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign

Labels: Facebook, PPEHRC, Social Media, twitter

Sisters’ Monica Beemer has been awarded the 2009 Extraordinary Executive Director Award by Portland Monthly Magazine! This award is a part of Portland Monthly’s annual Light a Fire award program. Portlanders nominate more than 200 individuals and organizations in 15 award categories, explaining in 250 words or less why nominees deserve recognition. The selection committee then reads the ballots and chooses winners based not only on the number of votes but also on the impact each organization has had in the community.

Labels: Monica Beemer, Portland Monthly Magazine, Sisters of the Road

This October across the USA, many thousands will publically demand an end to evictions as they claim the human right to housing. Member groups of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) are organizing marches, demonstrations, media campaigns, tent cities, housing “take-overs” and “take-backs.” And in the face of evictions, many families, supported by their neighbors, are refusing to leave their homes.

For many decades in the USA, owning a home has symbolized “the American dream.” But the images of happy homeowners portrayed in the movies and the media, while never accurate for many millions, have become a cruel nightmare for many millions more. Throughout the USA today homeless people hide under bridges and in the woods in shame and fear of arrest or removal of their children by the state. Thousands more bravely organize tent cities in defiance of the law.

Homelessness is not a new problem in the USA, but the ranks of homeless and displaced persons have swelled exponentially since the onset of the global economic crisis. Millions of families face bank foreclosure of their homes and potential homelessness. The very banks that have been “bailed out” by the US government are evicting families that can no longer pay their mortgages into the streets or, if they are fortunate, into the overcrowded homes of friends and family.

These families join the millions displaced by Katrina and other hurricanes who have been abandoned by government officials—many of whom eagerly support redevelopment projects for tourism and gambling. They join the millions of unemployed low-wage workers who had never been able to own homes, workers who paid outrageous rents to live in poor housing. And they join the hundreds of thousands of former residents of public housing that has been torn down to make room for condominiums, commercial development, or “affordable” housing that few poor families can afford.

PPEHRC is a USA national network of over 100 base groups, most of them led by the poor, organizing to end poverty and claim the economic human rights defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN in 1948. At its national conference in July, PPEHRC’s member groups unanimously endorsed the World Zero Evictions Days and vowed to participate in the World Assembly of Inhabitants. In addition, PPEHRC representatives will present testimony to the UN Special Rapporteur for Housing Rights at hearings to be held in November.

Click here to read about just a few of the PPEHRC groups’ Zero Evictions Day initiatives that will take place in the USA. Others will be added as plans are finalized.

For further information about these initiatives, contact Cheri Honkala, PPEHRC National Organizer, at cherippehrc@hotmail.com or 1-267-439-8419 (USA).

Labels: Homelessness, Hunger, Take Over, Tent City, Zero Eviction Day

Led by some of the many homeless people of the region, hundreds of members and supporters of CHANGER—Chattanoogans and North Georgians for Economic Rights—held their 2nd annual march through downtown Chattanooga on Friday, October 2nd.


They were joined by a vanload of allies from WIT—Women In Transition—of Louisville, KY. Khalilah Collins, their Executive Director and the recently elected chair of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) Coordinating Council, brilliantly and passionately keynoted the rally at the end of the march. She concluded with an invitation to all to stay with her: “I will go anywhere, march anywhere, until we end this war on the poor and have our rights!”


Others among the marchers were scores of social workers, high school students and teachers, members of the clergy, artists, and a city councilman who, formerly homeless himself, reminded us at the rally that the sooner we identify with the poor, the sooner we will ensure everybody’s human rights. A special message of solidarity was sent to those who dared not attend the march—the hundreds of undocumented workers recruited by local mills in the past and now living in fear, often in the area’s hills and woods, perversely called “illegal”. The age and ethnic diversity of the marchers bore witness to the depth of the economic crisis and the breadth of the commitment to carry out solutions that preserve human dignity and rights.

This year the march and rally were designated as CHANGER’s Zero Evictions Day initiative. Marchers halted in front of the banks that have been aggressively foreclosing the mortgages of thousands of unemployed and underemployed homeowners in the region, changing “no more foreclosures!” Zero Evictions Day—a global effort to end evictions and claim the right to housing for all—will be observed on World Habitat Day, October 5, in Washington, DC, where PPEHRC will hold a press conference and demonstration to bear witness to the failed housing policies in the US and the bailout of the banks that continue to foreclose and evict millions of people across the nation.

For further information about the march and the organization, visit our web site, www.ChattanoogaChanger.org or contact our chair, Brother Ron Fender, at Circle_unbroken@hotmail.com

Labels: Brother Ron Fender, CHANGER, March on Chattanooga, WIT, Zero Eviction Day

Dear Friends and Supporters of the Refuge and the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign,

Hello Everyone. It is now Monday, September 28th, 2009. It is 3 days after the last day of the G20 demonstrations and actions.

Our contingent from Florida arrived back in Florida on Saturday night. We were tired, but encouraged and excited about what happened there. For more than 5 days and encampment of the poor, the homeless, the unemployed and their supporters camped out at Monumental Baptist Church, on their grounds in of the poorest, historical African American Districts called the Hill District in Pittsburgh, PA. We participated in the March for Jobs on the 20th with more than 1000 people,including PPEHRC, the Refuge, Bail Out the People, several Unions and others. We had to opportunity to speak at this event and talk about how movements to end poverty must be informed and led by those effected by it. We had workshops on ending poverty, worker rights, unions, and global issues. We viewed several films, including "Explicit Ills", which talked about healthcare and poverty with PPEHRC and a protest as the back drop. We did a speak out on ending Police Repression, and one about Healthcare. We had a March on Mellon Bank in the middle of the day on Wednesday and managed to get serious attention and disrupt traffic. At this March, we spoke of Predatory lending, foreclosures, and the housing crisis.

We also participated in several large Marches, including a large March on Thursday that was unpermitted. The authorities claim we had only 500 people, but it was more like 3000 to 4000. It was at this event, the Police Repression was the greatest, though throughout the week the Police harassed by Flying helicopters overhead at all hours, sending Police by in their Patrol cars, randomly stopping people and asking for their ID's for no apparent reason, in one case we were visited by Secret Service. At first, we thought they were there for a funeral the Church was having, but when I discovered they were Secret Service, I went up and talked with them and took a picture of them. I got more than 80 pictures at this event this week. So, we have lots of footage. During the unpermitted march on Thursday, the Police used tear gas in a residential neighborhood effecting both protesters and residents, including children. They used tear gas on the University of Pittsburgh campus, and got both protesters and students, who were looking from their dorms. The police used high intensity sound machines, which gave me at headache, and they used rubber bullets and concussion grenades. I, as well as the group with me, were victims of tear gas. Several news reporters were hit with batons, tear gassed and hit with Police fists, including a New York Times Reporter and a CNN reporter.

At the permitted march, several thousand (at least 15,000) marched. Cheri Honkala, National Organizer with PPEHRC, spoke as did Union Organizers, Cindy Sheehan, and many others. Our march was blocked several times by a massive Police Presence and Military presence. They had helicopters, including Chenok troop carriers, Blackhawk helicopters, and Apache Attack helicopters, as well as armoured vehicles and Humvees. So, the Militarized presence was enormous. But, we were undaunted and got our messaged out of justice and peace and economic human rights. Several news organizations from the International community covered the event, including Al Jazerra, the BBC, German Television, Australian Television, and Japanese Television among others.

In closing, we believe it was a very worthwhile demonstration. We were especially pleased that the message of the poor, oppressed, unemployed and homeless were heard by those who were effected by the current economic crisis. Without your help and support, we could not have done this trip. We thank you. However, the work locally, must continue.

Our struggle for economic human rights for the poor and oppressed continues. We continue to serve and work alongside the homeless, the poor, and the unemployed. So, we need your continued support, help, and prayers.

For more info. about what happened on this trip you can go to www.economichumanrights.org.

Thank you again,
Rev. Bruce Wright

Labels: Bail Out the People, Cheri Honkala, FL PPEHRC, G20, Pittsburgh, Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, Refuge Ministries of Florida, Rev. Bruce Wright