On September 27th, Picture the Homeless will join its partners in Communities united for Police Reform in a rally and day of lobbying around the Community Safety Act - a groundbreaking piece of legislation that will protect New York communities from discriminatory policing and unlawful searches - among other things. 

We hope you'll join us on September 27th. 

How do you know when you're winning? Because the right-wing corporate-owned media starts trying to take you down. In March, Rupert Murdoch's New York Post began a series of offensive, race-baiting articles about Picture the Homeless. In articles and editorials filled with misinformation, innuendo and racist stereotypes, the Post tried to paint PTH as a criminal enterprise. The articles were widely circulated on white supremacist web forums, making PTH the focus of hate-filled phone calls and emails and blog posts. After whipping up this fake scandal, the Post called on the City Council to "do something about it." Sure enough, instead of standing up for poor people, folks at the City Council threw PTH to the wolves. These politicians, including folks we've been targeting for years because they won't do the right thing on issues of housing or policing, asked the city’s Dept. of Housing Preservation & Development to freeze our funding while they conducted a murky, intimidating investigation of PTH's organizing.

This Week At The Homeless Organizing Academy!

The Homeless Organizing Academy is a weekly series of FREE trainings, open to all homeless and formerly-homeless people, designed for them to get the skills and experience they'll need to fight for justice—and pursue employment as community organizers! Classes are taught by PTH staff, PTH members, and guest instructors with expertise and experience in each topic.

Everyone is welcomed regardless of experience!

Tribute to Ramarley: Gone but not forgotten Jean Rice, Civil Rights Campaign Leader/PTH Board Member Early last month, The People’sJustice Coalition honored Picture the Homeless with request that our tactical team help coordinate and manage the flow of people mobilized to demandjustice for the late Ramarley Graham. As many of you know, Ramarley Graham was an unarmed black teen killed by the NYPD. What happened to him has happened to too many and makes even more urgent the need to move this racist criminal justice system one step closer to the closure. Ramarley’s family is entitled to it and the dictates of justice demand it! From the South Bronx to Sanford, Florida America’s status quo has sought through vigilante type wanton murder to instill fear and intimidation in communities of color throughout the nation. So on this day these communities of the oppressed, these communities of the exploited, came together across race and class barriers to say that we are all Ramarley!

Ed. note: a number of press outlets are reporting Michael Bloomberg's recent comments about how "pleasurable" the shelter system is... a statement so absurd and out-of-touch and insulting that only a billionaire politician could make it. Here's a response from one of our members. In response to Mayor Bloomberg's statement that shelters are and have become a "more pleasurable experience," printed in AM New York on August 24, 2012... It's a total shame that New York's Mayor has no clue how shelters are run - I was in one in 2003 and it was no picnic, it was more like living in a prison. Maybe Mayor Bloomberg can stay in a shelter for a few days and see the real deal before he opens his mouth, when he lives in a town house.

Anti-Violence Workshop - an interview with Arvernetta Henry

On the morning after an intensive three day internal leadership development conference/retreat, Brother Andres Perez and I attended this event as representatives of Picture The Homeless. I continue to find certain aspects of our Anti-Stop and Frisk campaign troublesome, to wit; Have we framed this social/legal debate in our collective best interest? Have we shot ourselves in the foot? Sisters and Brothers PLEASE note that the Supreme Court of these United States has previously ruled on the legality and constitutionality of Stop and Frisk, Police v Citizen street encounters; in a discision called TERRY V. OHIO; when a much more liberial Supreme Court body sat upon its bench. Accordingly, so long as my organization P.T.H. sends me to represent the Picture The Homewless perspective with respect to this issue, our allies can look forward to my sometimes disruptive hand going into the air. {Roberts Rules Of Order} It is not in our collective best interest to continue to lump the currently legal stops /frisks I.E. Citizens V. Police street encounters , are thrown in with illegal racial profiling and overall illegal., unconstitutional law enforcement behavior. [MORE...]

We have 2 spots available on our next trip to Potters Field- join us!

Picture the Homeless is excited to invite you to a photo exhibit featuring photos OF and BY homeless protesters involved with the Occupy Wall Street Movement, and the encampment at Zuccotti Park.

For Father's Day 2012, twenty to fifty thousand people marched silently down 5th Avenue to demand an end to Mayor Bloomberg's racially-biased "Stop & Frisk" policing.

Picture the Homeless was honored to be part of that crew, along with so many of our partners in Communities United for Police Reform, faith communities, labor unions, and more.

Here are 100 of our best photos from the march itself, available as a set on our Flickr page.