By Kendall Jackman, Housing Campaign Leader at Picture the Homeless

On the first of every month, you see a long line on 9th Avenue and 33rd St, behind the James A. Farley Post Office (General Post Office/GPO).  This is a large part of the homeless population of New York City.  It's mail day.  When you are street homeless, you don't have an address, but you still get mail.  As a homeless person in New York City, you can get a post office box for free.  So, many depend on the GPO to receive their mail, be it checks, or a letter from home.  If the Postmaster General is successful in privatizing the postal service, the homeless population will be cut off from any access to receiving mail.  Picture The Homeless will be doing outreach to this population before May 1st and on the 1st.  We will be participating in the Save The Post Office Action to highlight these facts and voice our disapproval of the potential disenfranchisement of an entire population of American citizens.

Here's what's happening.

The Senate has a bill named S.1789.  Some of the amendments to the bill (their are 39) were voted on last night.  6 day delivery has been changed to 5 day delivery, door-to-door delivery has been changed to cluster boxes on the corner of each block and FICA (Disability) changed from two-thirds of pay to half.  The Letter Carriers Union was fighting against these.  APWU (Mail Clerks and Mail Handlers) were fighting against closure of rural post offices and processing plants.  For the moment they have won this battle. 

Picture the Homeless is proud to support CLUPS - Community & Labor United for Postal Jobs & Services. Here's the CLUPS May 1st working plan to Save The Post Office:

8:00am - 10:00am  Demonstration/protest in front of GPO (James A. Farley Post Office)  33rd and 8th Ave.

12 Noon Union Square  14th and Broadway

4pm  Unity Rally with May 1st Coalition, Labor and the OWS Movement

5:30pm  March to Wall Street, stopping at MTA headquarters for TWU/Local 800, African Burial Ground for Civil Rights, and Whitehall Post Office for  Post Office, ending at Wall Street.