Join Picture the Homeless for our annual Interfaith Memorial Service dedicated to our homeless brothers and sisters who have passed away this year. Some we know their names, many we don’t——but none are forgotten.

This week, the Census Bureau began to release data from the 2010 census. There's a ton of information out already, and lots more to come. The next few weeks and months will hold a lot of revelations, as organizations and individuals and institutions begin to mine the data... but already we're seeing some of the gloomy news that we all expected...

"You think it's cold outdoors?! Wait until you go inside the shelters! 

Cold hearts and cold souls make the temperature drop inside the dorms. The only heat that's given out is the rising temperature from emotions flaring up! Because the staff refused to heat up the dorms, the clients let off heat through the hot air from within - through their voices. 

Hey DHS - what's with the heat?!"

- Love Divine, PTH Member, whose shelter has been freezing cold all week!

All at once a police officer is prodding me, ordering me in a harsh voice to leave. I'm so tired it doesn't occur to me until later that he didn't ask if I had a train ticket. It’s clearly not the usual expulsion. Homeless people are being thrown out not because they have no ticket but to clear a space for the medics. I get up and gather my things quickly. And again I am ordered by the same loud voice to leave, even though I am obviously already leaving. As I walk toward the exit something odd strikes me. No one else in the room is leaving! None of the others is even being asked to leave! Even the most dilapidated are not being asked. Many are still fast asleep in that last row.

PTH housing campaign leader Kendall Jackman recently created a quick petition for folks who want to help make sure that Intro 48 gets a hearing!

She says: 

 

Homeless people traveled to Brooklyn this morning, to deliver a papier-mache turkey to the Brooklyn City Council Member who is blocking an important housing bill. 

MEDIA ADVISORY

 

For immediate release: November 23, 2010 (Tuesday)
 

Today, a crew of Picture the Homeless members traveled to the Stated Meeting of the City Council. Less than a week ago, we had been told by building security that no one affiliated with our organization could attend a public meeting.

When attorney Norman Siegel contacted the security team, he had been referred to the Speaker's Office. After a long delay, he heard back from the Council's lawyers - who acknowledged that a policy of guilt by association was wrong, and promised that we would not be banned today or ever again.

Last week, Picture the Homeless learned that we were BARRED from attending public meetings of the City Council. EVERYONE affiliated with the organization is prohibited from these meetings, allegedly because PTH folks have disrupted past meetings. To us, this is a clear form of discrimination - analogous to enforcing a policy against all Muslims based on the actions of some Muslims.

This morning, members of Picture the Homeless went to 250 Broadway to attend a public meeting of the Housing & Buildings Committee of the Council. We were shocked to see that the building's security team had our picture up on the wall of their cubicle, and every security staffer had a printout of our names and information. Then, we were told that we were not permitted to attend the public meeting, because we had disrupted meetings in the past. When we informed them that none of US had participated in those disruptions, we were told it didn't matter. "The City Council is running scared of Picture the Homeless because we told the truth about Intro 48," said Housing Campaign leader Bernard Anderson.