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However even this outdated figure is based on a faulty definition of poverty.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