While heath care reform dominates the national debate, there is a 14 year-old boy in Kansas City, Kansas named Eduardo Loredo who could die any day.

Eduardo is being denied a heart transplant because he does not have health insurance (or enough money) to pay for a heart transplant and follow up care. Eduardo was diagnosed with Cardiomyopathy, a serious disease in which the heart muscle becomes inflamed and eventually stops working altogether, and was hospitalized at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, MO beginning in July 2009. Eduardo was sent home from Children’s Mercy Hospital on October 14, 2009 and told that he had the potential to live another two or three years, but that he could also die any day. Missouri’s Medicaid program is generally available only to citizens and certain legal immigrants who meet a five year waiting period. These restrictive rules prevent Eduardo from qualifying for health insurance that would cover both the transplant procedure and the long-term follow up care required to ensure a successful transplant. Without this coverage, the total cost of the transplant would cost his family $500,000. Children’s Mercy Hospital told Eduardo that without an up-front payment of $100,000, he would not even be able to get on the waiting list for a heart transplant. While Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, MO originally offered to perform the transplant surgery for no cost, this offer was later retracted. His family is simply being told that his life is not a priority.

On December 10, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These human rights include necessities such as housing, education, food, and health care. Although the United States signed this declaration, we are still waiting for our government to guarantee these rights.

Martin Luther King, Jr declared: “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”

Whoever we are—whatever the color of our skin or how much money we have in the bank account or where we come from—we all deserve the chance to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. And so does Eduardo.

The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) calls on hospitals, doctors, health clinics, politicians, religious people, and all people of conscience to take responsibility for Eduardo’s life, and help him to live. Please contact Cheri Honkala, national Organizer of PPEHRC, at 267-439-8419 or cherippehrc@hotmail.comto help us save Eduardo.


As our government continues the battle to reform our health care system, may they look at Eduardo and declare: ENOUGH.


Enough people have died as a result of being barred from medical care that could have saved their lives.


Not one more Death. Health Care is a Human Right!

Labels: Cheri Honkala, Eduardo Loredo, Health Care, Kansas, Kansas City

On November 8th, PPEHRC member groups from across the nation presented testimony to the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Raquel Rolnik at the National Forum on the Human Right to Housing. Special Rapporteur Rolnik was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council in May of 2008 to examine the crisis surrounding homelessness as well as inadequate and unaffordable housing, as part of a larger movement for an adequate standard of living for all people in the US and the rest of the world. This is a historic first official visit to the United States for the Rapporteur, who spent 18 days travelling the country meeting with housing experts and people experiencing housing issues.


In her final stop, Special Rapporteur Rolnik hosted a town hall meeting to hear the voices of over 20 organizations that deal with housing issues to include in her final report, which will be submitted to the United Nations HRC in March 2010. All of the testimony along with an expanded report will be published on the Internet at restorehousingrights.org. We listened to several hours of testimony. Testimony was given by PPEHRC member groups from the Gulf of Mississippi, St. Petersburg, Florida, Rhode Island, California, Chicago, Illinois, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The movement organized and presented a packet of written testimony, from PPEHRC groups in attendance as well as those who could not make it, to the Special Rapporteur. Cheri Honkala, national organizer for PPEHRC, insisted that the focus of the forum be on poor people as the central leadership in the movement to end poverty. We are hopeful that the final report will have this crucial emphasis on the stories of those of us who are suffering daily with housing issues.


The National Forum on the Human Right to Housing continued the following day with workshops and planning sessions with the people affected by the crisis and advocacy groups in attendance centered on how to end homelessness. Cheri Honkala participated in a panel entitled, “Development-based and the Human Right to Housing” along with Coalition to Protect Public Housing organizer, J.R. Fleming and Erika Sipp and Mr. Bonner of the National Alliance of HUD Tenants. We talked about the importance of ratifying the International Covenant of Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.


Because of the moving testimony given on behalf of the Minnesota 5, a lawyer has stepped forward to represent the women in their struggle to hold onto their homes. More information on this exciting development will be released very soon. We look forward to other people in the legal community stepping forward to assist members of an organized movement to end poverty.




PPEHRC Groups Represented:

Minneapolis PPEHRC

Kensington Welfare Rights Union - Philadelphia

Fair Valley York, PA

Western Regional Advocacy Project – California

Coalition to Protect Public Housing – Chicago

Waveland Watchers – Mississippi Gulf

St. Petersburg, Florida PPEHRC

National PPEHRC

Labels: Cheri Honkala, Erika Sipp, J. R. Flemming, National Alliance of HUD Tenants, UN Special Rapporteur Raquel Rolnik United Nations Human Rights Council

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