PA Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign and Kensington Welfare Rights Union holding a "Zero Evictions Rally" at the Philadelphia Federal Building between 6th and 7th on Market St. on December 3rd at 11AM to demand money for families to stay in our homes and not for war.

Download the flyer: ZeroEvictions2009event.pdf

STOP FORECLOSURES! Homeowners need a moratorium to stop foreclosures now!

www.economichumanrights.org / Contact: Cheri 267-439-8419

Labels: Cheri Honkala, KWRU, PA PPEHRC, Philadelphia, Zero Eviction Day

This October across the USA, many thousands will publically demand an end to evictions as they claim the human right to housing. Member groups of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) are organizing marches, demonstrations, media campaigns, tent cities, housing “take-overs” and “take-backs.” And in the face of evictions, many families, supported by their neighbors, are refusing to leave their homes.

For many decades in the USA, owning a home has symbolized “the American dream.” But the images of happy homeowners portrayed in the movies and the media, while never accurate for many millions, have become a cruel nightmare for many millions more. Throughout the USA today homeless people hide under bridges and in the woods in shame and fear of arrest or removal of their children by the state. Thousands more bravely organize tent cities in defiance of the law.

Homelessness is not a new problem in the USA, but the ranks of homeless and displaced persons have swelled exponentially since the onset of the global economic crisis. Millions of families face bank foreclosure of their homes and potential homelessness. The very banks that have been “bailed out” by the US government are evicting families that can no longer pay their mortgages into the streets or, if they are fortunate, into the overcrowded homes of friends and family.

These families join the millions displaced by Katrina and other hurricanes who have been abandoned by government officials—many of whom eagerly support redevelopment projects for tourism and gambling. They join the millions of unemployed low-wage workers who had never been able to own homes, workers who paid outrageous rents to live in poor housing. And they join the hundreds of thousands of former residents of public housing that has been torn down to make room for condominiums, commercial development, or “affordable” housing that few poor families can afford.

PPEHRC is a USA national network of over 100 base groups, most of them led by the poor, organizing to end poverty and claim the economic human rights defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the UN in 1948. At its national conference in July, PPEHRC’s member groups unanimously endorsed the World Zero Evictions Days and vowed to participate in the World Assembly of Inhabitants. In addition, PPEHRC representatives will present testimony to the UN Special Rapporteur for Housing Rights at hearings to be held in November.

Click here to read about just a few of the PPEHRC groups’ Zero Evictions Day initiatives that will take place in the USA. Others will be added as plans are finalized.

For further information about these initiatives, contact Cheri Honkala, PPEHRC National Organizer, at cherippehrc@hotmail.com or 1-267-439-8419 (USA).

Labels: Homelessness, Hunger, Take Over, Tent City, Zero Eviction Day

Led by some of the many homeless people of the region, hundreds of members and supporters of CHANGER—Chattanoogans and North Georgians for Economic Rights—held their 2nd annual march through downtown Chattanooga on Friday, October 2nd.


They were joined by a vanload of allies from WIT—Women In Transition—of Louisville, KY. Khalilah Collins, their Executive Director and the recently elected chair of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) Coordinating Council, brilliantly and passionately keynoted the rally at the end of the march. She concluded with an invitation to all to stay with her: “I will go anywhere, march anywhere, until we end this war on the poor and have our rights!”


Others among the marchers were scores of social workers, high school students and teachers, members of the clergy, artists, and a city councilman who, formerly homeless himself, reminded us at the rally that the sooner we identify with the poor, the sooner we will ensure everybody’s human rights. A special message of solidarity was sent to those who dared not attend the march—the hundreds of undocumented workers recruited by local mills in the past and now living in fear, often in the area’s hills and woods, perversely called “illegal”. The age and ethnic diversity of the marchers bore witness to the depth of the economic crisis and the breadth of the commitment to carry out solutions that preserve human dignity and rights.

This year the march and rally were designated as CHANGER’s Zero Evictions Day initiative. Marchers halted in front of the banks that have been aggressively foreclosing the mortgages of thousands of unemployed and underemployed homeowners in the region, changing “no more foreclosures!” Zero Evictions Day—a global effort to end evictions and claim the right to housing for all—will be observed on World Habitat Day, October 5, in Washington, DC, where PPEHRC will hold a press conference and demonstration to bear witness to the failed housing policies in the US and the bailout of the banks that continue to foreclose and evict millions of people across the nation.

For further information about the march and the organization, visit our web site, www.ChattanoogaChanger.org or contact our chair, Brother Ron Fender, at Circle_unbroken@hotmail.com

Labels: Brother Ron Fender, CHANGER, March on Chattanooga, WIT, Zero Eviction Day