Internship

Today was the third day of my internship. I am working at the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, a grassroots social movement organization that fights poverty and social injustice on a number of fronts, both locally in Philadelphia and working with other organizations on a national scale. To quote the mission statement, PPEHRC is “committed to uniting the poor across color lines as the leadership base for a broad movement to abolish poverty. We work to accomplish this through advancing economic human rights as named in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, such as the rights to food, housing, health, education, communication, and a living wage job.” The organization operates on the principle that social movements should be led by the people most affected by the issues they are addressing, and in accordance with that, PPEHRC’s leadership is made up of people living below the federal poverty level. Some areas where PPERHC is active include:

·         Food Distributions – PPEHRC talks to grocery stores and food banks, gets lots of donations, and goes door-to-door delivering them to people.

·         Housing Takeovers – Philadelphia has ten times as many homeless people as shelter beds, and it has twice as many empty houses as homeless people. The process of acquiring subsidized housing if you are homeless takes forever, and there are numerous obstacles along the way. PPEHRC reclaims abandoned houses and puts homeless families in them in a hurry, then works on acquiring the legal rights to houses for the families.

·         Reclaiming Vacant Land – Besides just empty buildings, Philadelphia has thousands and thousands of empty lots, ugly “urban prairies,” so to speak, mostly in poor neighborhoods. These lots often stay undeveloped for years and discourage investment in the areas where they are located. Residents want to use them for community gardens or sites for affordable housing, but do not have the legal right to use the land. PPEHRC is working with a number of other organizations to help design legislation to create a Community Land Trust that would make it easier for community members to gain access to abandoned land, revitalizing neighborhoods and putting residents in control. PPEHRC is also currently working on an urban cooperative farm on what was a large abandoned lot.

·         World Courts on Poverty in the US – The World Courts are assemblies (not actual courts of law) that take testimony from everyday people to expose human rights violations and then present their findings to the UN Human Rights Council. There are four big ones taking place across the country this spring and Philadelphia is hosting one.

·         Organizing Marches and Protests – PPEHRC is currently working on plans for the March for Our Lives, which happens at the Republican National Convention every election year and usually a pretty enormous gathering.

·         Camps for Kids – PPEHRC organizes summer camps for children in poor neighborhoods with a variety of activities. They get free passes for the kids to many places around the city that charge admission, like the aquarium.

·         Connecting with Artists – Art Feeds Us is a PPEHRC program that connects local artists (visual artists, musicians, writers, etc.) with the movement.

·         Fighting the Marginalization and Invisibility of the Poor and the Homeless – Whenever there is a proposal to build affordable housing in Philadelphia, there is a great deal of resistance to it – nobody wants it where they are. PPEHRC supports proposals for affordable housing. Cheri Honkala, the director, also has a history of organizing tent cities designed not only to fight the isolation often experienced by homeless people, but also to (very successfully) draw media and public attention to issues of homelessness.

·         Political Education – PPEHRC is constantly working on getting people affected by poverty involved and informed.

PPEHRC uses a few rooms in the Norris Square Civic Association building. When I go to work, it’s usually just a few people sitting in either the computer room or the office working on a million different things at once and somehow making so much happen. Today I made phone calls and sent emails to people about the planning meeting that is happening on Monday for the World Court, I researched a grant foundation and the Community Land Trust project and began writing a grant, and I connected with the director of Art Feeds Us in preparation to help locate more artists. Cheri, my supervisor, is amazing. She is brave and tireless and I think she knows everything. I am glad to be working here.