Staff Blog
Today in protests!
Intrepid CP contributor Daniel Schwartz went to some protest today that we didn't even know about, and wrote about it. So here's his report.
Today, at 11 a.m., the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) led a protest against the wave of foreclosures sweeping across Philadelphia and the rest of the country. National Organizer for the PPEHRC, Cheri Honkala, directed the protest at Sixth and Arch, assembling more than 60 individuals and representatives from local groups like the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, Casino Free Philadelphia, and Penn’s anti-poverty activist group, Penn Haven.
With the housing crisis hitting poor homeowners especially hard, hundreds of thousands across the country have either had their houses foreclosed or are vulnerable to going “underwater.â€Â Explaining the protest, Honkala pulls out a barrage of statistics. “Every 13 seconds, a house goes into foreclosure here in Philadelphia.†Depending on whose statistics you look at, anywhere from 10,000 to 16,000 Philadelphia homeowners have been evicted due to foreclosure since the markets crashed last year. In a recent New York Times article Philadelphia’s primary civil court received accolades for providing the nation’s most successful foreclosure reconciliation program. But Honkala disputes the notion. “It’s not that Philadelphia has been the best at preventing foreclosure, it’s that we’ve been the best at delaying it.†Honkala exhales with exasperation and asks, “Is it really so great that we know how to drag out the inevitable?â€
Tim, a worker for the Kensington Welfare Rights Union describes the situation as madness. “You have a stressed-out banking system that somehow makes it cheaper to foreclose on a homeowner rather than modify their loan payments. You can use all the economic theory you want to justify that fact, but at the end of the day, it’s insane.†Other protesters, like Jimmy Tobias from Penn Haven, chanted about the city having more vacant properties than homeless people. “How does our government justify a commitment to spend billions bailing out the banks and on the Afghan War but can’t find the money to house its own citizens?â€
The protesters marched and rolled in wheelchairs from the Federal building to Sixth and Market where they clogged the busy crossroads. Police threatened to arrest the activists as they blocked all four sides of the intersection before the crowd finally consolidated and traffic resumed.
“If the situation doesn’t change,†Honkala called through her megaphone, “we’ll be back here in late January with at least 1,000 people. That’s a promise.â€
Thank you for publicizing this, Daniel.
Good on ya! Give those greedy rich guys hell.