In November and December, everyone remembers the homeless. Soup kitchens and clothing banks are overflowing with donations and volunteers. Those things are important, but homeless and poor people need more than mashed potatoes and mittens—they, and the city as a whole, need smarter housing policies and real jobs!   

Dear friends and allies,

Picture the Homeless is excited to announce that we will be hiring a full-time organizer for our Housing campaign! If you're an experienced organizer and you want to work with one of the most radical organizations fighting for real change to the way housing happens in New York City, please consider applying. And if you're not, but know someone who is, please pass this on!

This excellent article ran in this week's issue of the Amsterdam News.

Last week, Picture the Homeless organized a "sleep out" protest on 125th Street in Harlem, outside the NY State Office Building. We were protesting the fact that affordable housing, as it's currently configured, is not accessible to low-income folks - instead, it's generally targeted at households making $30K to $80K a year. We were demanding revisions to the federal guidelines governing "affordability," and we delivered packages to several of the state and city and federal elected officials who have office in that building, asking for a meeting.

This is a final reminder that Picture the Homeless is organizing a "sleep out" protest against the "bail out," and FOR housing that is truly affordable to low-income folks. The House of Representatives is set to vote today on a revision of the trillion-dollar bail-out for greedy bankers - even though year after year, those same elected officials refuse to consider any significant new funding for low-income housing... so it's crucial that we turn out and make some noise.
 

 WHY I AM COMMITTED TO THE WALL STREET BAILOUT PROTEST

The Current ruling class of America continues its domination over the masses by “splits and divisions.” Abraham Lincoln said it best, when he stated “A nation cannot continue to exist, half slave, half free.”

Picture the Homeless was invited to this big protest of the Wall Street Bail-Out, scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. We wrote the following statement and sent it out to our listserv, and it was subsequently reprinted in a number of online venues - including the Huffington Post! If you can make it to the action, look for the big blue Picture the Homeless banner...

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THE NUMBERS STILL DON'T MATCH!!!

Now that City Councilman Bill de Blasio" office has released its Independent Budget Office IBO report indicating what we've known all along one would hope that this administration would see its errors. But that is highly unlikely without tremendous public pressure.

Aida Lugo spent a year and a half in and out of domestic violence shelters before she was offered Housing Stability Plus (HSP), the city’s rental subsidy program developed in 2004 due to a shortage of Section 8 vouchers.