Picture The Homeless member Abdul Sabur's account of the incident that took place this past August.

    At about 3:30 pm on August 3, 2009, a friend and I were returning to our office in the Bronx after conducting outreach in Manhattan. We exited the D train at 183^rd St. and Grand Concourse and began to walk down 183rd St. As we got to the corner of 183^rd St. and Walton Ave., a patrol car pulled in front of us. Two officers, one of whom was a sergeant, got out and started to question us.

"A Positive Cost Effective Method of Community Policing"

By Jean Rice

Civil Rights Committee Leader at Picture The Homeless

Somewhere in my distant past I recal a period of time when police officers in my  Brooklyn community were mentors and role models.  I recall being taught boxing basics by mentoring cops from the old 73rd Precinct in the mini-gym that was constructed at the rear of that precinct.   If a kid like me showed any potential skills in the art of boxing, these cops took their private time to coach you, within the realm of the "Police Athletic League." Kids could make it all the way to the city "Golden Gloves" competition which gave us something positive to aspire to, it gave us a reason to hope...

Address to New York City Council

Re: Access to Public Space and Racial Profiling:

Ladies and Gentleman. I come before you this afternoon in the shadow of when the Civil War draft riots lasted for more than three days, Afro-American citizens of this great city were victimized by violence and racial profiling.

Today, the homeless citizen's of our city , who are disproportionately Afro-American and Hispanic are again being profiled when they encounter law enforcement agents in pubic spaces...

Yesterday, during rush hour on Saint Patrick's Day, Picture The Homeless members staged a sit-in at Penn Station.

Below is a video clip from NY 1 as well as audio clips that were taken from protest participants. Homelessness is NOT A CRIME and Homeless people will not continue to be treated like animals and moved like cattle by the Amtrak Police.

By Joan Harrison

            Homeless people are visible everywhere at Penn Station.  Although some are obviously clad in soiled rags, some are as well groomed as travelers and indistinguishable from them.  Recent newspaper articles notwithstanding, the numbers of the homeless across the nation are rapidly increasing.  If the economy persists in its current freefall, many more Americans will be homeless in a short while.

By Louis Marinconz                                                                                                                                                  Civil Rights Committee Leader

Recently, members of the Civil Rights Committee wrote a letter to Amtrak's Operations Manager at Penn Station, asking for a meeting regarding Amtrak's policies in dealing with the homeless. Our letter explained who we were, and what our goals were.

I received an e-mail back asking who Picture the Homeless was all about. From there began a series of phone tag messages between the two of us. Finally, members of the committee decided to pay Amtrak's Operations manager a visit.

Picture The Homeless Civil Rights Committee Responds to Article in New York Post COP PLAN: GO ON 'OFFENSE'

An article written on February 15th in the New York Post spoke about how Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Commissioner Ray Kelly are stepping up ther efforts in addressing Quality of Life offenses by advocating a zero-tolerance method of dealing with homeless people.  Last Friday precinct commanders met to help focus efforts against "aggressive beggars, squeegee men, hookers and illegal peddlers," all of which they consider "petty criminals."

Sources went as far as even saying "If you have a homeless person on your street, that's a threat."