+ Accomplishments
+ Civil Rights
+ Community Land Trusts
+ Events
+ H.O.A.
+ Housing
+ Memorial Services
+ Media Project
+ Past Campaigns
+ Partnerships
+ Published Reports
+ Recent Activities

Executive Director
+ Lynn Lewis

Lead Organizer
+ Sam J. Miller

Housing Organizer
+ Adrian Antonio Paling

Office Manager
+ Anika Paris

Leadership Development Coordinator
+ Veronica Tirado

Youth Organizer
+ LaMont Badru

Outreach Maestro
+ Patrick Cooper

Communications
+ Marina Ortiz

HOA Instructors
+ Sojourner Hardeman
+ Zena Murphy

Led by homeless leaders who refuse to stay in shelter, our position is that if you lose your housing and chose to live in public spaces rather than go to shelter your constitutional and human rights should not be abused by the police! We fight to end selective enforcement of Quality of Life regulations (we ask "Whose Quality of Life" is improved by moving homeless people from public spaces?) We fight the lack of legal representation for homeless people advised by legal aid lawyers to plead guilty instead of exercising their right to trial, and forced to return to court over and over if they chose to not plead guilty. We are also working to ensure that homeless New Yorkers right to vote is protected, including in city jails.

Learn more about our Civil Rights Campaign and our Civil Rights Accomplishments!

For additional information or to get involved, email Sam J. Miller.

It's not a homeless crisis -- it's a housing crisis!  The city's best hope for reducing and preventing homelessness is a commitment to addressing the skyrocketing rents and general housing shortage that plague New York. Yet at the same time as the homeless population continues to escalate, landlords and the city continue to keep buildings empty! In fact, the total volume of potential apartments in vacant buildings and lots in Manhattan alone could likely house all the homeless households in shelter!  Our Housing Not Warehousing campaign sees homelessness against the backdrop of this massive warehousing of otherwise habitable vacant spaces.  We have been pushing city legislation that would require the city to conduct an annual census of all vacant buildings and lots, so that this information is always readily available to the public. Learn more about our Housing Campaign and our Housing Accomplishments! For additional information or to get involved, email Adrian Antonio Paling.

Several years ago, members of Picture the Homeless identified CLTs as a solution to lack of housing permanently affordable to the extremely poor, and we began to work toward  NYC has thousands of vacant properties, both vacant land and vacant buildings, and our Housing Not Warehousing Campaign has been working to inventory vacant properties and develop a plan for their use.

The Right to the City – NYC Alliance, of which Picture the Homeless serves on the Coordinating Committee, has adopted the call for vacant properties to be placed in a Community Land Trust which is still to be created.  Additionally, here in NYC, a workgroup has formed, which includes Tom Angotti of Hunter College and Peter Marcuse of Columbia University, as well as folks from UHAB, and the Cooper Square CLT, housing advocacy groups and not for profit housing developers as well as Picture the Homeless and Right to the City. See below for an excellent and comprehensive overview on community land trusts, developed by Tom and Peter. We are working together to see what type of coalition or alliance we can form to support the formation of a Community Land Trust movement here in NYC.

Learn more about our Community Land Trusts efforts.

* CANNERS' ECONOMIC JUSTICE

* EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE UNIT

* POTTERS FIELD

* RENTAL SUBSIDIES

Learn more about these past campaigns.