Picture the Homeless

Educating homeless people about their civil rights:

Civil Rights Committee members developed a brochure to educate homeless New Yorkers about the laws most often used to harass us. Thousands of brochures have been distributed to homeless New Yorkers – which is at once an educational and an outreach tool. Thanks to our brothers and sisters at the San Francisco Coalition on Homelessness Civil Rights Project for their help and inspiration and to the NYCLU for reviewing content.

One of the issues covered in our Know Your Rights Pamphlet is panhandling which is not illegal. In the summer of 2005 we held an action in front of Yankee Stadium where panhandlers are routinely harassed by police – even after the Bronx DA stated that they would not prosecute these cases.

Direct Action:


We have had to claim our right to public space through direct action and media events. Actions and speakouts in Washington Square Park, Tompkins Square Park, One Penn Plaza, Yankee Stadium and Central Park have led to decreases in harassment for homeless folks in those areas. However, they have also sometimes led to retaliatory policing for leaders of Picture the Homeless.


Civil Disobedience:

We decided that we had to turn up the heat when a civil rights leaders was routinely ticketed, arrested and pushed out of the rambles section of Central Park. What sense does it make when the same homeless person is approached by the same cops on different nights and sometimes arrested, or ticketed to asked to leave – is the law based on quotas or just the police officers mood? And of course at the same time of night other folks are in the park and although it is after curfew not bothered. So we intentionally prepared to challenge selective enforcement in Central Park and six of us were arrested.


Research and Documentation:

In 2002 we launched our civil rights summer campaign to document police harassment of homeless New Yorkers. We wanted to document, from homeless New Yorkers perspective, selective enforcement and due process issues, particularly property loss as a result of interaction with the NYPD. We divided up Manhattan in to 3 zones, southern, midtown and uptown and has 3 teams of 2 people each – with at least 1 team member being a homeless leader who was homeless and familiar with the area and interviewed over 500 homeless New Yorkers in a 3 month period. As a result of this work we looked to other communities that were also documenting civil rights violations, such as San Francisco and Atlanta and adapted from these communities a more in-depth incident report. We have utilized surveys, photos, and video to document the collective reality of homeless New Yorkers.


Public Education:

The civil rights campaign has conducted workshops for the New York City Social Forum and in dozens of other public forums such as universities, places of worship, and local and national conferences. Individual civil rights leaders have also presented on panels locally and nationally. To this end we have developed public education materials such as Homeless Civil Rights: Myth and Reality, and our 2002 civil rights report Pattern and Practice: Systemic Violations of the Civil Rights of Homeless New Yorkers by the NYPD Our media work – through direct action, press conferences and creating our own media and theatrical productions helps get our message out.


Litigation:

The City’s unconstitutional policy of targeting homeless New Yorkers for arrest based on their homeless status and not on their conduct was reflected in the consolidation of the Homeless Outreach Unit and the policy shift requiring cops to arrest homeless New Yorkers under threat of being punishment – such as undesirable shift or precinct assignments. Picture the Homeless, represented in federal court by the NYCLU, filed a lawsuit against the City of New York and Raymond Kelly, Commissioner of the NYC Police Department.