***

Executive Director
+ Lynn Lewis

Communications & Policy
+ Sam J. Miller

Lead Organizer
+ Marie LaPort

Office Manager
+ Hilda Marshall

Civil Rights Organizer
+ Shaun Lin

HOA Instructors
+ Rogers
+ Imani Henry
+ Not4Prophet

Picture the Homeless
2427 Morris Avenue
Bronx NY 10468
Phone:(646) 314-6423

 

KENDALL JACKMAN, born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn, is a former postal worker who is currently homeless.  Prior to her appointment with the Postal Service, she worked as a receptionist among other jobs.    She grew up in a household where her grandfather, who was a Garveyite, ran his own business.  Her parents and uncle were union members.  Discussing history and politics with her grandfather, and helping her father with his union work, stoked the activist fire in her blood that she was born with. While in Junior High School, when seven students were shot at Jackson State, an Historic Black College, during a student protest of the Vietnam War (getting only a fraction of the media coverage than Kent State), she and her fellow students took over their own school for one week in solidarity protest.    As a member of the original students to attend South Shore High School (first graduating class), she was confronted by racism.  For two and a half weeks, she and her fellow students rioted against each other.  She was one of a small group of students selected to form the first Leadership Class to address these issues.    In later years, she was active in her union.  She has one daughter, Kenyetta.

DARLENE BRYANT is homeless, born and raised in Harlem.  Darlene first became homeless in the late 80”s.  She’s slept on subway, shelters, and friends’ couches.  Darlene was a participant of the Tompkins Sq. Park, Tent City in 1988, distributing food and clothes.   24 years later she feels herself “struggling to the point of no return”.   Darlene first came to PTH for legal help a year ago.  She was hungry, so attended an organizing meeting for the snacks.   There, she ran into an old friend from Tent City and stayed.  Darlene immediately stepped up, becoming involved once again in the movement in different ways:  doing radio, television, public speaking, leading direct actions.   Darlene is a leader of the Housing Not Warehousing campaign and feels that “instead of gentrifying communities with new buildings, we should renovate some of the warehoused ones and move myself and my homeless brothers and sisters off the streets into buildings.”  Darlene wants to make sure everyone knows that if anyone needs a loud and rambunctious activist, she’s applying for the position, just look for Darlene Bryant “THE ACTIVIST,AND  SQUATTER”.               

Member Insights: ALETHEA SMALLS. For people who have never dealt with homelessness, the most inportant thing to know is that we are proud people too. We have morale, we had lives and we still have lives. We have goals. It's a crisis, but sometimes people get comfortable with it, because homelessness is no dehumanizing and lasts such a long time and it seems like there's no way out. So a lot of times, people stop fighting it. As long as I stay focused, and keep learning, I feel like I'm getting somewhere. People can tell you something a thousand times, or you can read it in the newspaper or in a book, but it's different when you connect the dots yourself.

As a member of Picture the Homeless, you will:

• BELONG to an inspiring and powerful group that HAS YOUR BACK in a crisis
• CONFRONT bureaucrats and other decision-makers, and demand ACTION
• SHOW the world the real story about homelessness, by speaking to high school and university classrooms, churches, and others
• GET ACCESS to computers and internet in the office
  REPRESENT the organization on out-of-town trips
• NETWORK with other groups doing exciting work on issues that are important to you
• LEARN how the system works by building relationships with other folks who have been through it already
• FIX the problems you're dealing with
• MAKE new friends
• LEARN skills like public speaking, running a meeting, grass roots research, fundraising
• ORGANIZE your friends and neighbors into a powerful force for CHANGE!
• WORK TO SECURE A HOME through direct action, sweat equity and commitment!

Download a Membership Brochure. For additional information or to get involved, email Sam J. Miller.

• Members Dialogue: Homelessness, Power and Our Work! - November 14, 2007

• Picture the Homeless challenges perceptions of marginalized - Voices That Must Be Heard, May 6, 2011

• Hart Island 'Memory Card' for PtH Co-Founder Louis Haggins Jr. - New York Correction History Society, 2004

• Anthony Williams: "Homeless People Are Worth Big Money" - Gotham Gazette, January 11, 2002