Goals of the Potter's Field Campaign

The Potter’s Field Campaign is pursuing several goals that can be grouped into three major areas of concern:
  • ♥ Access for the homeless to Hart Island so they can mourn the loss of their close friends who passed from their community;

  • ♥ Use technology to ID people more quickly to notify family and friends in a timely fashion – most homeless people have come in contact with DHS, HRA or NYPD and have been fingerprinted;

  • ♥ And engagement of faith communities to pursue alternative burial sites to Potter’s Field.

"Tear Down This Sign!" -- Charles Heck


The specific goals approved in common by the Potter's Field Campaign are:
  • ♥ Use technology to ID people more quickly to notify family and friends in a timely fashion – most homeless people have come in contact with DHS, HRA or NYPD and have been fingerprinted;

  • ♥ Restore dignity to homeless people in death;

  • ♥ Build a chapel – a prayer or meditation place – that is accessible to any member of the public who wants to go there one day a month that doesn’t conflict with DOC;

  • ♥ Allow faith leaders to a monthly interfaith service at Potters Field;

  • ♥ Schedule monthly trips to Potters Field for mourners;

  • ♥ Erect a public memorial to commemorate the dead;

  • ♥ Expose conditions to the public to put public pressure: it is the city’s obligation to provide a public cemetery;

  • ♥ List obituaries of deceased homeless persons in the newspapers and/or a website;

  • ♥ Handle bodies with dignity, have some type of faith component;

  • ♥ End mass grave burial;

  • ♥ Take down the sign -- (the sign at the ferry identifying it as "Prison").

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