Picture the Homeless

The secret to the overwhelming success of Potter’s Field Campaign just one year after we began lies in the deep resonance of this issue among our membership because we know that this is likely to be our final resting place. In addition, the support from clergy and lay leaders from various faith communities of an agenda developed by homeless people and which ultimately resulted in the formation of Interfaith Friends of Potters Field has been invaluable. The family of Lewis Haggins, who have joined us in campaign meetings, as well as with public officials has been inspirational.

The Poverty Initiative at Union Theological Seminary hosted a dialogue between Picture the Homeless and faith leaders on March 1, 2005. This dialogue gave us the opportunity to educate faith leaders about the manner in which bodies of the poor are handled after they die and about the hardships the poor face as they seek to find closure in the loss of their close friends. Everyone left that dialogue agreeing that real changes were needed in the way the City handles deaths among the poor.


Members of the Potter's Field Campaign, under the leadership of the Rev. Amy Gopp, developed a moving memorial, "With All Due Respect," to honor the lives of all those buried in Potter's Field. Union Theological Seminary hosted this memorial on March 3, 2005. On June 22, 2005, a follow up gathering of faith leaders took place at Picture the Homeless’ office. By this time, the Potter’s Field Campaign was able to bring to the table solid proposals for how faith communities could assist us in affecting the types of changes we had previously agreed needed to happen. Between the March and June meetings, Picture the Homeless had an opportunity to do more extensive outreach to broaden the diversity of faith communities supporting our campaign.

The faith leaders present at the June meeting agreed to form a group through which they would act collectively to support our campaign and to coordinate ministry to interfaith memorial services. The new group calls themselves, “Interfaith Friends of Potter’s Field.” So far, the “Interfaith Friends of Potter’s Field” has helped to secure bi-monthly interfaith memorial services on Potter’s Field. They are meeting soon to decide how they will proceed in coordinating those memorial services and to consider how they can further assist our Potter’s Field Campaign.