2004 : THE HOUSING COMMITTEE

Sam J. Miller: I just started doing outreach and got a lot of support from staff and members. I would go to the Wards Island bus stop, or the park, or Holy Apostles and talk to people. Picture the Homeless already had members, had a database, so I was calling people and bringing people in, saying, “I'm the new housing organizer, I would love to meet you. I would love for you to come to this meeting.” So, we had a meeting pretty early on.

You hear the word housing and what does that mean? There's a lot of problems when it comes to housing. So, hearing from people about what to them were the biggest obstacles to getting housing, and there was a lot, right?

PTHHousingCampaign simultaneousprotestof BushandKerry presidentialcampaigns’ silenceonthehousing crisis. October 29, 2004

In October of 2004, the Bloomberg administration made it harder for homeless New Yorkers to exit the shelter system, removing the priority for homeless families to access Section 8. He and his DHS Commissioner, Linda Gibbs, believed that homeless families were gaming the system by going into shelters just to get Section 8 vouchers.