A GLOBAL HOMELESS MOVEMENT

Anika Paris: I think about things that happened at PTH or conversations that I onlyhad because of PTH like, daily. Just in terms of my understanding of the world and organizing and movements, I remember learning about the Shackdwellers, and the MST [Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra] in Brazil, and I went to Detroit to the U.S. Social Forum with

PTH. We had a whole contingent. I remember Detroit really clearly.

I remember there was somebody from the Shackdwellers who came through the office, and it was just a really chill conversation, This was just a bunch of people around the table talking. And I remember he said like, “You know they give us these rights, but you can’t afford your rights.” And I’ve like repeated that so many times. Yeah, that was really revelatory for me

Alease Lowe, Arvernetta Henry,Darya, Maggie, with AbM/Shackdwellers Movement in South Africa founder and President S'bu Zikode visits Picture the Homeless in the Bronx.

November

11th, 2010

Arvernetta Henry: I have to say, Picture the Homeless has done a lot for me. I have travelled across the world through having people from other countries come into our organization, speaking about the homeless plight and how they would like to see how Picture the Homeless handled it, and how they were able to get the government to listen to them.

I'm talking about countries like South Africa, Germany, England. Different places coming to our country, coming to our organization, and interviewing us and asking questions, and we are able to impart that wisdom andknowledge that we learned from the leaders at Picture the Homeless!

DelegationfromBrazilvisingPTHoffice,2016

Jean Rice: Picture are Homeless seldom heard of, but often our footprint is there. From Istanbul where people that are trying to reform a process that is not in the common good, when the people that fell between the cracks, where people end up being criminalized or vandalized having their rights, basic human rights trampled upon... When they come all the way from Istanbul to New York City and seek Picture the Homeless out and use us as a model.

When the Shackdwellers from South Africa come to Picture the Homeless and use us as a model! I mean, I sometimes get that Urkel complex and say, “Gee! Did we do that?!” It's unbelievable that where God and this chain of events has led my organization and I'm proud to be part of that.

Reverend Liz Theoharis: There’s an award winning film about a group of homeless people in South Africa who are taking on the system, in post-apartheid South Africa. And there’s such similarities to these young people fighting for their lives, and their rights and their housing rights, and showing up in different places with a constitution. There's lots of moments where it's really parallel to the kind of work that Jean Rice and others are doing in the United States, where you know, you show up and you tell people, "These are your rights." Or, "This is a violation of my rights and of your rights." And the same things happening, basically because of similar conditions and there are these amazing leaders! And then they got to meet each other, right?

And so, shortly after the leadership school that we had in West Virginia, there was this really bad attack in one of the settlements. And so, Picture the Homeless and the Poverty Initiative and a couple of groups organized this protest outside of the South African consulate. And what we're told is it has this really big influence. That so we have this group of homeless folk and other poor people and students and domestic workers who had all kind of come to know each other at the school and a series of different things, showing up and saying like, "We have solidarity with people in our situation and in similar situations in South Africa." Because it's the United States, South Africa didn't want to be embarrassed basically by people in the United States calling them out for what they're doing to their people, and so it means this really big victory actually, where they stop the repression.

And again, it's Jean and Mrs. Henry and different folks like that, who are leading the chants are leading the charge and who are willing to kind of talk back to the consulate cops. But again, to secure more safety for shack dwellers in South Africa, at the same time they’re standing up for people's rights here.

So it was beautiful when then, we have this film screening [Dear Mandela], and the New York premiere is dedicated to Picture the Homeless and leaders from Picture the Homeless, including Jean, are right there in the story. In fact, in the film, there are people wearing Picture the Homeless shirts! And so, you can see the South Africans, who have heard about people organizing in the U.S., and they’re wearing those shirts because they're showing their solidarity, too.