2004: FROM EAU TO THE SHELTER CAMPAIGN

Tyletha Samuels was hired as the EAU organizer in 2004. She established the Women and Families Committee and from there Shelter campaign emerged. There was a thru line from applying to shelter, to being in shelter to trying to exit the shelter system into housing. For this reason, there was overlap in the membership of each of these campaigns although the EAU, Shelter, and Rental Subsidy campaigns each had their own set of demands.

Charley Heck: Tyletha [Samuels] was there working on women’s issues, because the way that women were getting treated by the city was inhumane . And some of the things that Picture the Homeless was getting involved in was bringing the city to task about the conditions in these places called EAU [Emergency Assistance Unit]. And the conditions that the persons in there had to live with and their children and sending their children to school and all that and all the problems that a homeless woman would have with children living in New York in those women’s shelters. And Picture the Homeless was doing something to erase all those problems.