Listening to Members Experience and Analysis
Floyd Parks (October 25, 2019)
I was right there across the street from Metro-North. That’s where we was living, had that little gathering, in that area right across the street. Somebody was being harassed and talking to Nikita [Price] about this stuff, right? And he came and said, “Anybody need any help, any assistance with anything?” I said, “What can you offer? What you got to offer?” He said, “Talk to us. Help us know what your problem is. Explain your situations. Let us know what’s going on, how can we help you?” That’s how I got into it. I started talking.
He said, “Oh, I like the way you talk. You want to talk?
Then I got speaking in places and learning how to communicate and let people know what’s going on, and how things are out there and what people are really going through. That’s like a good feeling, that you know that there’s somebody that’s there that’s going to listen to you, somebody that’s there that’s going to see the seriousness of what you’re saying, somebody that’s going to be open and going to be considerate of your feelings and your thoughts and put everything in perspective, you know?
Tyletha Samuels (April 19, 2019)
It was bad. It was horrible. It was so many different things. To have to sit with your child for so many hours to have to go to a shelter, late at night… And then the medical part of it, you know? Okay, I understand. When you go into a place, you want your children to be safe and not bring in germs and stuff.
But the way they told me how they used to do it, like if I’m dirty or I’m diseased, or something like that. The way the system was, they felt like they dehumanized you. But the families and the people
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that I did talk to did talk to me. They did say, “Well look, this is worth it. We’re glad to hear that there’s somebody out there who cares… Somebody out there that wants to do something.”
Being Accountable to Members
Ryan Hickey (May 22, 2019)
The members are leading the work and in the press and speaking for themselves and there’s no other organization in the city that does that really. Membership in a lot of groups are often used to serve an end. But I never felt like our membership was being used, because our membership was, first of all—really strong. And if we did something stupid, people like GKM would be like, “What the fuck is your problem?” It’s like, “You work for me.”
We were accountable to them, and they were accountable to us. It was like this shared accountability that I think was healthy! A lot of the times there were unhealthy moments for sure, but that is how it should be. You should be directly accountable to membership and if you’re member led, which we were.
Ryan Hickey (May 22, 2019)
One of the speakers was talking about housing and how we need supportive housing, and I remember Scott, or somebody was just booing and hissing. It’s not a great look to be with coalition members and booing at our own rally. But that’s coming from a real place. And I remember Jaron was like, “Dude don’t do that. Tell your members not to do that.” I’m like, “Listen to where that’s coming from. Ask yourself why they were booing and hissing rather than saying ‘Don’t boo and hiss.’”
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Supporting the Development of Collective Analysis and Systemic Solutions
Floyd Parks (October 25, 2019)
Sitting back and looking at what’s going on and discussing, seeing what needs to change, talking and relating to the whole perspective of what we’re trying to accomplish, where everybody comes to some kind of agreement, and we try to go out from there. I guess they saw the seriousness of the topic, the seriousness of what they’re going to bring forth. What they were saying, they believed it. Everybody felt this was the right thing to do. That’s why everybody came together and got it done. *
Willie Baptist (November 19, 2018)
I remember a meeting. I went there and didn’t know what to expect. I seen homeless folks trying to figure out what to do, planning about particular police brutality issues, all the different issues. I was very impressed with the fact that you had homeless
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Floyd Parks and Jesus Morales with PTH Civil Rights campaign filing Notice of Claim for destruction of property by NYPD. December 21, 2016.
folks, men, and women, who are there planning their next action based on, I think at that time it was dealing with police injustices that that they were trying to deal with at that stage. And you know, there was no doubt who was the leadership of that process.
Nikita Price (December 2, 2017)
It didn't take us long to realize, “What the fuck! I'm not going to be able to pay this rent after five years, even with a job.” That's when the reality came that the majority of the folks that were in the shelter that were members of ours, did not make a living wage then. And with this step down, each year you would have to pay that much more, that much more, that much more, that much more... And we were looking at people's salaries and we were looking at the rents that were being asked, and it's like, “No, this is bullshit!”
That's when we start engaging the city. Like, “This is not going to work!” I remember us speaking with then folks at HRA and DHS, and saying, “This shit is not going to work! People are going to be right back in the shelter.” And they would not listen to us.
And I remember us ruffling a lot of feathers at DHS—Maryanne Schretzman, Susan Nayowith, and a few other people. Whenever they would see us coming they're like, “Here come these motherfucker's again.” You know, “What do you want? We gave you a voucher!” Well, the voucher is not going to work.
Ryan Hickey (May 22, 2019)
We realized that we couldn’t leave it up to the “experts” to solve the problems because if they could, or if they would, or if they wanted to things would’ve been solved. I think this is part of Picture the Homeless’ mission where homeless people know the
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problems, therefore they know the solutions and I guess the challenge is the organizing work between identifying the problem and identifying the solution and how to get there. Representing
Sam J Miller (November 30, 2017)
I remember there was a call that came in—like we were doing press calls, and somebody was like, “Oh sure, we'll do an interview. Who's there?” Right? And it being like—I was like, “Okay, let me put Tyletha on.” And not knowing that Picture the Homeless had an organizational value where like members are the ones who speak to the media. And so, you being like, “Ah, no that's not going to be Tyletha, get the person's number and we'll call them. We'll get a member to do the interview and we'll call them back.”
Ryan Hickey (May 22, 2019)
She may not have come to every housing meeting. But when it came time to talk to the press about the failures of LINC or the failures of temporary subsidies, which was a huge thing for the press for a year. New York 1, PIX 11—they were often doing these exposés, these exclusives. When they needed a story about the failures of these problems, if I didn’t do that work with Donna, they wouldn’t have come to us and we would’ve been like, “Sorry we don’t have anybody.” So, even if we didn’t have a targeted campaign about temporary subsidies, that still served the mission and still served the work because Donna was talking.
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Everyone is a Teacher and a Learner
Anthony Williams (January 22, 2018)
It’s homeless people talking to homeless people. It’s like the sisters from Sisters Place. They see a guy with a shopping cart, and they say to him, “Hey, you okay today? How you doing? You know, they talk about homeless issues every Friday down there at that church.” And the guy might say, “Where? What church?” He said, “They have coffee, refreshments down there every Friday morning at ten o’clock, at First Unitarian.” “Mm. What do they talk about?” “Oh, you know, shelters, programs, housing…” “Oh, okay. Maybe I’ll check it out.” “Yeah. Maybe you should. Maybe you can give some input, you know. Maybe you can tell us what’s going on the street.”
Because we don’t know everything, they’re the ones that know. They’re the ones that know about the violence. Because they’re in the middle of it, so yeah. That’s what it means to me. It means them educating us and us educating them.
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John Jones and Jean Rice, PTH Civil Rights campaign retreat. September 2009
Shaun Lin (2019.12.11)
So, Marcus and Maria [Walles] both took on roles of being trained to do Know Your Rights stuff. So, they would be very regular at Holy Apostles and other places that we would do outreach and do Know Your Rights trainings with folks, there. Marcus would also tell me that he would just be with his friends at different spaces, and he’d be having those conversations. This is outside of the Picture the Homeless space, so he really embodied that work.
Lynn Lewis (January 25, 2018)
Jean [Rice] did a lot in terms of supporting other people to be prepared, when they went to speak in public. And that's something I always respected about Jean. Jean is a leader, but Jean doesn’t try to hold on to all the leadership by himself. He helps other people. I've seen Jean many, many, many times over many years help people prepare to speak in public to the point where he and Sam created a whole workshop on how to speak in public. So here's Jean, "Know your audience, know your topic, know your order in the lineup." Jean would pass that knowledge on to another homeless person.
Supporting Public Speaking
Anthony Williams (January 3, 2018)
I remember Lewis telling me one time on the subway, after we named the organization already. He goes, “That’s for you, Anthony. It’s not for me. Picture the Homeless is for you. It’s for you to talk to the congress. It’s for you to talk to government. It’s for you to let them know about the homeless situation. This is new to me. I just… It’s the first time I ever experienced it.” And he goes, “So, Picture the Homeless is for you. That’s you. That’s for you. We’re doing this together for you.” And even I didn’t understand it then.
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Lynn Lewis (January 25, 2019)
Emily would say, "We have to show up, but we have to know how to show up." So, there was a lot of that. It was a lot of, “You don’t have to be perfect, but when you're representing the organization, you have to be this way.” So, when we did the survey project, it was the same thing. There was this kind of enforcing of behavior that people thought was worthy of the organization, so people needed to be prepared. When they went to speak in public, people needed to bring their best selves, and people would support each other doing that. So, you and I, we weren't policing people. It was more like, "Come on, it's common sense.”
Arvernetta Henry (September 28, 2017)
Then one of the women came out and she said, "We fix community dinners. Everybody takes turns in cooking." I think it was Linda at the time. And I said, “This is nice, I like this!” And I said, "Can you help me get housing?" "Well, we don't help you get housing, but we fight for you to get housing. We show you how to talk for yourself !” And I said, “That's nice. This is nice.” And from that experience, that interview, I decided to do some time there.
Floyd Parks (October 25, 2019)
You’ve got to make the change, nothings coming to you. You got to go out there and get it. You’ve got to learn how to speak up and talk, and people will be hopefully listen and understand that there’s truly a need. There’s not just a want, there’s a need sometimes. You need that help from others.
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Rob Robinson (November 23, 2018)
I think a big part of it is accompanying members into spaces they are uncomfortable with. I think that’s the hardest thing for homeless people or formerly homeless people to go into a space, like a university, maybe a church space, or maybe even a space like NESRI [National Economic and Social Rights Initiative], which some might consider somewhat sterile. To understand that you have an issue to articulate to folks and you have a certain level of knowledge about this issue, and you can interact with the folks on the same level that they’re on, right? You may not use the same terminology that they use, but it’s the same.
DeBoRah Dickerson (February 13, 2020)
I had one meeting with one of the elected officials, the Honorable Bill Perkins. And my other friend, comrade, Rob Robinson, we went in to talk to him about our idea. We had a pamphlet, you know, we had it written out, it was nice. Oh, he looked at the paper and says, “Oh, this looks very good! Oh, this is done so professional!” And we gave it to him. We came in and we presented it to him. At that time, I didn’t know about Community Land Trusts, and Rob was talking. I let him talk, because I was learning, and I was in organizing training. We did that, and he just looked at us, but and afterwards, he couldn’t say anything because we had all our I’s and T’s dotted. And from there, I have been able to talk to other politicians with no problems.
Joo-Hyun Kang (January 4, 2019)
I also remember early, probably in 2012, there was probably some press thing where I was like, “Do you want to speak?” To you, and you were like, “Oh, I don’t speak for Picture the Homeless, but I’ll
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find a member who can, and Sam will prep them, and et cetera, et cetera.” And that’s a practice that I feel like we’ve tried to help promote amongst groups, but it was always really helpful that you practiced that already in terms of really uplifting but also just facilitating and making sure that the leadership was coming from people who were most directly impacted in that moment.
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Nikita Price, PTH Rental subsidies campaign preparing for Town Hall Meeting, May 29, 2008
DeBoRah Dickerson (February 13, 2020)
I loved going to the colleges. We went to colleges, we used to have like a little steady gig, we would go to Hunter College, talking to the students, which was really wonderful. Dr. [Lynn] Roberts, she was really great. We would always go in as a team. I had somebody else to go with me.
Lynn Roberts (January 6, 2023)
Why I think there was a standing, recurring invitation was the analysis that was brought. The members always brought an analysis. We talk about the stories and people hearing the strategies, but also the analysis was always so sharp, and I wanted myself and the students to receive that. And it came from every member who visited, it was just embodied in the organization, through your process that got created.
Ryan Hickey (May 22, 2019)
Jose [Rodriguez] was a remarkable person. He came to the organization a little bit meek-ish, very quiet—wanted to keep to his own. He’s like, “Can I help in any way? I’m homeless.” Very soft spoken. And he was at the front desk for a little bit. If you saw him in the beginning, you would never think that he would be able to do some of the things that he did. He came in, not knowing what we do at all and within a few months he could speak on the issues better than anybody I had seen—in a very simple way, like not complicated at all.
And the Housing Not Warehousing Act was his baby, you know? He was the person talking to council members. He didn’t like being in the spotlight but behind closed doors—like one-on-one
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interactions, he really shined. But in terms of speaking to crowds at actions and stuff he needed a lot of support. And we worked on that, and I think he overcame a lot of hurdles and stuff like that.
Willie
Baptist (November 19, 2018)
It’s not simple because there’s a certain internalized oppression and an internalized misconception even of yourself as a homeless person. That somehow, you’re a failure. That it’s something to be ashamed of, and that it’s not your place to be able to speak to these issues. So, you have to overcome a lot of that.
I think we overcame that in our organizing of homeless folks, in the organizing. As homeless folks begin to link up and work with each other, there’s a certain strength and a certain trust that develops that you’re not going to be played with, or the fact that you’re homeless is not going to be manipulated, make you think even worse about yourself. So you’re kind of quiet for a while. But in that organizing and the trust building… And you’re having to have them speak as they never have spoken before about their homelessness, something that they know, why they’re homeless. They know that. And so, it’s easier for them to talk about their own homelessness. So that’s the first step
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Charmel Lucas, PTH Civil Rights campaign community outreach and rally protesting “Move On” Orders, 2016
But as the organization grows, and the trust builds, and you begin to speak more, people can speak beyond just themselves. I think… The impact of media, especially corporate media, is so strong, that to overcome that, you can only overcome it through organization, and through building community. And in that, you see people beginning to find themselves.
Shaun Lin (October 12, 2019)
I remember there would be particular skills that we would need to work on in order to best engage with the CPR work. So, some of it was things like public speaking, right? So, if we were to have an action coming up and want to encourage newer members to speak at the press conference so we’re not always relying on the same members talking, the Homeless Organizing Academy might organize a series of public speaking trainings. Part of it is public speaking, but the first part of it is even just like, “How do I take my story and write it out in a way that communicates my—the end message that I want?
So, public speaking is also thinking about our stories, how do our stories connect to the issue that we’re working on… And then how do I practice doing this in a way—because public speaking is very scary to people. So, like how do I practice in a way where I can show up powerfully, on the day of? So, it would kind of just provide tools and analysis for folks to be able to engage with the campaign work powerfully.
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Rob Robinson (November 23, 2018)
I was given a lot of that privilege, but I think for me it was important to use that privilege to lift up the voices of other homeless folks. So, I spent a lot of time, especially in my early days at Picture the Homeless, saying, “You need to come to this meeting with me. They’re not going to intimidate you. Not while I’m in the room. And you’re going to understand what they’re saying and if you don’t, you question me, and we’ll work through this problem. But you need to come along to this meeting. They’re not going to talk to you that way anymore.”
Tyletha Samuels (April 19, 2019)
You know, to see somebody that’s living it be able to get up there and speak their truth and speak their life and speak what they’re going through… You feel something! To help another person not only not think about theirself, but to think about the whole system and the bigger picture where their children might not have to go through this, and that they had a part in knowing that their children might not have to go through this—that is just awesome, and it means a lot to me.
Being Clear About the Difference Between Speaking for Yourself and Speaking for an Organization
DeBoRah Dickerson (February 13, 2020)
When we would have town hall meetings—planning for town hall meetings, what to say, who we were going to invite, we knew also what our target was—who were the targets, what our allies and what we could gain, you know? What we’re going to lose and what we could gain.
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Willie Baptist (November 26, 2018)
Yes, you have leaders that are natural, have natural leadership qualities, but they don’t have the training to know—they know why personally they’re homeless. They don’t know the system or the political and economic system that produced homelessness. And so, their story is a story largely of the effects, but not of the cause. And so, if you’re going to have leaders, you have to have a political education process to connect their story with all of the stories. And that’s a very important experience in my mind. We have a lot of these non-profits coming around and say, “Well, you’re an expert on homeless.” Well yeah, I know why I’m homeless and I know what it feels like. I can tell you my story and we need to hear that story. But I don’t know the political system, and the economic system that that political system upholds. I have not studied it.
Joo-Hyun Kang (January 4, 2019)
One of the things that struck me about Picture the Homeless, which I think is a discipline, because it doesn’t exist with all organizations, grassroots or otherwise, is that PTH members in meetings tried to be clear about when they were speaking for Picture the Homeless versus when they had an idea themselves. And that’s a practice of accountability that I just don’t think is as common as we would like it to be. We want it to be more common, but, you know, it’s just not that common.
But it’s also part of what makes Picture the Homeless’s practice around movement-building so important. Picture the Homeless doesn’t speak for just one or two people. It speaks for members. The conditions that members face change at different times, so what might have been true a year ago is not true or might be different, two years after that depending on what the actual conditions are. I experienced a rigor that Picture the Homeless members brought to meetings or actions or things that I was out
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with them, that is not always present. It’s a gift. It’s not always present with a lot of organizations. It’s a gift that doesn’t just arise organically in some romanticized ways. It’s cultivated. It’s developed. It’s supported.
Creating Opportunities to be Heard Through Direct Action
DeBoRah Dickerson (February 13, 2020)
I think you physically have to be in someone’s face so that they can recognize. “You don’t want to talk to us, we’re going to be here. Eventually you’re going to have to say something to us. You’re going to have to have a conversation with us, because we’re not going away.” And I think that was very important. That’s why when we go do the protests, it’s talking about, “You
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John Jones, Steve Wavra, Leticia Ledan PTH Civil Rights Campaign Retreat. March 16, 2010
are held accountable. You are a public official; you’re supposed to know. Why aren’t you doing something? Did you know this was happening? Well, maybe we could come and do something together and see, if we have a plan.” So, yeah! You got to be up in their face, because they got to be held accountable.
Arvernetta Henry (September 28, 2017)
Being at Picture the Homeless it was very important that we get involved in order to understand the process of the system. If you didn't get involved, then you would be just part of the system, accepting what was happening to you! And that was the furthest thing from the truth!
And at the same time, members, because this was a member led organization, members was learning how to lead, how to stand up, and fight back. We learned the importance of speaking to the Senator, or the politician, and their role. When they wouldn't listen… We had leaders that would show us how we could go out and grab their attention through the public eye. How to get the media's attention. What to say and not be tricked. Because the
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Danielle Statutto, PTH Housing Campaign action demanding rental subsidies in front of Gov Cuomo’s office February 14, 2014
media would allow you to be interviewed and we would learn these interviewing techniques and at the same time learn to take that interview and use it to the advantage of the homeless population. We learned so much at Picture the Homeless, going to Albany, speaking, rallying, and working with other organizations.
Floyd Parks (October 25, 2019)
It’s to let folks see and know, because they don’t know what’s going on. They don’t involve themselves in that. It’s got to be something that’s got to be put in their face, you know what I’m saying? Something they’ve got to see, something that they can’t just walk around, something they’ve got to listen to. You’ve got to put it in the position that they’ve got to stop and hear what’s going on. They’ve got to make it interesting, got to make it understandable that this is a necessity. Somethings got to change.
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PTH Civil Rights campaign Bronx Die-In, Days of Rage December 16,2014
Shaun Lin (October 12, 2019)
I think in all actions it was both the specific incident of what happened, but Picture the Homeless members do a really great job of historicizing what’s happening. So, it’s not just, “We don’t want police to be over policing the subway at night, but that this is part of a larger issue related to Broken Windows policing, related to the criminalization of poverty and homelessness, in ways that I think really resonated with folks.
Taking Retaliation and Harm into Consideration
The Safety Offered by Being Part of a Group
Lynn Lewis (January 25, 2018)
The difference with you and Lewis is that you all had created an organization. You weren’t going to go there, chained to a service provider. And as good as the service providers are, there's still that power dynamic where, “We're going to go to this meeting, but we're not really equals because after the meeting, I need to give you a bed. Like, you need me in a way that I don’t need you, per se. And people are intimidated. That's why you need a separate organization of homeless folks, where folks can determine their own interests. It doesn't have to be in conflict with service providers, but people need to represent their own interests and understand how the system works.
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Anthony Williams (January 3, 2018)
The mission statement we wrote in the shelter, the waiver we did in the shelter, and the outreach we did in the shelter, and caught hell for it… And retaliation from the City Department of Homeless Services, “Get them out of our hair, because they’re creating a stir.” They were going to transfer us to Camp LaGuardia, but because of the havoc we were wreaking in Bellevue. We brought a
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lot of attention to that 950-bed shelter with the radio interviews, with the media interviews.
Floyd Parks (October 25, 2019)
I was crossing the street, right? I was not actually on the corner, but—I was jaywalking! And this cop came along, pulled over, and said, “Mr. Parks, you were just jaywalking.” He knew my name and everything! They threw that out. They knew that was bogus. They knew that that was retaliation. They sent me a letter saying I don’t have to even go to court for that. They knew that it was— how many people jaywalk these days and get tickets? Nobody. Everybody’s jaywalking, now all of a sudden out of one million people I’m the only one getting a ticket for jaywalking? Yeah! What is that? That what showed me right there… To watch it.
Jean Rice (October 20, 2017)
At first the police approached me, when I was sleeping out in front of Grand Central Terminal, every night. They approached me like they approached any other homeless person, “Get the hell out of here, or go through the system!”
But as I evolved, as I became a member of Picture the Homeless, and as Picture the Homeless evolved and gained status—becoming part of Communities united for Police Reform, for instance. Cops—they do their research too! And then when my organization came on two occasions with me, held a press conference, “This is where I used to sleep.” So now, they don't treat me the same way. Now, they don't call me panhandler no more. They call me Picture the Homeless. That's my name down at Grand Central.
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Ryan Hickey (April 25, 2019)
I think once the system came down on them, in that way, they were like, “I have no other choice but to build with these people.” They knew that if they stood alone they were just going to get stomped on. They’re going to get crushed, and this wasn’t going to end, and they could be taken advantage of over and over again. But when you fight with people and you have this resistance—with people, you have a fighting chance and that’s worth fighting for really. It could be a slow process for some people, but I think for a few folks there it was just like, “Oh my God.” Suddenly things clicked.”
Ryan Hickey (May 22, 2019)
I remember Donna was on camera, but she didn’t want to show her face because she was afraid of retaliation. So they lit behind her and kept her face shadowed. And at the end of the day, she was telling a very good, real story about the failures of LINC and that helped push our other campaign work up because then we could say, “Look at our member who did such a great job on this. This isn’t the solution. This is the solution.”
Shaun Lin (October 12, 2019)
I think that the police had kind of rolled in and said that they were going to make arrests and I think that there was a moment where some people who could not be arrested moved out of the site and then some people decided that they—that it was important to hold the space and to force the police to make the arrests, because that helped to escalate the contradictions. And I always respected the principles from which Picture the Homeless organized. It was very courageous, willing to take risks, but not just foolhardy risks. It was risks to raise consciousness. It was risks to force conversation.
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Sam J Miller (November 30, 2017)
Everybody marched out. And everyone who came out that door was taking a real risk, right? Because they could get logged out, which meant they would have to start the process all over again. So the sixteen hours that they had been waiting, or whatever, would be for nothing. So, it meant something that people were marching out. It wasn't just like, “Hey guys, come on outside for a minute.” It was like, “You’re there's going to be consequences for participating in this.” But everybody was so angry and so outraged.
Changed Negative Stereotypes
Willie Baptist (November 19, 2018)
I think the key lesson for everybody, not just the homeless folks, is to know that people who are poor and homeless can think for themselves, can speak for themselves, can fight for themselves, can organize for themselves, and can lead. Not just themselves, but the whole country. *
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PTH EAU campaign protesting conditions in EAU/Shelter Intake center. May 4, 2004
Sam J Miller (November 30, 2017)
I remember talking to Rogers at a coffee shop. Rogers is an amazing, long term Picture the Homeless leader and just seeing how smart he was, and how powerful, and what a great speaker and writer he was and realizing, “Oh my God. What can we do with this guy! What can we achieve now, with this guy on our team? And how many different kinds of audiences can this guy talk to where he'll just rock their world and he'll change how they think about things.”
Sue Lob (October 22, 2019)
I just think it’s really important to have homeless people represent themselves. You know that moment where people stand up and say, kind of like the famous civil rights signs, “I am a man.” Like, “I’m a person deserving of dignity and respect and I’m going to demand it! And I’m going to hold the city accountable for all their really crappy and terrible policies.” And to have an organization that supports that and makes it possible is really quite remarkable.
I think Picture the Homeless has been extraordinary in giving voice to and the whole idea of “picture the homeless”, you know like having homeless people be visible as full people and not just be referred to as “homeless”. Picture the Homeless changed that in New York and continues to do that and there’s no substitute for that, I think.
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Rogers, PTH Housing Campaign. Banking on Vacancy Report Release, January 2012
Arvernetta Henry (September 28, 2017)
We gained respect from the people that was in the community. Because they were educated. They found out who owned that building. They was surprised. Also, they opened up their store to us, and they brought us food. Oh my, we had so much food! They allowed us to use their establishment, to go in and wash up and go to the bathroom. When they understood why we were out there and realized that, “Well all these people, they are not bad people, they're just asking for housing! And when we would go to the streets and stay overnight, it brought attention to the main populations to say, we have to get involved. We may not have to stay overnight, but we're going to support you. Doing those chants, people would get on our rally line and march with us.
Jean Rice (October 6, 2017)
And then, with all due respect, I told him that academicians who study—textbook—they come away from the college experience with credentials that look good on paper, or when you're read it in your computer. But void hands-on experience... When you're not being impacted by the criminal justice system, when you're not in a position to observe the implementation of the theory, on the ground, on the street level—it narrows your ability to offer a credible objective perspective!
I think that my creator has made me really qualified!
I went to college where I got the textbook knowledge. As a person of color and my homeless experience, I'm part of the New York City underclass. Then, as a member of Picture the Homeless, I'm privileged to have some standing and some credibility.
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And when you put all this together, I think I'm more qualified than Heather MacDonald to say what's working, and what's not working, on the ground in New York City.
Kazembe Balagun (June 4, 2019)
I feel like when I saw Jean I had a similar ah-ha moment when I had with Cornel West because I feel like Jean was giving life to an intellectual tradition. Because then I looked at Pathmark on 125th Street, way different. I used to just walk through 125th Street and not even think about it. But then when I met Jean, and I heard him talk about canning and stuff like that… I was like, Pathmark 125! And it shifted the way I thought about the street. You know what I'm saying? Like, I tell people all the time, “You don't need Google glasses if you just listen to people.” That's what I felt about Jean.
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Jean Rice, PTH Civil Rights Campaign citizen’s arrest NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly October 6, 2010
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Built solidarity among members and the social justice movement around common issues
Anthony Williams (January 3, 2018)
Yeah, the Esperanza Garden folks—wow. This is about green space, but it was important somehow to talk about green space, homelessness, and housing—and align them together somehow, which was hard. It wasn’t an easy sell. I don't know how we did it, but we did it. Because we were able to do a press conference, with the Green Guerillas, with the garden folks, and talk about, the bulldozing of a garden and space, but also no affordable housing.
We’re totally not for developers bulldozing gardens for luxury housing. If they want to build housing for affordable, for folks that are homeless, then we’re all for that, but no, we’re not for you bulldozing a garden! So that’s what I talked about in a press conference, with Aresh and them and we talked about homelessness standing in front of bulldozers.
Jenny Akchin (June 5, 2019)
We would go to rallies and our members were super on fire. What are we talking about when we talk about “affordable”, and affordable to whom? And are they including us in the tenant spaces? Are they including us in these legislative campaigns? So, you really quickly just come to understand the importance of representation and of accountability in those spaces. I know a lot of organizations that don’t value that in the same way, and I think it’s really to Picture the Homeless’ credit that that’s so much a part of the motto and the doctrine of the organization and people really know that, and I think they gravitate towards it.
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Shaun Lin (October 12, 2019)
One of the things I remember was that before I had started, the action was often at Union Square, and it would march down towards City Hall or One Police Plaza. Picture the Homeless members really wanted for these actions to happen in the hood. They wanted it to happen in Harlem, or in the Bronx or somewhere where folks were at and that it just felt more grounded in the communities that it’s supposed to be raising the consciousness for. So we made sure that happened. I think one of the years I was at Picture the Homeless, the October 22nd stuff was spread out around the city, including actions on 161st Street in the Bronx, and having speak outs in the park on 161st, and then marching down towards The Hub on 3rd on 149th, where folks are getting off the trains when they’re coming home from work. That it’s a protest that helps to bring consciousness about what’s happening into the neighborhoods where it’s most impacted.
That was really the reason why October 22nd was in the Bronx that year was because PTH members pushed for that to happen. So, part of it was Picture the Homeless just opening up office space for people to meet, but part of it was also Picture the Homeless members as always—bringing in their analysis into a space and leaving a real impact on that space, and on that organizing.
Arvernetta Henry (September 28, 2017)
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 they would like to see how Picture the Homeless handled it and how they were able to get their 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
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able to impart that wisdom and knowledge that we learned from the leaders at Picture the Homeless!
Seeding the Movement with Leaders
DeBoRah Dickerson (February 13, 2020)
I’m comfortable, and I don’t mean to sound cocky or, you know… I’m really confident because PTH has given me the chutzpah to really talk about housing! And it’s important that we get involved, because they count us out when they count us out with the decision making, with their policies. When they start their stupid rezoning, they don’t call us in there! So, we want to be in there when they’re making these decisions. We want to see what you are doing in the community, and how this is going to affect the community.
Kazembe Balagun (June 4, 2019)
Whether or not Picture the Homeless showed up brilliant or they showed up messy, I always felt really inspired because they were there. Sometimes my heroes aren’t just always people who are brilliant all the time. Hell, I'm not brilliant all the time. Sometimes I give a talk like, "Yep! I’m mailing this one in. Thank you so much."
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DeBoRah Dickerson, PTH Housing campaign. Community Land Trust action. May 7, 2016
You know what I’m saying? I'm not always brilliant, but you know, the fact of the matter is like you're there and you're present. You're bearing witness, and you're serving as a radical witness.
Moved Ideas and Won Policy Change
that was Shaped by Homeless New Yorkers
Shaun Lin (October 12, 2019)
I think it must have been either Rob [Robinson] or Jean [Rice] at that action saying something about, “What role does land play? Should land serve a social good in terms of housing people, in terms of giving people a safe space? Or should it serve the role of real estate, and be treated as a commodity?” And I think the action of breaking into private property and trespassing on private property and then thinking about what is private property, what is this thing that we’re upholding that we—that others would kind of clutch their pearls at, you know—that cutting the locks, going into a vacant lot. And then really thinking through what is land? What is our relationship with land and what is its value? Is its value making money for somebody, or is its value in providing shelter, space, homes for somebody? That I think really like fundamentally kind of made me think about capitalism in a different way.
I think from that moment on, I always looked at Picture the Homeless as an organization that was willing to kind of push the envelope in terms of what type of organizing was happening, willing to break the law if it felt it was necessary to do so, and also pushing consciousness, you know? Like forcing us to think about the political issues of homelessness, not just like we need shelters for homeless folks, but like we need to think about, how we think about land in the city. And that was really powerful to me.
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Shaun Lin (October 12, 2019)
I remember the one bill that really resonated with folks was around the profiling bill, which initially started as a racial profiling bill if I remember correctly, right? And Picture the Homeless fought really hard to have language around profiling of homelessness or perception of homelessness included in that to protect people from I forget exactly what the legal term was but that that inclusion of that language was really important. And if it wasn’t for Picture the Homeless’ participation in CPR, I don’t think that that language would have even been obvious to people that was important. *
Ryan Hickey: (May 22, 2019)
Our membership knew the bills front to back, we knew the challenges, we knew loopholes that people might find, and we always came with solutions of what we wanted to see. And we also had questions. I mean, we educated those people a lot because to them it’s another thing that just popped up on their plate that they have to do, but for our membership it was very real. It was grounded in their experience of being homeless because it was just a stark reminder that private property trumped human rights.
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PTH.Civil Rights Campaign Rally with CPR for passage of the Community Safety Act June 23, 2013
Kazembe Balagun (June 4, 2019)
The Vacancy Count felt like such a vanguard issue. Pointing at the vacant houses that exist in the city, is the most intrinsic critique of capitalism that you can do without even telling people that, “This shit's about capitalism.” And that shit is so slick and so smart that people don't understand they're talking about capitalism, because it's like, “Yeah! Look at all of us homeless people and look at all those empty houses. You make that connection.” And folks are like, “Damn!”
I mean, right now we're in the midst of one of the biggest housing struggles in the state. And not just the state, but in the country and around the world. I mean, the level of inequality is reflected in our cities and is a manifestation of the homeless crisis that we have right now. Homelessness touches every aspect of the work.
So, homelessness is a manifestation of the deep, deep, deep inequalities of capitalism. And I felt like Picture the Homeless put that on the map, you know what I’m saying? It was a media savvy organization that was able to do grassroots organizing work at the same time.
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PTH Housing campaign testimony to NYC Council Housing and Buildings Committee in support of Housing Not Warehousing Act. September 15, 2016
Ryan Hickey (April 25, 2019)
I just said to the mayor, “You wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for these two people, Lisa, and Charmel. Like, you wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for us because I don’t know if you know but we’re the ones who put this plan in motion. We’re the ones who gave you the statistics. We’re the ones who gave you the facts. We’re the ones who gave you the framework to work with and then you’re just ignoring homeless peoples’ work.” Which the city often does and always does and hopefully they won’t continue to do that. It turns out eminent domain wasn’t such a bad idea after all, and the city really liked it and that was because of us. For the record that was because of us.
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Al Williams, PTH Housing campaign. Housing Not Warehousing Act rally. September 15, 2016
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Kazembe Balagun (June 4, 2019)
I think that there was also this level of coalition building from the bottom up that allowed people to create a network. And that to me is an interesting thing. So, I think that seed that I think PTH has created has also been able to expand itself into this kind of like, network of ideas and network of sensibility that can really build out from underneath it, you know? I think that building these networks are going to be crucial, and that's the dreams that I think people are having right now. They're like, “Oh, this is really possible. These are real tools. We can do this.”
Nikita Price (December 2, 2017)
The EAU was closed before I came to Picture the Homeless. So, when people were saying, “Yeah well, homeless people can come here and then they go into the shelters and the EAU is nice and clean...” You folks had already sent people in with cameras to dispel that myth and that was big to get the EAU closed. That was before my time.
Nikita Price (December 2, 2017)
When the city started realizing that they were having problems with the HSP voucher, they set up the advocacy meeting. So, Picture the Homeless, we'd get a bunch of shelter folks in, that were getting fucked over by the HSP voucher, and we would go up and we would tell the DHS staff how this is not working. And I really started looking at it now. How do I fit myself in to be able to speak with members, and leaders and we come up with a plan in which to approach these folks, and be on point with letting them know how fucked up things were?
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Because, it's one thing to say, “Okay, you know we're getting fucked, we’re getting fucked…” But had to come up with, you know what's the next step? We know what the problem is, so what do you do? How do you fix it? And I think that was when we would then introduce the issue of all this abandoned property, and that's when we're also doing our abandoned building count, you know. The City does own some of this property and there are this many people in the fucking shelter, and on the street.
Ryan Hickey (April 25, 2019)
We created a curricula and we educated ourselves based on the knowledge that we already had but we also looked at other resources, as well. We tapped into those resources, and we started forming this common language around land trusts and mutual housing associations and home ownership and equity and like all this really complicated terminology that was used to like other homeless people in these conversations, in these policy questions. And I think people just made a conscious decision. We’re just like, “No, that’s not going to happen anymore. You know, we’re going to be part of these conversations. We’re going to be leading these conversations.”
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Arvernetta Henry, PTH.Housing campaign. East Harlem Tenant's Forum. April 10, 2014.
List of narrators
Anthony Williams Arvernetta Henry Charley Heck
DeBoRah Dickerson Floyd Parks James Tracy
Jean Rice Jenny Akchin Joo-Hyun Kang
Kazembe Balagun Lynn Lewis Lynn Roberts
Marcus Moore Maria Walles Nikita Price
Ryan Hickey Rob Robinson Rogers
Sam J Miller Shaun Lin Sue Lob
Tyletha Samuels Willie Baptist
List of Supplementary Tools
1. PTH Homeless Organizing Academy training on public speaking: The Jean Rice Method with an introduction by Jean Rice
2. Learning from DeBoRah Dickerson: A case study
3. Ten and Sixty exercise to practice speaking about your organization
Listening to the Complete Interviews
The quotes included in this zine include the date of the interview. The full audio recordings and interview transcripts are available on the Picture the Homeless Oral History Project website.
We Can Speak for Ourselves is one in a series of skillsshare zines from the Picture the Homeless Oral History Project. The PTH Oral History project is a work in progress. Email us if you would like to stay in touch!
The Picture the Homeless Oral History Project
pth.oral.history@gmail.com
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