Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign
In the late 1990s, Honkala started another nonprofit, the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, of which she became National Coordinator.[7] The PPEHRC represents "a network of over 40 poor people's organizations from across the U.S."[22] One commentator has written that the campaign "is the only [national] movement to come out of welfare reform that has been organized by poor people, and not their advocates."[23]
This organization was formed in direct response to the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 (also known as the Welfare Reform Act), signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton, which she and her allies claim hurts recipients of welfare.[7] The organization's mission statement reads, "The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign is committed to uniting the poor across color lines as the leadership base for a broad movement to abolish poverty. We work to accomplish this through advancing economic human rights as named in the universal declaration of human rights — such as the rights to food, housing, health, education, communication and a living wage job."[24]
Part of the purpose of the organization is to make homelessness and the homeless visible, in order to force politicians to act. Honkala claims that the latter simply want the homeless to be invisible, so they won't have to deal with the problem. In a speech, Honkala said: "That's what [the authorities] are saying [to you]: 'Go hide! Go be under a bridge, or... hide under a bench, and we won't arrest you, we won't do anything to you, because you will be quiet!'"[6] As Honkala declared, "When you have nothing, you still have your voice."[25]
In October 1999, PPEHRC organized a month-long March of the Americas, from Washington, DC, to the United Nations in New York.[11]Participants in the march included low-income families from the US, Canada and Latin America. The group "marched 15 miles a day for 32 days, sleeping in tent cities, churches and community centers at night, and holding press conferences and protests in local communities."[22]
In July 2000, a PPEHRC march for the opening day of the Republican Party's National Convention in Philadelphia drew 10,000 homeless and poor people from around the country. (Of the several protest marches during that convention, this was the only one denied a permit by city authorities.)[5]
In November 2000, at the historic Riverside Church in Manhattan in New York City, the PPEHRC held a "Poor People's World Summit to End Poverty," consisting of several hundred activists from some 30 countries, to share "experiences and [work] to build an international movement for economic human rights drawing explicitly on international treaties."[26]
On July 4, 2003, Philadelphia held a celebration for the opening of the National Constitution Center, a new facility housing the Liberty Bell. Poor and homeless families from the city held a peaceful protest to demand their economic rights. "As the demonstrators marched toward Constitution Center single-file, carrying their own mattresses and led by children, park rangers, federal guards, and city police formed lines to prevent the families from approaching. Singing 'We Shall Not Be Moved,' the demonstrators locked arms and refused to leave the sidewalk. Protest leaders Honkala and Galen Tyler had prepared a 'Declaration of Economic Human Rights' to present at the Center. As they moved toward the Center, police moved to stop them, threw them to the ground, handcuffed them, and placed them under arrest... Honkala was charged with one first-degree felony and four other felony counts. Police officers claimed that Honkala had struck one of them in the chest. However, a video taken at the time clearly shows Honkala carrying a mattress and being struck by the officer... all the charges were subsequently withdrawn by the District Attorney's office."[5]
In August 2004, Honkala marched with the PPEHRC in New York City (without a permit) to protest President Bush and the Republican National Convention (RNC) and to publicly call for greater attention by the government to the needs of the poor and homeless.[27]
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