Thursday, October 25, 2007

Homeless Speak at Lunch 'n Learn


On Wednesday, October 24, during our ongoing Lunchtime Learning series, a capacity crowd of Wurzweiler students, faculty and staff were joined by members of Picture the Homeless for a discussion about housing and homelessness in New York City. As Wurzweiler Associate Professor Stephen Pimpare said in his introduction,

When social workers and others think about experts to turn to for information about pressing policy issues, we often depend upon our agency heads or supervisors, or elected officials, or think tanks, or the work produced by scholars in books or peer reviewed academic journals. Too often, however, caseworkers and policy-makers alike fail to take seriously the sophisticated policy knowledge that can be found among people we think of merely as clients. But as our guests today will show, our "clients" have much to teach us -- and much to teach the "experts" who create and implement public policy.
PTH Member Rob Robinson and Housing Campaign Director Sam Miller discussed their recent census of abandoned buildings in Manhattan, which revealed that there are currently enough vacant units to house all homeless families, and their successes in getting the Manhattan Borough President and others to take it seriously. They reviewed the history and mission of PTH, showing how a small and "scrappy" organization can achieve real successes, against all odds. And they recounted their unique efforts to create change in New York with a combination of direct action, lobbying and legislative action, and trying to help the City understand the ways in which better coordination across agencies can improve their work.

In a spirited question-and-answer session, Rob discussed his own path from being homeless to being an activist, offered perspectives about how to think about panhandlers in a more three-dimensional way, and encouraged students to find ways for themselves to join PTH and other local activists in working toward making our city a little more humane and a little more just.

Said one student afterwards, "This really makes me think about homelessness and homeless people differently, and I hope we'll do more events like this."

Learn more about PTH by visiting their website at www.picturethehomeless.org, where you can view videos of their recent actions, download a copy of their report on vacant housing, "Homeless People Count," or read their new Blog, which has been recently reporting on new changes in NYC emergency shelter policy at the PATH site.
(Thanks to Stephen Pimpare for preparing this blog entree!)

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