Kensington Tour

Bushville - Housing for Families

Tent cities have been a project of survival used by homeless families since the Great Depression.  The Kensington Welfare Rights Union has set up over 50 tent cities in the past ten years because of the lack of affordable housing in Philadelphia.  For three summers the city closed the shelter system, turning homeless families away when they applied for shelter.  During these times our tent cities swelled to over fifty families. 

Tent cities are encampments.  The people who live there find wood, nails and tarps and build homes for their families to live in.  They pool their money and food stamps and accept donations of water, ice and food to make it through each day.  Volunteers come to provide child care and take the children to air conditioned malls and museums during 90 – 100 degree weather and torrential rain storms. People from all over the community would see us and come out in support; many of them would say that they were only a paycheck or two away from being in the same situation.

Families are forced into these conditions by the lack of affordable housing. Study after study has documented the crisis of affordable housing for working class families in cities across the country. Tent cities provide them a place to stay and a community of people for support. We also use the tent cities as an educational tool - to teach people why there are more homeless children than at any time since the great depression in the middle of this "booming economy."

Along with the abandoned factories, there are some 30,000 abandoned houses in Philadelphia. That's more than the number of homeless people. But families are still becoming homeless, either out on the street or stacking up two or three families in a single house.

This tent city has been named Bushville in honor of the republican candidate. The record that George W. Bush has built in Texas on the issues of housing and poverty lets us know what is in store for poor Americans if he is elected President.  There are representatives here of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign from organizations across the country. We would like press and delegates to visit Bushville, so this convention can begin to address the real issues facing Americans.

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