The Record, North Jersey Media Group

Paterson's poorest get lesson on rights;
Activist group documents problems

August 6, 2004

By NATE SCHWEBER, SPECIAL TO THE RECORD, North Jersey Media Group

PATERSON - Groggy from two nights in a homeless shelter and fueled by peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, 20 activists from Philadelphia poured into the Alexander Hamilton Housing Development on Thursday morning to document human rights violations in the city.

"We think it should be embedded in you from the day you're born to the day you die that everyone has the right to live a dignified life," said Galen Tyler, a stocky, bearded, formerly homeless man who is now the leader of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, based in Philadelphia.

The campaign spent Wednesday and Thursday taking testimony from, and photographs of, residents of Paterson's poorest neighborhoods. About 50 Paterson residents told the volunteers about being denied health care, affordable housing, jobs that pay a living wage, and educational opportunities, all of which violate the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, according to the activists.

The organization will post the Paterson testimonials on their Web site, www.marchforour lives.org, in the next few days.

James Tredwell, who lives in the Alexander Hamilton housing, said that until the volunteers talked to him outside his building Thursday, it had never occurred to him that his rights were being violated.

"I had to send my 1-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter to live with their uncle in South Carolina because I can't have them living around here," he said. "I appreciate that somebody is telling me that's wrong, and that I have a right to better living conditions."

A majority of volunteers come from backgrounds similar to the people they canvassed. Several women were homeless mothers. Several men are on short leave from drug and alcohol treatment programs in Philadelphia. Some younger volunteers grew up on welfare and in foster homes.

"Let me tell you, this puts me in touch with my roots," said Tyrone Brown, a Philadelphia resident who is part of a drug treatment program. The campaign volunteers are on a six-week tour of New Jersey's poorest towns and neighborhoods. After returning briefly to Philadelphia on Thursday evening, the volunteers will canvass neighborhoods in Fort Lee on Sunday before visiting all five New York City boroughs. There the volunteers will stay in "Bushvilles," moveable camps based on the "Hoovervilles" of the Great Depression, said Cheri Honkala, founder of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, the group from which the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign developed.

The campaign will end with a protest outside the Republican National
Convention in New York on Aug. 30, combined with a presentation of photographs
and testimonies of poor people in New Jersey and New York to the United Nations,
she said.

Honkala said the campaign is trying to build a groundswell like the civil
rights movements of the 1960s.

"The only way to make change is to get the people affected by the social
situation involved in the social movement," she said.

Honkala brought her 2-year-old son, Guillermo Santos, along on the campaign
trip. The boy played with children from the housing development and was looked
after by no less than a dozen volunteers.

The campaign was financed by donations from concerned citizens and the
volunteers, Honkala said. The crews generally sleep in homeless shelters or
church parking lots. Their dietary staple is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,
Honkala said. Cheap motels and fast-food are rare luxuries, she added.

Lee Webster, 21, of Philadelphia said the people she talked to in Paterson
had similar stories to those in Elizabeth, Newark, and Camden.

"This is like a reality tour of the America that most people don't see, most
people pretend is not there, and that the news media never covers," she said.

Carla Rowe, who was once a homeless mother in Philadelphia, volunteered for
the campaign along with her 11-year-old daughter, Tiffany Rowe. She said she was
shocked by what she saw in Paterson.

"I was homeless, but I never suffered," she said. "I look around here and I
can tell these people have it bad. It's unacceptable that the United States of
America can have this kind of poverty not 20 miles from New York City, the
financial capital of the world."

Eugenia Burton, resident council president of the Alexander Hamilton
Development, asked the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign to leave
because she felt they were "exploiting" the residents.

"A lot of these people are here by choice, and we do offer them a lot of
programs," she said.

E-mail: schweber@northjersey.com

email kwru@kwru.org