Three Days of Global Action

Philadelphia - Day One: Reality Tour of Poverty

Today the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU) led a tour highlighting the conditions of poverty in Philadelphia, joining with others across the country and world doing actions to promote economic human rights.

The tour focused on Kensington, a neighborhood in North Philadelphia which is the poorest district in the entire state of Pennsylvania. We started looking at the vertiable graveyard of abandoned factories which used to provide thousands of jobs to people in Kensington. As the jobs left, the community was thrown into desperate poverty: today the main sources of income are welfare and drugs.

We visited the homes of KWRU members and listened to their stories of fighting for housing for their families. Despite the massive number of vacant lots and vacant houses in Philadelphia, there is a tremendous crisis of affordable housing. Families in need have been on the waiting list for over a decade. As the city gears up to spend millions to combat "blight" we hope that the real crises of affordable housing and the lack of living wage jobs are addressed. We toured the American Street empowerment zone, where millions had been spent to encourage industry to provide jobs. The result: millions in profits, but only about 180 jobs.

We looked at the environmental impact of the toxins left behind by the abandoned factories. We stopped by McDonald's, exemplifying the majority of the kind of jobs that have been created ($5.50 - $6.00/hour) in Kensington in recent years. For more information about the conditions of Kensington, you can take the tour online.

Tent City at 1234 Market

The final stop was outside Philadelphia's Office for Housing and Community Development. Outside the doors, poor and homeless families and their supporters set up a makeshift home for the night. They dubbed it "Coatesville," referring to the city official responsible for vacant and abandoned houses. Although there are over 40,000 abandoned properties, much of the cities housing focus is on developing properties for families making over $18,000 a year - much more than many families in need in Kensington and across the city make. The families are still there tonight, bringing attention to the issue and praying for an answer to the desperate need for affordable housing.

Action Across the World

Across the US, organizations like the Women's Economic Agenda Project (California), Alternatives for Developing Change (Chico, CA) South Jersey Citizens United for Social Justice (Atlantic City, NJ), the Deaf-Blind Committee for Human Rights (Lorain, OH), the JEDI Women (Salt Lake City, UT), Project South (Atlanta, GA) and others conducted simultaneous actions. Many more are planning actions in the immediate future.

Actions are also taking place across the world in Paraguay, El Salvador, Canada (Quebec, Prince Edward Island and Toronto), the Phillipines, Tanzania, England, and New Zealand.