Poor People’s Army Occupies Vacant Homes

By D.H. KERBY

Robin Hood engaged in what the British historian Eric Hobsbawm called “social banditry.” The phrase, which Hobsbawm coined, refers to unlawful conduct which typically has the support of the impoverished people whom it directly benefits and which is opposed by wealthier elements of society.

Cheri Honkala is a contemporary Robin Hood.

She and her Poor People’s Army take over abandoned homes, the majority of which belong to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and move homeless people into them, believing that alleviating the suffering of the poorest of the poor takes moral precedence over obeying laws against breaking and entering.There are more than 30 such “takeover houses” in Philadelphia. Her group also delivers free food to impoverished Philadelphians.

Honkala understands that homelessness is a life-and-death issue; homeless people have frozen to death in Philadelphia, and are at very elevated risk for COVID-19.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, which is the main newspaper in the city, “With a poverty rate of 23.3% in 2019 — slightly higher than it was in 2000 — Philadelphia is saddled with the ignoble distinction of being the poorest big city in America.” Chris Hedges has pointed out that the poorest city in the US is Camden, N.J., which is directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia.

Three of the takeover properties have received eviction notices in the past two months, and the families that live in them are likely to be thrown out at any time during the coldest months of the year and amidst a pandemic. There is even a nationwide moratorium on evictions, which HUD and the sheriffs seem to be flouting.

The Poor People’s Army has filed pro se requests for injunctions in federal court to try to prevent the evictions, and the National Lawyers Guild stands firmly with Honkala’s group. According to Sarah White, co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild’s Housing and Homelessness Committee, homelessness is now and has always been a moral, human rights, and a public health crisis.” “There are 10 abandoned properties for every homeless person in Philadelphia,” says Elisa Noterman, a geographer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Honkala cites the Zapatistas in Mexico, Frederick Douglas, Malcom X and the Black Panthers as inspirations for her work, and she and her group have earned the ire of the Philadelphia sheriff’s detectives, who do their best to follow her around. She has been named as “one of the 12 most endangered activists in America” by Frontline Defenders, an international human rights organization based in Ireland, “Woman of the Year” by Ms. Magazine, and “one of the 100 most powerful Philadelphians,” by Philadelphia Magazine.

She came up hard in Minneapolis, where at one point she lived with her son in a white Camaro until it was totaled in a collision with a drunk driver. After moving to Philadelphia, she founded the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, a predecessor organization to the Poor Peoples’ Economic Human Rights Campaign, which is itself being supplanted by the Poor People’s Army. Kensington is one of the most poverty-stricken neighborhoods in the city.

“These people ... (are) living … (in the takeover houses) because they have nowhere else to go, with children, babies, grandmothers, etc, and so if HUD wants them on the streets they need to evict through the courts, which usually takes months,” Matt Pillischer wrote in an email. Pillischer is the Poor People’s Army’s administrative coordinator, and a documentary filmmaker.

Regarding the three requests for injunctions ... “they have moved very slowly and (have) only just been assigned a judge recently. From our understanding, we could get a hearing very quickly ... or it could take a long time. The first injunction we filed New Year’s Eve and the other two were filed much more recently,” wrote Pillischer.

“There have always been unjust laws written by those in power against the poor. Most of the evils in history have been legally sanctioned, such as American slavery and segregation,” according to a statement the National Lawyers Guild released on the Feb. 18. Apartheid, too, was both permitted and enforced by the laws of the day.

The NLG finds it “... unconscionable that anyone is unhoused in the richest country in the world and believes that it is abhorrent that HUD or any other agency would move to evict a family at any point …”

Note: A previous version of this article identified Matt Pillischer as an attorney. While trained as a lawyer, Mr. Pillischer does not practice law. We regret the error.

D.H. Kerby is a writer in Philadelphia. Email dhkerby@yahoo.com.

From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2021

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