From: ww@nyxfer.UUCP
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Date: 24 Dec 92 15:49 PST
Subject: Campaign to Save Chicago's Homeless
Nf-ID: #N:so8awB13w165w@nyxfer.uucp:1034695456:000:3172
Nf-From: nyxfer.uucp!ww    Dec 24 15:49:00 1992


Subject: Campaign to Save Chicago's Homeless
From: nyxfer!ww (Workers World Service)

 
Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit


Chicago Activists Call for Winter Emergency Plan

Special to Workers World

Chicago faces a double disaster, according to a statement 
endorsed by a growing list of community organizations. In 
addition to a natural disaster--an unusually severe winter, 
predicted well in advance by weather forecasters, and caused by 
volcanic ash from an eruption in the Philippines--there is the 
artificial disaster of unemployment, record homelessness, 
evictions and massive welfare cutbacks.

"If nothing is done, people may die from exposure, from 
cold-related illness, from fire and suffocation in record 
numbers. Others may face inflated heating bills which they will 
be unable to pay," according to the Movement for a People's 
Assembly, which circulated the statement. It calls for community 
representatives to meet and create their own winter emergency 
plan, which government would then be pressured to adopt.

"This would include providing adequate housing for all from the 
vacant space that is available, plus a moratorium on evictions 
and unaffordable fuel bills," says MPA organizer Jill Hill. "We 
will hold government absolutely responsible for any deaths, and 
all the hardship that takes place because they have not acted to 
protect people's lives and welfare."

Endorsers of the call for action include the Coalition for 
Justice, the Eighth Day Center for Justice, Homeless on the Move 
for Equality, the National Assembly of Religious Women, Staying 
in Touch Inc., the Woodlawn Organization, and Westtown Concerned 
Citizens.

"The winter we face is likely to inflict hardship on everyone but
the very rich," Hill explains. "The homeless face a
life-threatening situation right now. This particularly applies to
people with AIDS and other medical conditions, for whom the
existing shelters are particularly inadequate.

"But even those who have homes face outrageous gas and oil bills,
jacked-up rents and artificial shortages as the monopolies try to
milk this winter for every dollar they can get out of it. And of
course in these economic times anyone can be laid off any time and
face disaster. So this is a situation that should bring everybody
together.

"One thing the city could do right now is to reverse its policy 
of closing down and demolishing public housing. Instead, these 
units should be rehabilitated and opened up to the homeless. The 
residents themselves should be hired at union wages to do the 
necessary work.

"Right now, the city's plan is to evict people from public 
housing and turn them into virtual prison camps. It is a very 
racist policy that has nothing to do with real concern for the 
residents."

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21
St., New York, NY 10010; email: ww%nyxfer@igc.apc.org; "workers"
on PeaceNet; on Internet: "workers@mcimail.com".)
 

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