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A Week in the Life With the Kensington Welfare Rights Union A Day In the Life With the Kensington Welfare Rights Union: Search for Affordable Housing in Philadelphia Campaign - Day Two: Tuesday, July 22, 1997 Day two for the Search for Affordable Housing Campaign begins at 10:00 a.m. at Love Park. An interesting observation today, however, is that the civil affairs police are also there at 10:00 a.m. A group of 20 KWRU members and students from Empty the Shelters (Summer of Social Action Program) and Temple University School of Social Work graduates recap the first days events and strategize for the days search. KWRU's first stop is back to John Kromer's office (Director, City of Philadelphia Office of Housing and Community Development). After waiting for 30 minutes, Mr. Kromer's secretary came out and refused to talk to KWRU's director saying her assistant already called to schedule a meeting. The members held a spontaneous demonstration demanding affordable housing. Eventually, the secretary said neither Mr. Kromer nor anyone else was available to meet with the group. However, a meeting was set with Mr. Kromer for July 31 at 10 a.m. The second stop was back to the Municipal Building for a follow-up call to the new Deputy Managing Director for Special Needs Housing in the City of Philadelphia -- Michael Nardone -- who has been in office for 8 weeks. The group held a fifteen minute protest for a face to face meeting. Mr. Nardone came downstairs and said he didn't know which agencies could classify people as homeless" but will find out. KWRU left him with two demands: 1. If Philadelphia cannot guarantee affordable housing, there should be a moratorium on evictions and on children being taken away from their families because of unsafe housing. 2. The Kensington Welfare Rights Union should be qualified to certify people as Tier 1 status for Section 8 priority status. The third stop on the search was the State Office Building - Department of Public Welfare at Broad & Spring Garden Streets. The group attempted to go in and up to the welfare office. Only three people were permitted to go up. While up there, they flyered and took surveys. One example of the conversations taking place was a woman seeking assistance with affordable housing and was willing to enter the shelter system to find housing for herself and her child. She has been living with her sister in a one-bedroom PHA home for four years. The house has leaky pipes in the bathroom and her daughter was injured several years ago when she fell in the bathroom due to the leaks. There has not been problems paying rent although she has feared becoming homeless in the past year. Currently she is unaware of any affordable housing in Philadelphia. She did say that "there are several abandoned homes on her block". After surveying, the organizers asked the employees of the office about affordable housing in Philadelphia and were directed to Community Services on the 6th floor. Fred Bostwell, the gentleman we were looking for was not there but we were directed to a Miss Kronin who told us that the Department of Public Welfare does not help get affordable housing. They assist people who are being evicted or are being foreclosed with their emergency assistance. She said when people ask them about affordable housing, they give them phone numbers of agencies such as PHA or "some of the other agencies who have housing as part of their agenda". Even though DPW is in a public building, only three organizers were allowed upstairs. Since the rest of the group was not allowed up, they started to get their signs out. The administrator for the building (Bill Ivers) came out and said no demonstrations were allowed inside. About four police were present (Stockett, Norton, Harrison and Weisbord). The group passed out fliers to people coming in and held posters. After about a half hour, Marlene Shapiro, the new Director of Operations of the DPW - Philadelphia came down and had the following to report: She was "not sure" what her department is doing about emergency housing assistance; She kept trying to make it an issue of KWRU's director Cheri Honkala's individual case - "talk to your caseworker"; Said the city has programs, has to get list of agencies (didn't bring it)' If someone is evicted through "no fault of their own" they can get help with the Emergency Assistance Unit. Procedure depends on individual case; Inability to pay rent does NOT count as "no fault of one's own". Therefore a person who can't pay rent would not be eligible for emergency assistance; Brought us guidelines for Emergency Assistance Unit grants. day three