Cheri Honkala
Cheri Honkala, the executive director of Kensington Welfare Rights Union, began by making a tongue-in-cheek gesture toward the Forward Command Post installation – the burnt-out Barbie’s dream house that had illustrated Lois Lorentzen’s paper in the morning session of the conference. “I want to start off by making two quick points,” she said. “[The first] is that, when I came in here and I heard that that was another kind of display, I thought that was a house in Kensington. And secondly, that hunger, unemployment, and homelessness are women’s and feminist issues. And I just wanted to be clear about that today – just in case somebody didn’t know that [they were].”
Honkala began with an autobiographical sketch “because those are my real credentials. I have yet to take time out to get my master’s. However, I do have a lot of ‘school of hard knocks’ credentials, so I always like to put those out there. For after all, I went through those experiences and I want to get something out of them, right? I’m a survivor of domestic violence, a formerly-homeless mother on a couple of different occasions. I think I’m up to number 70 in terms of being incarcerated. I lost my father, lost my brother, lost countless numbers of people. Have been to seven funerals in the last two months. And I am still standing. Hello.” (This narrative brought a hearty round of applause from the audience.)
“. . . . But the fundamental thing that I see that I do on a daily basis is that I fight for the unity and the organization of the poor in an effort to commit themselves to be leaders in the fight to end, not manage, poverty here at home and abroad. Boy, that’s a short job description, huh? But the thing is, is that the work that we do, it’s really hard to explain to people what we do. People think like – ‘oh, like you work at a nonprofit.’ And it’s like, ‘no.’ ‘Oh, you guys are like an NGO?’ ‘No.’
“‘Well, what are you like?’ And through all the reading that I’ve done in my life, the closest analogy that I can come up with is that, similar to slavery, in which people just had to do what they had to do in order to stay alive . . . in the real physical sense – [but also in the] spiritual, moral, all those kinds of senses – that’s how I kind of look at the work that all of us are engaged in on a daily basis. Because if you are a homeless mother in the United States of America, it is like a gaping wound. And you can’t wait. And you either decide – if you don’t have any place to sleep at night – you either get up and figure out how to organize, how to fight, how to deal with that situation, or maybe by the next morning, it will be written in some kind of newspaper that you died from hypothermia. Not because you were denied a basic human right, such as shelter, because you are a human being in this country. And so, no, we don’t sit around and talk about, ‘How do we?’ . . . like slaves during slavery didn’t sit around and talk about, ‘How do we first write a foundation grant before we seek freedom?’
“‘Cheri, that’s not fiscally responsible.’ ‘The funders won’t like that,’ or whatever. So what we do is we say, OK, this is what we need to do and this is what we’re going to do [in order] to do it. And anybody [who] comes into our organization has to commit to helping to build a movement to eliminate poverty, hunger, and homelessness here and abroad. Otherwise, they can go someplace else, if they’re looking for a charity. Because we don’t have time for that, and we believe that poor people are not innately messed up and can’t think and move and act on their own behalf. Because we get told that all the time, ‘oh, gee, your situation is so bad, you don’t have time to work on it; let me write about it for you, draft out a plan, and tell you how you can seek freedom from that situation.’
” . . . I’m a thinker and I’m a reader, and I encourage everybody not to underestimate the importance of reading and study. As it was alluded to earlier, the idea of not being ahistorical is incredibly important, because this is too much work to do, so why make up a whole bunch of stuff that people have already written down and created in different parts of the world, that we can learn from?
“But a few things I want to start with. I want to talk very briefly about the current situation that we face in our real fight for homeland security. After all, I know a great deal about it since the guy [who] was put in charge comes from Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Ridge, who is in charge of Homeland Security. And I always get chills up my back because I think about the night I was with a group of homeless people and we were sleeping on the Capitol stairs. And it had been the coldest day in October, and the governor ordered the removal of the blankets from all of the families and the children. And they took the blankets, and we walked around all night to stay awake so that no one would die from hypothermia. We got cardboard and plastic from [a] grocery store. And then I thought to myself, Oh my God, this man has been put in charge of Homeland Security.
“And so, we have been able to have a lot of history with this guy. After all, we got it during the organizing of poor and homeless people . . . [when we] wanted to tell the whole world that poverty and homelessness exist, during the Republican National Convention. And we were the only group that wasn’t granted a permit. And then we were sent a fax, on the day that one of my sons held a press conference [announcing] that the children were going to march with their mothers. And so we got a fax from the Department of Human Services, Child Protection, that they would take away the children of the mothers [who] participated in the Republican National Convention in the march.
“And of course, Ridge was busy practicing his Homeland Security at this time. . . . Throughout that march it was absolutely incredible because we were able to see that, regardless of the tremendous amount of fear, [there was] the desire to stay alive and to do something about the devastating situation that all of us face. Over 10,000 people came out from all over the place and marched, even though we didn’t have a permit, and had a successful march. And then again, we got to deal with the man in charge of Homeland Security when we decided to march on opening day of the Winter Olympics in no less than Utah.
“. . . They were running public service announcements: ‘The homeless are coming! The homeless are coming to Utah!’ Well, we were able to let the progressive mayor there know that, by God, we didn’t have to go far to get the homeless because there’s a whole lot here in Utah. And so then they started giving [homeless people] one-way tickets to Las Vegas and that kind of stuff. And Americorps . . . worked on building an additional shelter to house all of the homeless that were going to invade Utah. And they passed the terrorism bill, that if you were demonstrating, if you were participating in civil disobedience that that could be looked at as terrorism.
“And so we had to do some legislative activity in the mix, trying to organize for a damned march on opening day of the Winter Olympics, just to carry some simple banner with some nuns that said, ‘Poverty Exists in the United States of America.’
“And don’t worry about it, though, because billions of taxpayer dollars were spent with sharpshooters on all of the roofs. And I think we made it about three or four blocks towards where all the wonderful sledding events and stuff were taking place. And me and the nuns were locked up.
“And so, for two days or whatever, for the first day we were in this horrible building that gave me memories of a warehouse. Utah is a religious state, and they had pews in this warehouse. And they locked us to the pews. And we stayed there for about two days.
“I was with one nun who was about 70 years old – a dangerous woman, you know. And so they spent an incredible amount of money. I think we were the only people arrested during that really scary event in which we were trying to make sure that we were safe and secure here at home.
“So that was our second encounter. And then the third continues. People began to talk about, ‘My God, the violation of our civil liberties after 9/11!’ And I’m saying to myself, Oh my God, we’ve been having, we’ve been trying to go to progressive forums and all that kind of stuff. . . . We don’t like to talk about this stuff because it makes us sound paranoid but people that have shirts on that say the “FBI” come to our housing takeovers when we move homeless families in. Don’t you think our civil liberties are starting to be violated now?
“And needless to say, that process has really continued, especially during the Republican National Convention, when they parked a Winnebago in front of our office for four months prior to the Republican National Convention. I think they were trying to send a message.
“And really raising the issue that, what is all this homeland security and what is this terrorism and talk of getting duct tape? Who are we really trying to protect ourselves from? And doing a great job at making this war that’s taking place here at home [is] absolutely invisible.
“I’m sure none of you knew that any of us were arrested or that even a fly tried to do anything on opening day of the Winter Olympics. I think I talked to the Italian press. I spoke to more press around the entire world and absolutely nothing appeared here locally in the U.S. press. Yeah, there was a lot of U.S. press there, but of course, the next day came, and there was a small little article, and then nothing appeared on the rest of the media channels all over the place. . . .
“I think it’s no accident that this is the five-year lifetime limit for folks who receive public assistance in our country, and with millions and millions of new people are entering our streets because they don’t have a basic right to feed, clothe, or house themselves or to have healthcare anymore.
“And I think it’s really interesting that we’re all of the sudden deciding to go to war. We can’t show that, even though I made a joke earlier, that I really wasn’t kidding about that being a house in Kensington and it might not come in military fatigues and in tanks down the streets. But certainly the police presence, the direct correlation between the [increased rates] of incarceration [and] the dismantling of the social welfare system in our country. The direct correlation between the numbers of children that have been taken from their mothers [and their mothers having been] taken off of public assistance and not being able to pay their rent or to put food on their tables.
“You might be talking about a war taking place in Iraq, but certainly there is a war that is taking place here at home. It’s just that nobody will ever hear about it or see it, unless we begin to do our work. The issue is that . . . [people] die as a result of this war, whether it’s [caused by] food being taken from the babies or whether it’s bullets or bombs that drop on Iraq.
“A person who is being denied a basic right to life and liberty and this pursuit of happiness is the same. And unless we begin to highlight what’s going to happen here at home, we will continue only to talk about this war in the way this media wants us to frame it.
“And so our efforts at home – we are beginning to, every day of our life, we continue to document what we see as human rights violations. That if somebody dies as a result of not having health care, then we write it down. We see ourselves as human rights monitors. If they die because they had hypothermia, we don’t say that they died because they had hypothermia. [We say instead,] ‘She was a pregnant woman and couldn’t get access to any form of shelter because she had felony drug convictions and therefore isn’t eligible for any housing anymore, and froze to death.’
“So we’re beginning to write all these things down [and to] call ourselves human rights monitors. And we have begun to link together efforts of anybody and their mother that wants to unite with one mission, which is the elimination of poverty with the poor spearheading a movement in this country.
“And we are also aware that this coming year is the 35th anniversary of the poor people’s campaign. And we are going to try like hell to highlight the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King by redoing that march. People of all colors – from farm workers to public housing tenants to homeless people to welfare recipients – we’re starting in Marks, Mississippi, on August 1st. We will be joined by the disability community around the entire country. And if we’ve got to throw ourselves on the rooftops or do whatever we have to do, and we can be accused of having too many marches. Believe me, there’s a purpose. And that’s that they are continuing to [draw attention to] the very real casualties of the war that are taking place at home.
“And we are determined that people know what is taking place here because we really believe that once people see what’s happening, that the American people are good people, and they wouldn’t allow it to happen. We believe that it’s really a question of seeing.
“I want to wrap things up by saying a few things, as a seasoned organizer. In terms of how we can make a difference, there is an organization in New York that’s called Make the Road by Walking. And I really believe that it’s true. . . .
“Not to be ahistorical, but we should just begin to start doing something. We also need to begin to study and to begin to read more. And we need to take seriously that we do not have all the answers and we have so much more to learn every single day. And look out for that person who writes a book and ten years later stands by the fact that nothing has changed. It’s OK to change your mind and your theory and your strategy. If something doesn’t work, by God, throw it out. And write another book.
“And also, you are the leader that you are looking for. In the end, all we really have is each other. It’s really about numbers. It’s important for us to hold on to our identity, but man, we need a winning strategy and that means numbers if we’re going to whoop their behinds.
“And no matter how morally correct you are – and by God, I’ve still been trying this one – it doesn’t mean that you’re going to win. We need smart people to take on powerful people. And we don’t need pity. And we don’t need guilt-trip white liberals either. We need power.
“Make plans and set your strategy, but remember that there is a real enemy out there. It’s not abstract. And that enemy doesn’t give a damn about a large segment of the people in this country, . . . whether or not that they live or they die.
“And please, if you’re not in the boxing ring, don’t tell that boxer how to fight. Thanks.”
