FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AUGUST 3, 2021
Press Contacts:
Max Ray-Riek: (215) 908-8939
Jamaal Henderson: (267) 438-0960
ACT UP PHILADELPHIA HOLDS PRESS CONFERENCE ADDRESSING RECENT PEACEFUL PROTEST INTERRUPTED BY POLICE VIOLENCE
Philadelphia, PA – On July 27th, ACT UP Philadelphia was prevented from protesting at Mayor Kenney's house, met with a violent police response to our peaceful protest. On August 3rd at 1pm we held our first public event addressing the interrupted protest, and speaking out against this effort to silence us.
ACT UP will continue to fight to end homelessness, as part of our work to end the AIDS crisis. Homelessness, and the economic and political priorities that allow homelessness, are at the root of so many challenges we face. Homelessness keeps people with HIV from being healthy; it keeps LGBTQIA+ people from being safe; it forces Black and Brown people into more conflicts with the police; and 99% of us are one crisis away from homelessness. Mayor Kenney, through his budget, his management, and his priorities, is making the active choice to keep people homeless, and to cause harm to people who are unhoused.
ACT UP member Jamaal Henderson drew parallels to a 1991 ACT UP action in which police badly injured several protestors who pushed through a police barricade to bring the ashes of loved ones to an event with George Bush. The consent decree and settlement in the case activists brought helped shape the Civil Affairs department’s hands-off policy towards protestors exercising their first amendment rights. The consent decree also included the police admitting wrongdoing. “In 1991, they went from saying we brawled with police to saying what actually happened: that the police beat us, and they shouldn’t have.” said Henderson.
The group read a statement about the events of July 27th.
“ACT UP Philadelphia planned to hold a peaceful protest on July 27th. Our goal was to come together as a community, share a meal, and speak out as unhoused people, people living with HIV, people with disabilities, and others directly affected by Mayor Kenney’s failures to meet his own goals for affordable housing, and live up to his department’s own standards for Housing First, trauma-informed care.
“Instead, as we were firing up the grill and greeting each other, police officers violently disrupted the protest. 4 members went to the hospital to seek care for injuries they received. Two members were taken into police custody.
“The DA’s office is currently reviewing police body-cam footage of the incident. We want to remind people that being arrested and being charged does not mean you did anything wrong or illegal.
“We dispute the police department’s version of the events that took place. We wish our “justice” system was one where we could be confident of fair treatment and transparency but unfortunately that’s not the case. It does not make sense that we were there for a peaceful protest and BBQ for the people that we are advocating for, but we received violence from the police instead.
“We specifically want to note that the police statement misgendered the second person arrested and released her dead name. We ask journalists to respect her and refer to her as Ms. Hughes moving forward and also referring to both people arrested as she or they. We also want to note that the police statement identified both people as white. One of the people arrested is a Latinx person of color.
“On July 3th out of state imported Nazi's marched unimpeded through the streets of Philadelphia. Over a year ago BLM protesters had rubber bullets and tear gas unleashed on them.
ACT UP members and homeless black and LatinX people had their protest violently stopped before it began. Protesting while black or latinx will be met with police violence.
“Most importantly, we want to point out the fact that unhoused individuals in Kensington, Center City, and neighborhoods across Philadelphia routinely encounter police, and those encounters can turn violent as well, and usually get much less scrutiny than what is happening to us. We are protesting a system that values property over lives, whether that’s putting city resources into supporting developers to build housing that’s unaffordable while failing to even come close to building enough housing that’s affordable for people who currently have no homes, or arresting people in Kensington for “trespassing” by being on the sidewalk.”
ACT UP Philadelphia’s shared their immediate demands, which are as follows:
The group also shared statements from other organizations that had planned to participate in last Tuesday’s actions.
A statement from ADAPT, originally written to be read at the protest on July 27th, was read at the press conference. ADAPT is a non violent, civil disobedient, activist group fighting for disability rights; to end institutional bias and assure equal access, who said:
It is 2021 and people with disabilities and we are still fighting for equity and equality within the homeless shelter system. It is disheartening that disabled people who are deaf cannot get served without scheduling an ASL and/or a certified deaf interpreter. These staff should be hired and work at OHS/in the homeless shelter system so consumers who are deaf can be served the day they show up for intake. In 2021 there should be way better signage for all people with disabilities to know where they need to go to get help at OHS or The HUB of Hope. For the most part, in 2021 disabled people live their lives just like anyone else and to still be at a disservice 31 years after the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, (ADA) is mortifying. Mayor Kenney if you're not going to mandate the city make more apartments/houses accessible, then mandate that OHS provide the services and supports we need in the shelter system.
The group read a statement from Moses Santana, an ACT UP member from Kensington.
“The Mayor has turned a blind eye to the suffering of black and brown communities in the city, it is disheartening to watch as our city government does nothing to better the situation of its citizens. 1,214 Philadelphians were lost to preventable overdoses. In the Latino community zip code 19134 we lost a total of 139 lives whose lives weren’t important enough for the mayor to do anything about it, he is carrying on the tradition of his predecessors: To wage war on the poor! It is a tradition that has been in place longer than you and I have been alive.
“Silence is not an option, to stand down is not an option! We will stand together and hold Mayor Kenney accountable. It is time for our government and our elected officials to work for the people in Philadelphia. It's time to work, Mayor Kenney; it is time for you to do what you said that you would. Time is of the essence, the more we wait around the more lives within our poorest and most vulnerable populations reside. It's time to WORK Mayor.”
Karen Harvey, head of the Philadelphia Rent Control Coalition shared an audio clip (https://bit.ly/37g7oQV).
“Systematic, government sanctioned gentrification has turned my neighborhood, and many other neighborhoods, from Black and Brown, to less Black and Brown and more white…. It is apparent that [Mayor Kenney] and the developers did not think ahead to where the residents …. of the newly gentrified neighborhoods were going to live.” Harvey also touched on the gun violence epidemic, stating, “while you turned a blind eye and deaf ear to the gun runners who rolled into town and sold a gun to every fool with money to pay for them, now we’re faced with a real pandemic…. So, I’m wondering Mr. Mayor, how many of my new white neighbors and their dogs have to die before there’s less talk and more real work done to clean up this city?”
ACT UP member Max Ray-Riek closed the event by sharing data from Philadelphia’s Housing Action Plan dashboard. Ray-Riek pointed to data showing that Philadelphia has not met its goals for creating new housing for unhoused individuals in the past three years, while exceeding its goals for building market-rate housing. He also questioned the data on preserving affordable housing, pointing out that the data seemed to count households receiving services related to housing such as support with utilities and heater repair, but did not actually count the total number of affordable units preserved. Ray-Riek concluded by criticizing the Housing Action Plan’s targets, pointing to a Pew study that shows that Philadelphia has 60,000 more low-income households than rental units affordable to low-income households, while almost every other income level already has more units available than are needed. “This is what we mean when we say Mayor Kenney is failing on his own affordable housing goals, not to mention what the city actually needs,” concluded Ray-Riek.
ACT UP Stands for the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. We are a diverse, non-partisan group, united in anger, and committed to ending the AIDS crisis through direct action.
www.actupphilly.org
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