Homeless for the Holidays
A housing activist group aims to raise awareness of the city's neediest.
Carolyn Caesar has been homeless for about a year. She lives in Kensington in a "takeover house," an abandoned dwelling she quietly shares with her 13-year-old daughter. The kitchen is crumbling. Few rooms have electricity. Plastic sheeting covers the windows, and there's no heat or hot water.
Caesar cooks dinner on a hot plate in her bedroom, the only room with warmth, thanks to an electric heater.
"It's raggedy," she says of the two-story brick structure she calls home, "but I don't have nowhere else to stay. It's either this or the streets."
Caesar, 44, lost her job as a nurse after missing days trying to hide the physical and emotional scars of her abusive relationship. Now on her own, she can't work for fear of leaving her teenage daughter home alone. Instead, she receives welfare benefits--$565 a month--until she can find a safe, permanent place to live.
"I've worked all my life, went to nursing school, and here I am," says Caesar. "I want to get housing, but when you go [to the Philadelphia Housing Authority] they tell you everything is on a freeze. People need to know that there's homeless families inside of Philadelphia."
Next Tuesday at 4:30 p.m., Caesar and her daughter, along with other homeless families and members of the Kensington Welfare Rights Union (KWRU) will stand in the shadows of City Hall's Christmas tree lights to create their own home for the holidays.
In the City Hall courtyard, KWRU, an organization that advocates for the city's poor and homeless, will set up the furnishings of home--a couch, a crib and a chimney--and feed the homeless.
Children will read letters to Santa, expressing their Christmas wishes.
"Hopefully people will be disturbed that we have women and children who don't have a safe and happy place to be this holiday season," says KWRU president Cheri Honkala, "and they will be disturbed enough to get involved in the fight to end homelessness in Philadelphia."
The exact number of homeless in the city is unknown, but according to the Greater Philadelphia Urban Affairs Coalition, 25,000 people used the city's homeless system last year, with a daily average of 7,000 in the system at any one time.
The causes of homelessness are complex and varied, but three main factors are a lack of affordable housing, insufficient income and the lack of needed medical treatment and services.
"We need to invest in our poorest communities," says Honkala. "We continue to have more abandoned houses than homeless families, and we continue to spend money for mixed-up priorities, like stadiums, entertainment centers and anything else we want. We have to decide that it's not okay for people in Philadelphia to be living on the street, particularly during this time of the year."
Caesar will likely spend Christmas at her eldest daughter's home, surrounded by her children and six grandchildren. But the day after, she'll return to the reality of homelessness.
"I just want something that I can call my own home," says Caesar. "When my grandkids come over to visit, they say, 'Grandma, what's wrong with your house? Why you live like this?'"
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1. Kevin Kelly said... on Mar 13, 2009 at 05:28PM
“There's a nationwide shortage of nurses. Why can't she get a job again? This is one of the only industries that's still hiring. Don't leave you child home alone, send her to school.”
2. Danielle said... on Jan 22, 2010 at 12:53PM
“Kevin Kelly you are obviously not educated on the issue and difficulties of homelessness. Do some research.”