Sign Petition: It's Time for a Change at OHS
James Kenney, Mayor of Philadelphia
Homelessness, and the threat of homelessness, is at the root of so many challenges we face. It 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.
And homelessness is a choice -- a choice that Mayor Kenney makes with his budget, his management, and his priorities. We don't choose to be homeless. Mayor Kenney chooses to:- allow landlords to keep 12,000 vacant properties in a city with 6,000 homeless people
- spend our "Affordable Housing Trust Fund" on for-profit developers making houses for people making up to $105k per year
- operate a shelter system with no safe options for gender non-conforming, trans*, and non-binary people
- shut down the successful COVID hotel program months before any other city, and refuse to re-open it even with 100% federal reimbursement
- spend money on police and city services to shuffle unhoused people around the city, threatening their health and well-being without providing any safe housing options
- provide city contracts to operators who don't abide by the city's own "trauma informed" and "housing first" policies
- allow his administration to undercount how many people are unhoused (by as much as 300%) so that we get fewer federal resources
Sponsored by
To:
James Kenney, Mayor of Philadelphia
From:
[Your Name]
1. Immediately stop ALL evictions including evictions of encampments and evictions from homeless shelters
2. Immediately form a paid oversight board of shelter residents, people receiving OHS support for permanent housing (e.g. SRO residents, voucher holders), and unhoused individuals, and invest in skilled facilitators and training on oversight skills such as analyzing budget and policy
3. Immediately review all city contractors and their policies to ensure real trauma-informed and Housing First policies and practices are in place at every city-funded provider
4. Immediately re-open the COVID hotels, apply for FEMA reimbursement, and invest the money in creating accessible, city run, Housing First, trauma-informed shelter that works for people of all genders, family sizes and configurations, and accessibility needs
5. Replace the current leadership of OHS with people approved by the oversight board