CALL FROM : MARION GILLON AND BRENDA WALCOTT
ncaeh2004@yahoo.com

National Convention to End Homelessness in America

Mission:  An Alliance of homeless citizens, frontline providers, and advocates for the homeless, with Melvin King as one of our key note speakers will piggyback on the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston to bring attention to the disgraceful condition that exists in the United States of America, the ever-growing and unchecked problem of homelessness. While the whole world is watching the Alliance will convene a meeting of delegates from cities and towns across the nation to establish a national agenda, which will demand elected officials to address the issue of homelessness in America. Among other initiatives, the Alliance will mobilize the homeless to register to vote, and it will organize grassroots support for the Bringing America Home Act that was introduced to the United States Congress on July 25, 2003.

The old stereotype of the homeless as wandering hobos, unemployed alcoholics or washed out drug addicts has never been further from the reality. According to the press release announcing the introduction of the Bringing America Home Act to Congress, "In the United States, 3.5 million people; almost 40 percent of them children - experience homelessness each year. Many of these individuals work, but due to high rents, tight rental markets, and low paying jobs, they have found themselves living on the streets, in cars, in shelters, in abandoned buildings, in motels, or in over-crowded, temporary accommodations with others. The current economic downturn has put even more Americans one paycheck, one illness, or one rent hike away from homelessness". It continues, "Today, a worker making minimum wage cannot afford housing at fair market rent anywhere in the United States. Today, over a million children are without housing. Today, access to health care is out of reach for many. Today, approximately 40 percent of men who are homeless served in the armed forces."

Not one candidate has made the above issue part of her/his platform. Not one candidate has even acknowledged this plight of millions of U.S citizens. Are these people considered human waste, because they are not perceived to be a powerful voting block? Is there a conspiracy to keep this travesty an American family secret?

Will we be part of such an inhuman conspiracy? Will we be muted militants? Will we wander in complacent despair, placing our energy into trying to stay two or three paychecks away from the plight of those above? Come join us. 

National Convention to End Homelessness In America signs on as one sponsors of MARCH TO ABOLISH POVERTY www.abolishpoverty.org

NATIONAL CONVENTION TO END HOMELESSNESS IN AMERICA