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One Occupy legacy: it gave the homeless cover to live in public.
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
One Occupy legacy: it gave the homeless cover to live in public.
Last night — before, that is, Occupy Philly was shut down by police and after a freezing rain had descended on the city — I hopped on the Route 15 and headed up to Port Richmond to visit an encampement of homeles individuals who'd left Occupy Philly to avoid possible arrest.
As I reported yesterday, the group, after being evicted from their intial spot by Conrail officials, relocated to underneath the I-95 overpass.
They've been assisted by members of Occupy Philly, who had also last night provided boxed dinners for the dozen or so tents I saw set up. According to Thomas Papineau, a participant of Occupy Philly who is homeless and living there, representatives of the 26th Police District showed up and told the group they would be allowed to remain there — for now, at least — and even sent a squad car to check on them periodically (Papineau appreciated this: "We're worried kids might try to mess with us," he confided).
Occupy Philly's Dilworth encampement might be over, simply occupying that space isn't the sum total of what Occupy — whatever it was, is, and will be — accomplished over the last six weeks.
Homeless had already been sleeping in Dilworth Plaza when the group moved in, it's true — but never before had they shown the temerity to sleep sheltered in tents and not exposed on benches. And while mini "tent cities" exist around the city, they tend to be hidden from public view and hastily-constructed — partly for fear, no doubt, that they will be taken down.
Papineau, who says he's been homeless for ten years, says he's never before seen as visible and robust a group of homeless people living outdoors in Philly as the one now underneath I-95.
I asked if he thought Occupy Philly had effectively provided cover for the homeless to live more decently than they might have otherwise, and he agreed: He'd been sleeping near City Hall for 5-6 months before Occupy Philly showed up, he said. "Then I got my own tent."
MaryAnne Omelchuk, who'd also been living at Occupy Philly and has moved beneath I-95, shared the sentiment. Though she attended occasional General Assembly meetings — and not a few times grew furious with the group — she calls Occupy Philly, "like a family to me."
Some residents of Port Richmond are clearly upset about the presence of the new (though rather small) encampment — and it's unclear how long it will last, not least to those living in it.
After I took the picture above, Papineau put an arm over a worried-looking Omelchuck: "Everything's going to be all right," he said.
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