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Open letter from a homeless former Occupier
Paul Klemmer, a homeless carpenter who had been living at Dilworth Plaza - and is now residing in a tent beneath I-95 with other homeless people who left that camp - has written this letter about his and his companions' plight.
Open letter from a homeless former Occupier
Paul Klemmer, a homeless carpenter who had been living at Dilworth Plaza — and is now residing in a tent beneath I-95 with other homeless people who left that camp — has written this letter about his and his companions' plight.
Klemmer, along with a couple dozen other homeless who had been living among Occupy Philly members, quietly relocated to land owned by Conrail, in Port Richmond. When they were evicted from their initial camp, they relocated again — to a parking lot beneath I-95, owned by PennDOT, where they remain as of press time. While PennDOT officials indicated they would have to leave today, CP found the camp remaining late this afternoon.
(Check out my recent piece about how Occupy Philly provided the cover some homeless needed to better their living situations).
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The Homeless Encampment at Richmond and Cumberland
We are not here protesting or to make a statement. We’re homeless. We are sick of being forced to exist alone, sick of being told that shelters, which are not tolerable living facilities for sober people, are an adequate alternative to being “allowed,” by the government, to work, live and share together to create for ourselves, with much less help and expense than the government can do anything, opportunities to provide for ourselves that which our troubled economy cannot.
Philadelphia has about 4,000 homeless people and 40,000 empty dwelling units, but, apparently, unless the wealthy can profit by our occupying these dwellings, they would rather see us alone, with our possessions if not stolen by regular criminals, “confiscated” by police, since we have no place to store anything we can’t carry and are not allowed to congregate to watch one another’s belongings.
To have poverty forced upon us in the land of plenty is no longer a viable solution, if, in fact, it ever was.
I know how to grow food, build structures, build communities … make craftwork to supply cash for what it’s needed for, etc. My friends know how to do the things I don’t. Those who “have” seem satisfied to make sure I don’t “have” opportunity to gather to have a safe place to sleep, let alone organize to provide for our basic needs.
We need the use of at least one abandoned structure. If the law requires it to have electricity and water, the Obama administration provided $21 million to help the homeless, [and] this is a drop in the bucket.
We need an outdoor long-term camping area, close enough to mass transit for us to meet medical, legal, pension and benefits and other needs, and large and separated enough to not disturb our neighbors and start to grow our own food and do art and craftwork, feed one another and see to one another’s daily needs.
In this sort of camp, people who get along can meet one another, … help one another, and be helped by those in the community who believe in, rather than merely preach compassion, to get long-term housing, use our varied skills to rehabilitate abandoned structures as we rehabilitate ourselves and work toward the caring, loving society that many believe we will make happen.
There are many caring people in Philadelphia, whose deeds as well as their words, demonstrate the belief that the present “crisis” is in fact an opportunity to create a land of “Liberty and Justice for All,” rather than a land of “Just us.”
I prefer to remain anonymous; but my name is Paul Klemmer*.
November 30, 2011
[*Printed according to Mr. Klemmer’s request]
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