Voices of the Unhoused: Poor People’s Army Sets Up Encampment Near RNC to Protest GOP Policies

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. We are broadcasting from Milwaukee, “Breaking with Convention: War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman.

Donald Trump arrived here on Sunday ahead of the opening day today of the Republican convention. Trump is expected to take the stage tonight, two days after he survived an attempted assassination. A number of protests are scheduled for today. Organizers of the March on the RNC say they plan to go ahead with the protest that’s been scheduled for months. This is Omar Flores.

OMAR FLORES: Well, nothing really changes for us, you know? I will say that Trump breeds a lot of hate. He encourages this type of thing. But we are going to continue with the family-friendly march. The shooting has nothing to do with us, really. …

Well, when this happens, you know, we just think a lot of what Trump has encouraged throughout his presidency and throughout his time in politics. And, you know, we think of, for example, related to our point of unity around immigrant rights, I mean, the deaths at the border, the kids in cages, you know, the countless lives that didn’t have to go away. You know, that’s what we’re thinking about right now. The fact that he moved the Israeli Embassy to Jerusalem, I mean, that stoked tensions. That definitely caused some death. You know, I mean, just look at anything related to the extreme right, and that’s what we’re looking at in terms of violence. And so, you know, we’ll just say that Trump encourages this type of behavior.

AMY GOODMAN: On Sunday, dozens of people set up an unhoused encampment just minutes from Fiserv Forum, where the RNC is being held, to protest policies that exacerbated poverty and a housing crisis nationwide, the encampment organized by the Poor People’s Army, which is planning a separate march outside the RNC later this afternoon. On Sunday, Democracy Now! spoke to participants as they set up the unhoused encampment.

CHERI HONKALA: When people start arriving with tanks, they can just start to fill them, right? Just fill the land.

SANDRA RIVERA COLON: My name is Sandra Rivera Colon. And we’re currently in Milwaukee. We are setting up an encampment. We call it a tent city. This has been a part of my life for 28 years of my life. And I was born in a tent city in Philadelphia in ’96. And since then, like, my entire life has revolved around, you know, helping to end poverty and homelessness. We’ve done multiple encampments just to get people’s attention within the cities. And this is my mom.

TARA COLON: Tara Colon. What it means to be in this encampment during the RNC for us means putting a face to the poverty, OK? Poverty doesn’t discriminate in the United States. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a brand-new baby, because she was born, literally. I walked from tent city to the hospital, because that was my struggle for housing when I was pregnant with my daughter.

It doesn’t — it’s also the face of our 80-year-old elders that have either fought in American wars or who helped change laws because they marched down civil rights, and now they’re homeless at the age of 80, at the age of 75, or they’re doing Uber, when they should be retired and enjoying and being taken care of, the way they took care of this country, not just their families, instead of going and walking behind the Walmart, which nobody will ever do, instead of going down the street, that in every single city and in every single small town — and when I say “small,” I’m talking about, like, inky-dinky towns. There are tent cities all over the United States, because nobody has a place to live.

RITA MANIOTIS: Rita Maniotis, and I’m with the Greater Milwaukee Green Party. And we’ve been — just the basic needs of people are not being met. And that’s what they are marching about, that poor people are being ignored in the society. The only people — it’s almost as if they’re treated as if it’s their own fault. And they are the victims of this economic system. It’s not the other way around, that they are victimizing the people that have the money. So, I think that it’s important for poor people to be recognized.

ANITA WILLIAMS: My name is Anita Williams, and I’m from Philadelphia. I had a son that got shot four years ago in Philadelphia. He’s OK, but he’s still got barriers and stuff like that that’s going on. He has nightmares. So, I want this world to be better.

It’s really, really hard, especially if you’re doing it by yourself and you’re a single parent or you have children. It’s really, really hard. And a lot of people don’t understand, because a lot of people are not homeless. You know what I mean? And a lot of people ain’t been hungry. I guess they’re afraid of that. But it’s really, really hard that you see your children being hungry, or, you know, you’re not eating, Your children gotta eat. Or there might be certain things your children want to eat and they can’t eat, because you can’t afford it.

What I’d like to see the president do is help homelessness, stop the war, and help people with hunger, people who have been hungry. Like, you know, put more jobs out here. Open facilities for homelessness, I mean, you know, that and mental health. A lot of people are sick, you know? And to help them out. And I think that would help a whole lot if the president would do that.

KINWAN REDDING: Good evening. My name is Kinwan Redding. What brings me here is this is like an epidemic with the drug crisis, Big Pharma. I mean, the drug crisis is spreading like — it’s like coronavirus. You know what I mean? For all the money that’s being flooded into the economy, the United States and through politicians, it shouldn’t be as bad as it is. There’s fentanyl, people dying from fentanyl left and right. It’s not a caring attitude. You know what I mean? You have money for all of these debates and these penthouses, and they’re coming up with big houses all over here, but we don’t have anything for drug rehabilitation and drug education, you know? It’s like they don’t care about us, you know? And especially, it’s — basically, we’re paychecks.

HANA ELIAS: You know, at the RNC, there’s a lot of pharmaceutical lobbies and lobbying happening. What is your message to them?

KINWAN REDDING: Well, if they’re getting these billions of dollars for every new medicine that they create, you should have built a facility that can combat the overdose. So, just as fast as they can create these different medications, create facilities that can help them, help me, help you. If you can’t help us, then what is your purpose?

ROSA RICHARDS: I’m Rosa Richards. I’m 15. We’ve been homeless many times. It’s hard. It’s hard for families to be homeless and try to get off the streets. Houses need to be built. There’s empty plots. Like, I like in Athol, Mass. There’s empty plots everywhere, and there’s many homeless people. Philly. Addictions. I get — people need to — need that, but putting them in jail is not going to help at all. That’s why I’m like — that’s what I’m saying. They just need — they need better systems. I’d like to see that Trump and Biden back off, and a better president go in. Like, someone needs to actual do the stuff they said they would do.

LISA RICHARDS: My name is Lisa Richards. I’m a mother of seven children. So, we arrived a few days ago. We drove. And then we’ll go home, and then we’ll come back again and be in Chicago. So, we’ve been doing this for 30 years, and we will continue until poor people have what they need and the rich pay their fair share.

HANA ELIAS: What motivates you to keep coming back here for 30 years?

LISA RICHARDS: So, the Poor People’s Army and the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign has been to every RNC and DNC, marching and demonstrating and standing up for families that are on low income for 30-something years. So, we will continue until the needs are met and until the very wealthy pay their fair share of taxes so that everybody can have what they need. Seniors should not be having to decide through diabetic medication or other medication they need or having a roof over their head or food in their mouths. It is not OK, because our children and our families and my mother and everybody’s families deserve the best here in the United States.

And if we’re going to keep claiming that we’re so great, then we should be the best we can be. And we’re not. We’re not. We just need to be real about that and stop trying to show off to other countries and tell other countries what to do and starting wars, and spend the money on the people. The vets are out on the street. They’re becoming addicted. We have high, high rates of addictions, not enough recovery programs, not enough mental health programs, lots of suicides. We need help, and we need it now. And it’s our responsibility to do more than just vote every four years or every two years. To be a true American, you should be active continuously.

HANA ELIAS: Talk about, you know, what’s happening now in Gaza and the forced starvation and famine and insane, tremendous death toll. You know, a lot of the signs here are also making connections.

LISA RICHARDS: Right. So, the Poor People’s Army is a national and international army. We’ve been a huge organization in international countries for many, many years. Cheri’s been all over the place with lots of other people standing up for the people. So this is nothing new. So, places like Gaza, and anywhere else where people are getting killed, families, for doing absolutely nothing, you know, but trying to live and take care of their families with less than what we have, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

POOR PEOPLE’S ARMY MEMBERS: [singing] So, I went down to the rich man’s house, and I took back what he stole from me. I took back, took back my dignity.

AMY GOODMAN: Some of the voices from the unhoused encampment organized by the Poor People’s Army. Special thanks to Hana Elias and Hany Massoud.

For more, we’re joined here in Milwaukee by Cheri Honkola, the Poor People’s Army national spokesperson, national coordinator of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.

Welcome back to Democracy Now! It seems we interview you every convention. Talk about what your plans are here in Milwaukee.

CHERI HONKALA: Well, today at 4 p.m., we will gather where our encampment is, at 4 p.m. at King Park. And we intend to walk with people that are currently homeless, that have their children with them, that have disabilities. And we’re going to have a little mock trial. And if we determine that the Republicans are guilty for crimes against humanity, then we are going to issue a citizen’s arrest and ask the law enforcement officials to arrest folks for crimes against humanity.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about the encampment that you set up yesterday. I mean, so far, hundreds of people have come through to it?

CHERI HONKALA: Yes, hundreds of people have arrived from different parts of the country. Right now a guy spent four days riding Greyhound. An 80-year-old woman drove from Oregon. You know, mothers and their children have all arrived. We are, you know, putting our few pennies together, sharing them, taking care of each other. And we’re prepared to go forward on this march, because it’s incredibly important because people are not surviving poverty in this country. And we’ve set up our Poor People’s Army. We did not declare this war, but we’re here to fight it.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the recent Supreme Court decision, Grants Pass v. Johnson, what the ruling was around people who are unhoused?

CHERI HONKALA: Well, right now — we were absolutely devastated. We organized groups of homeless people and poor people from across the country, demonstrated in front of the Supreme Court, had many lawyers and cases across the country that were a part of the brief that was entered. And —

AMY GOODMAN: And this was a 6-to-3 ruling —

CHERI HONKALA: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — where the Supreme Court justices said local governments can criminalize sleeping and camping on public property, banning encampments of unhoused people. You had Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Kagan and Jackson who said — Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the minority, “Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime. For some people, sleeping outside is their only option. … For people with no access to shelter, that punishes them for being homeless. That is unconscionable and unconstitutional.”

CHERI HONKALA: It’s absolutely devastating, especially like in Philadelphia. There’s huge waiting lists. Men, women and children are turned away on a daily basis with no place to sleep. It doesn’t matter if you have a disability. And we find this across the entire country, where there’s more homeless people than there are abandoned properties. Cities are not housing people. And now the Supreme Court has criminalized homelessness in America.

AMY GOODMAN: Are you planning to march in Chicago on the Democratic National Convention?

CHERI HONKALA: Absolutely. We will be there on opening day again at 4 p.m. The city of Chicago made a mistake, a technical error. They didn’t get back to us. And so we’re the only group that has been granted a permit. So, we are inviting every single group across the entire country that wants to have their voice heard.

AMY GOODMAN: And finally, in preparation for the Republican National Convention here in Milwaukee, how has the city dealt with unhoused people?

CHERI HONKALA: They continue to do their regular sweeps. People don’t have access to affordable housing. Where we set up our encampment, there’s other homeless people that have also just begun to set up their tents as a way to have someplace to sleep, as well. But it will be very interesting to see how law enforcement deals with men, women and children today. Hopefully, they will look at the fact that we have a long history of having peaceful marches, and will allow us to walk to the front doors of the RNC and issue our arrest warrants.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for you being with us, Cheri Honkola of the Poor People’s Army, national spokesperson, national coordinator of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.

Next up, we’ll be joined by Wisconsin native Dan Kaufman, author of The Fall of Wisconsin: The Conservative Conquest of a Progressive Bastion and the Future of American Politics. Stay with us.