LIFT-West Philadelphia

Oh, Philly, oh Philly, we are talkin' 'bout Philly, here,
the city in which the sun does shine, and where black
women and men saunter and talk and walk with airs
they own the streets, which is true, they do. Down to
60th street where the morasses of urban development
show their ugly faces. Childcare centers, hair salons
promising curly hair, nascent construction, pizza shops,
fried food, accessory shops selling wigs, sidewalk
vendors selling Obama t-shirts, sports caps, car chargers
for phones, Chinese restaurant, this is West Philly.
Where you gotta walk ghetto, walk tough, walk like
there's no tomorrow, where you stare and get stared at,
a city of sisterly to brotherly love. 

          I gotta I gotta blog about the object of my love, LIFT. Because I started with it when we were National Student Partnerships, when we were Josh and Paul and two computers and little else. Then to six computers and many more clients and a new office on 60th street, where I met the coolest 50-year-old lady ever wearing only black and electric-blue, from heel-toe to earrings. Of countless CORI notes and documentation of that day's sorrows. Then we got Jordan and Anisha and I was a student director, meaning I disseminated information and led trainings. Of tax-training seminars in Center City, of learning what a deduction was, what tax-credits were, and 1040s and W-2s, what kind of life black adults, and adults in general led.

          LIFT is now huge. (I visited their new 55th Street office earlier today)

          http://www.liftcommunities.org

          And we're expanding. West Coast, watch out.

          What is there to fight for? The poor and the homeless. To look into their faces and tell them that much more has to be done. To start conversations with them. I met a woman with two small children who was becoming homeless. I researched homeless shelters in Philly that she could stand in lines for, and the Philadelphia Housing Authority that was hopelessly backlogged, of HUD that wasn't an immediate option, of terrible landlords who don't care that babies can be bit by mosquitos and flies in conditions of squalor. And I said to myself, this is not what America stands for. This is not what we as citizens are satisfied with. When someone doesn't have a home, we build one for them. When someone's kicked out, we offer them a couch. We can do better.

          And the next president needs to do more about homelessness. I don't care who it is—Romney or Obama—46 million persons living in poverty is not a joke, and stable housing should not be a luxury for millions less. We venture forth, not on behalf of the middle class, but for the sake of the suffering. This is not a nation of the 99%. For if it were, the 1% would be the homeless. And the 99% would be fighting for something that is meaningless to lots of people, when so many lack firm grounding, or slip through the cracks. Care about unequal wealth distribution? Give to the poor. Don't go around claiming something's yours if you haven't found it. What the Occupy Movement needs to do is to focus its energies toward the % of people who have been marginalized, who have no voices, whether it be the homeless, the disabled, minorities, or combinations of the three. Let them OCCUPY us, OCCUPY our houses and homes, and OCCUPY our hearts. That's my vision of an Occupy Movement that cares about the 100%. We leave no one behind. We move forward, for everybody, the poor, the rich, the suffering, the lame, the colored, the male, the female: the all. We'll figure it out. We always have.