Loaves and Fishes, July-August, 1992

JUST US!

by Habeebah Ali

(Editor's Note: The following address was given at "A Conference On Homelessness and The Church" at Clairvaux Farm on October 12, 1991. Habeebah is a member of the Board of Dignity Housing in Philadelphia and an outspoken, tireless worker for justice in her community.)

Good morning, Brothers and Sisters.

This is a focus on the homeless situation in America and in the world. My name is Habeebah Ali. I'm a formerly homeless mother of four children. Having a job does not end homelessness. I worked for the city of Philadelphia in the Department of Revenue and found myself in a shelter with my four children because of marital breakdown. I decided, rather that to stay in the hell that my husband and I had created for each other, to go into a shelter with my children. It made me very angry. I got very angry at God. I said, "Why is this happening to me?" I am one of ten children. I was raised on welfare. I lifted myself out of the system. I have a job. I am a married woman, I vote, I pay taxes. Why do I and my children have to go into a shelter? Because God had a lesson for me to learn.

Homeless people were the scum of the earth to me, something that gets stuck on the bottom of your shoe, something that you turn your head the other way from. That's what homeless people were to me. God put the situation to me, so that I can have the humility of a homeless person, so my children can make me filled with hate on saying we have to go to the shelter at night. As I said, I had a job. What is homelessness? Nothing that is this blatantly bad in this country happens without the government having something to do with it. Homelessness is nothing new. We all know of a person called Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was homeless. Jesus Christ was born in a manger amongst the animals because there was no room in the inn. Homelessness is nothing new. Why are people hungry? For the same reason there is no cure for AIDS; for the same reason that there is no cure for this 'crack' dilemma. We put band-aids on problems that need surgery. Human resource is no longer America's greatest commodity. We are human waste. They have computers to replace us; they have machines to replace us; they do not need us anymore.

It's said, "Well, AIDS will kill the Latinos, the blacks, the poor whites and the gays, and crack will get rid of the rest of us. Those niggers that we are tired of dealing with, the crack will get them. Well, AIDS is not killing them, and crack is not killing them, but they can't live in the snow, let's put 'em in the street. They have to have at least shelter. If they don't have a house to call a home, we can break down their family structure, so their children won't have a mother and father to talk to them; the beds they won't have, that's the way we'll get rid of them. We'll send them into the streets. The elements will do it for us!

Well, my people, we are intelligent folk. Most of us have learned to read and write. If you can't do anything else, you can read your Bible. It is a sin, it is an atrocity for a human being - whether you be Christian, Muslim, Jew or Atheist, how you pray or whether you choose to pray or not - we have to be our brother's keepers. There are people who say, "I am not my brother's keeper." Why not? Who wants more to keep your brothers and sisters if we don't. There are only certain blood types in this country. I don't care what color skin you are or how you choose to pray or if you choose to pray. We are of each others blood lifeline. We must learn to love each other. If you have a full belly and your neighbor is hungry, then your soul is empty. How dare we have parades and celebrate war. If we're going to bomb the hell out of a part of the world to just create more homelessness, more devastation - how dare we wave the flag? Is that correct? We learned nothing from Hiroshima, we learned nothing from Vietnam, now the Middle East. Mr. Bush is not finished. But the Middle East - how conveniently he pushes around his little golf ball - he makes me angry! We have our hands full to control many masses. This government is into the taking business.

Dignity Housing was born of the Delaware Valley Union of the Homeless, a couple of homeless people who were sick and tired and fed up. Whether you're homeless because you're poor, you have this disgusting minimum wage which is another set-up for failure. How in the world, in this world, can you pay rent, utilities, food (forget the luxury of putting clothes and boots on your children). How can you live on minimum wage (as this government says it's livable) when you can't feed your children? We are set up to die, we are set up to fail. But we are Americans, and we have freedom. And we have the right to independence as well as we have rights to demonstrate, to fight back at those same officials that we put in office if they are not doing what they said they would do. We marched on Washington with a half million people in October about two or three years ago. Housing Now! Mr. Jack Kemp, official of HUD, gave us a two-page letter to send us away. It's called a pacifier (you know those things you stick in a baby's mouth to shut 'em up). "We're going to give you ten percent of all HUD foreclosures and VA foreclosures, across this mighty land." Right? Okay, they haven't given us anything. So, in Philadelphia and across this country of ours we began to take houses - houses that are standing --standing, deteriorating-- like dinosaurs, just falling apart in a museum. We have human flesh and blood, men, women and children, dying in the streets in the greatest country in this world, I don't understand. Mr. Kemp said he was going to give it to us, we had it in writing, that's the only lease we needed...You took people from Africa, you took this land from the Indians, and we want to take these houses from you because they are sitting around falling apart while human beings [are homeless]. Wherever they came from in this world, their ancestors had something to do with this country being as great as it is today!

What do we have to offer our children? A world that we have poisoned, we can hardly drink the water, everything we eat is going to give you cancer. Get sick? Big deal. I have no medical coverage. I work: my union and medicine is in dispute, so therefore I have to sit in a free clinic every time my child gets sick. And now they are planning to close those down. Come on people, wake up! We are to let this government know: We are a force to be reckoned with. I don't care what color we are...I don't care if you eat kosher or not. That is not important. Don't judge me by my color. God has put me in this shelter. God has given me this passion Homelessness is an atrocity. I have helped brothers and sisters like myself get into affirmative housing...

There's but one God. We must, brothers and sisters, continue to do God's work. It is not enough that I wear a Kimo or someone drags a big cross around their neck. When we step past brothers and sisters, how do you know how Christ is going to come back? Do you know that Christ might not be one of those beggars that asks you for a piece of bread? Do you want to miss him when he comes? I don't think so. Nevertheless, I have a lot of anger, I have a lot of energy because, yes, I am angry. I am angry to discover they do not want us or love us anymore.

But I am happy that we are here together, that we can put our differences aside and love each other for the fact that we are one race, we are of the human race. And that is all that is important, because as long as there can be division, the government will be happy if we can keep the whites over here, the blacks over there, the Spanish over there, the Koreans. [over there]... If we ever come together, we may not agree on politics, we may not agree on abortion, we may not agree on a lot of things, but we can agree that homelessness in this country and in this world is wrong, especially when we already have enough houses to put our people in. So let's just agree on whatever things we want to disagree on, but not on homelessness: It is wrong. And I think we can all agree here: Homelessness and the Church -- Where is the Justice? Here is the justice, it is JUST US! We have to do the work. We're not going to lie down and die. Let it be said, Habeebah Ali made a difference. I have helped house homeless people, I have kicked in doors and taken them from the government. The Delaware Valley Union of the Homeless now has eleven families with deeds to houses that were just standing there. If we ever merge together, the government will come to their knees; believe me, I see it can happen. So let's put our differences where they belong and our collectivity where it can be used, and let's teach our children a new day. All this hatefulness that we were taught, all the pain and things that we have from slavery, all the bitterness that the rich have against the poor, it's not black and white. It is not black and white any more, because there are just as many white people treated badly as blacks are. It lets you know what day and time you're in... I work at a shelter for battered women... I've seen women with their heads shot in. I've seen one woman with over one hundred stitches in her face. We need to love each other. We must continue. We cannot stop this mission.