Low-income housing: Bishop Barber joins Philadelphia fight
Contact for Bishop Barber:
Yolanda Barksdale | ybarksdale@breachrepairers.org
Contact for UC Townhomes residents:
Chi-ming Yang | 607-592-8232 | saveuctownhomes@gmail.com
Bishop Barber joins residents Sunday in fight to save low-income housing in Philadelphia
Social justice leader Bishop William J. Barber II will join residents who face eviction from historic and subsidized housing in Philadelphia during an interfaith service Sunday at the 70-unit townhomes.
Bishop Barber, president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Revival, will participate in a service that begins at 2:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, Sept. 18, in the courtyard at UC Townhomes, 40th & Market streets. Three UC Townhome residents – Lynn Green, Krystal Young and Darlene Foreman – will speak as will Rabbi Ari Lev Fornari of Kol Tzedek Synagogue and Rev. Dr. Chris Kimmenez of Healing Communities, PA.
The program will live stream here.
Bishop Barber also will speak at 11 a.m. Sunday at Love Zion Baptist Church at 2521 N. 23rd St. as part of the PPC: NCMR’s plan to contact 5 million poor and low-income people about voting in the November election. The sermon is part of a pre-election, three-pulpit stop that includes Cleveland and Jacksonville, Florida.
For the UC Townhomes, the owner has ordered all residents of the buildings, which operate under HUD contracts, to leave by Oct. 7 so he can raze the property and sell the land.
Instead of accepting this immoral action, residents are fighting back and, earlier this month, proposed a plan to purchase the 70 townhomes. They propose that the owner, Altman management/IBID, sell the property to a third party that will maintain UC Townhomes as 100% affordable housing for very low-income seniors, families and residents.
The organizers also are calling city and state officials to contribute money to preserve the property.
Additionally, the residents continue to demand that the city take action on the dozens of expiring public housing contracts in West Philadelphia, and commit to keep Section 8 properties 100% deeply affordable.
Residents in up to 37 other for-profit properties across the city, the bulk of which are in Congressional and City Council District 3, may meet a similar fate when the HUD contracts on their buildings expire in the next five years.
Organizations that have endorsed the Save the UC Townhomes campaign include: Black Bottom Tribe, Black Lives Matter Philadelphia, Philadelphia Housing Action, Police Free Penn, Reclaim Philadelphia, Philly DSA, Jewish Voice for Peace-Philadelphia, Philly Socialists, Penn Housing For All, Cathedral Episcopalians for Housing Justice, West Philadelphians for Progressive Planning & Preservation, Philadelphia Socialist Alternative, Penn Pay PILOTs, Healing Communities PA, Love Not Phear, Comadre Luna Collective, Philadelphia Rent Control Coalition, OnePA, Students of Perelman School of Medicine, Kol Tzedek Synagogue, ACT UP Philadelphia.