The Homeless Union’s Winter Offensive is a series of synchronized actions and protests that take place on “key dates” during the Holiday Season (from Thanksgiving through Martin Luther King Jr's Birthday) in order to highlight the time of year when the poor and homeless experience the most deadly conditions and the highest rates of suicide and death.
The National Union of the Homeless comes together across 5 U.S. regions (the South, Appalachia, Midwest, West and Northeast) to declare: Housing and Healthcare NOW. An End to Genocide and the War Economy! No More Death on the Streets Both Here and Abroad!
We work together to fulfill our mission statement, declaring that “we commit our lives to ending homelessness and poverty and to work tirelessly for the human right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, for social and economic justice for all.”
As part of the National Winter Offensive Organizing Drive we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ and commemorate his life as a Revolutionary.
In a time when there's a relentless push to commercialize this holiday season we're fighting to “Put Christ back into Christmas” –The Revolutionary Christ who fed the hungry, healed the sick, cared for the poor, and built a love revolution to bring down the oppressive power structure of his time.
Our Winter Offensive honors Jesus Christ for the Revolutionary that he was and takes up his message to love one another and organize to end the wars on the poor both here and abroad!
The ‘Longest Night’, also referred to as Homeless Memorial Day, is always December 21st. It is the longest night of the year, the Winter Solstice, the longest night of darkness for our siblings living outside.
On this day/evening we condemn the mass graves of unnamed poor and homeless men, women, and children in potters’ fields around the country and internationally. We honor those we have lost due to this unjust system that denies us our basic human rights and pledge to honor them by continuing to unite and organize for human rights for all!
Durham had a moving longest night vigil in Durham, their first, on the grounds of the main library across the street from the main county shelter. About 20 people came. They had hot cocoa and cookies and gave out hand knitted scarves and hats that church congregants had made.
They invited people from their Projects of Survival they host weekly where they offer blood pressure screenings. They invited justice-seekers from all over the Triangle area and carried flyers to the parts of the library where folks seek shelter during the day.
They sang, read the National Union of the Homeless Mission and Winter Offensive statements. They lit candles and read the names of loved ones they have lost to poverty. They adapted and used a closing prayer from the book “We Pray Freedom” by Liz Theoharris and Noam Sandweiss-Back.
It was especially amazing how those who came for the vigil volunteered to help with readings, filling cups of cocoa for others, distributing candles and lighting them, and cleaning up after the event was over.
Change comes from below not above! The system will not save us, we must unite, organize and save each other! Join the growing poverty abolitionist movement!
To join the North Carolina Durham/Raleigh chapter contact: Email: NCHomelessunion@gmail.com Phone: (919)-335-3038 (text or call)
Not in Durham/Raleigh North Carolina but want to join the National Union of the Homeless? Send an email to: 2020nuh@gmail.com
Not in Durham, NC but want to join the National Union of the Homeless? Send an email to 2020nuh@gmail.com