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!
Our memorial at the Salem United Church of Christ in Columbia went well. We had our pantry and soup kitchen meal of French onion soup earlier in the day.
During the pantry and meal hours we discussed some possible ways the Lancaster County Homeless Union could organize our base through these efforts.
That led to a conversation with Pastor Mark about the union chapter storing medical equipment in a room at the church that two of the members have at their apartment.
That's when Pastor Mark showed us the church had a room where they had some medical equipment stored already. So now we have a space in the church where we have medical equipment to give those in need that wouldn't otherwise be able to access the equipment because their insurance either won't cover it or they're uninsured. Equipment like walkers, wheel chairs, shower chairs, etc.
We're also going to start having a separate National Union of the Homeless table set up during meals/pantry hours. People come to both eat the meal and check out the pantry for what they need. We decided on things like being available to sign people up for state benefits, assisting with appeals and working with them to get exemptions on file around the work requirements to SNAP and upcoming work requirements to Medicaid.
We're also reviewing the possibility of going back to looking at “court support” like we had done before. In the past we accompanied families to court whose loved ones were facing court appearances or accompanying people in eviction court proceedings because no one should have to face these things alone.
We then had our December 21st Longest Night Memorial where we were joined by Pastor Mark, his family, members of the church congregation and members of the South Central PA underground railroad.
We prayed, had a Community Altar, Pastor Mark shared the story about the Pomegranate Seed and we took communion with the pomegranate and people present shared stories of how they enjoy being a part of the pantry and community meals, and shared stories of those we lost that made an impact on us.
Tammy Rosing shared about Ricardo Munoz, and all the lives lost from Covid in the community from the closure of St. Joseph’s hospital by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). They shared that during the Covid pandemic the Army Corp of Engineers stated that they could get that hospital up and running in a week yet it never opened because UPMC and developers didn't want the possibility of reopening the hospital to disrupt their real estate deal.
Tammy Rosing asked the questions “How many of those people who died from Covid would still be with us if that hospital stayed open? Would Ricardo still be with us? Followed by a comment, “and now we are stuck with one hospital that is still well over capacity with long ER wait times even after the expansion development that we were told would relieve the capacity problems or long ER wait times.”
We read a list of names created by many who added names to the list from all over. and after we closed out the ceremony we joined together for refreshments and conversation where we reflected on the ceremony and a couple of those present shared that they have people in mind that they would like to offer to get involved in the organizing work.
For the three faith leaders that led the service, Pastor Mark of the Salem United Church of Christ, and Minister Matthew and Minister Tammy of Freedom Church of the Poor not only do they see themselves as people whose faith calls on them to serve the poor they also are very clear and state plainly that they ARE also the poor and the community meals and pantry are not only organized by people to serve the poor they themselves also utilize the pantry and meals to meet their needs.
Link to full memorial service https://youtu.be/Fl1xhK12a8g?si=sm4XMtCp4TiFa8OL
Lancaster County Homeless Union Facebook page post: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/17w6pz6xES/
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 Lancaster County Homeless Union chapter contact: Email: lancasterhomelessunion@gmail.com Phone: Call Matthew at (717)-829-8807 or Tammy at (717)-350-3224
Not in Lancaster County, PA but want to join the National Union of the Homeless? Send an email to 2020nuh@gmail.com