Last Thursday, the Coalition to Save the Libraries demonstrated in City Hall alongside AFSCME Local DC47, Firefighters Local 22, and over 50 friends and allies to demand that this budget crisis be paid for by the businesses that caused it, and not the poor and working people of Philadelphia.
 

Chanting "Dignity for everyone" and "Right to housing," a few dozen people block the doorway of a house so that the family inside cannot be evicted. The demonstrators, members of a Hungarian housing rights group called The City is for All, question why units of public housing are allowed to sit empty while 1100 families wait for housing, before they are arrested for civil disobedience.
 

In this video by Huffington Post Investigative Fund, we learn the story Vicky Valentine who had her home seized by Sunrise Atlantic LLC, an arm of Bank Atlantic, because of an unpaid water bill of $362.  Ms Valentine's bill was owed to the City of Baltimore, which then sold the right to collect on the bill to a series of banks and real estate companies (third party investors) in a tax lien auction that quickly inflated the bill to over three thousand dollars. Investors then seized the home and put Ms Valentine and her family on the street. As the video details, this is a growing practice between strapped city governments and private investors (usually banks) which is dispossessing the poor and working class of their property.

Camden County New Jersey has announced plans to shut down a tent city encampment that has stood in Camden for over the past year. Fifty people currently live there, supporting themselves through ties with community members who offer aid and support, and looking out for one another. 
Camden officials state they will use federal stimulus funds to provide social service support to those living in the tent city. The amount of aid being offered, and how the relocations will impact residents remains unclear.