Eighty-seven Souls: Reflections on Tough Times and Tight Choices in 2009

On Monday people across the city remembered the eighty-seven souls that died in this last year either living on the streets or in shelters. Eighty-seven people!  This is a dramatic rise from the previous year and it is shameful.

It is shameful of the Nutter administration, which has closed our homeless cafes, which are the last refuge for those of us without homes in times of unbearable bone-chilling weather. It is shameful of the federal government, which in a time of economic crisis chooses to bail out banks and looks the other way when it comes to dire LIFE AND DEATH services for people that are struggling to survive. And most of all, it is a shame on our free market system, which allows companies like AIG to prosper, giving away absurd amounts of money in bonuses--money that would make sizable dents in the deficit this city is trying to bridge. It is a shame on an economic system that is responsible for epic failures, yet still fights with armies of suited lobbyists--against health care reform and for a deregulated banking system--so the precious few can accumulate dollar upon dollar, while more and more of us are struggling to survive, and many of us are not surviving at all.

Eighty-seven souls died this year.

The brute truth of the eighty-seven men and women that passed this year is that they are the price for our myth of individual liberty in the form of a "free market." But not just those eighty-seven souls, they are just the most extreme example. We, the large majority of this city and country, all suffer at the cruel hands of this lie. In the last thirty years, while productivity in the US economy steadily rose, wages for US workers have conveniently flat-lined. The result: CEOs and corporate hedge fund managers making in excess of $10-20 million a year while American families slip into poverty, hollowing out the "middle class," and creating a credit economy where more and more of us are one slip up away from homelessness.

The lie they tell us is there is no us, there is only I. The myth they propagate is that America is a meritocracy and we get out what we put in. I reject these foul, bitter lies which allow for the most unfathomable greed. The inevitable question Philadelphians who reject these lies are asked to "answer" is which services we should cut in the face of a budget deficit. They tell us: "Put yourself in Mayor Nutter's shoes. What would you do?"

But we, the growing movement of Philadelphians demanding real change, reject this lie. We know that the city is forced into contortions by a retreating federal government and a Commonwealth which could care less about this beautiful, historic city. We understand the nature of the "urban crisis" that means we must bow down to the corporate sector, giving companies with bottom lines that boast zero upon zero, comma upon comma, unheard of tax breaks. We are not dumb. We understand the equation.

Nonetheless, we reject the solution. We reject the solution that says city workers--that collect our trash, protect our streets, run our libraries-- are greedy and make too much, when they make .1 percent (not 1 percent, .1 percent) of the salary of Executive Vice President of Comcast and Board Chairman of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, David Cohen. We reject the solution that says we are forced to choose between having enough libraries, having enough homeless shelters, or having enough ladder companies, when the city has chosen to give tax breaks to high rent luxury condos and has not demanded back taxes from well established stable businesses that owe us money.

We know what the responsible people will say. They will repeat as if they know better: "You still have not given us an answer when we have to grovel to the Commonwealth or PICA." They will pronounce: "You still have not given us an answer for balancing the fragile municipal budget, which must be balanced." We know this is an answer we must eventually come to. But first we must build a movement and the strength from the 60 or even 70 percent of this city that is continually being screwed by this arrangement. We must build our leadership and power, so that we speak in one voice and demand real change. We must not be lost in the eventual ruse of Penn Praxis performances of tough times and tight choices, where we the children are led through the very difficult budget process of our elders, so we understand the hard decisions the adults are forced to make. It is these theatrics that cloud our imagination. But if we are to make sure that eighty-seven souls do not die this next year, if we are to make sure that more people are surviving and less are struggling in 2010, we must change the mathematics of power at the city, state and federal level. We must kick the money lenders out of the church and build OUR movement for change.

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