Poor and working people

In January of 2010, the Poverty Initiatve, a group based in New York that aims to reignite Dr. Martin Luther King's Poor People's Campaign, visited Philadelphia for an immersion tour. The tour highlighted the history of the struggles of poor people in this city. Willie Baptist and Liz Theoharis, of the Poverty Initiative,  shared stories about the struggle of the homeless in 1995 and 1996.

The issue here is not that there isn’t enough money.   The issue here is: who has the money, and who will be asked to pay?  We grow up being taught that we live in a representative democracy.  On the local level, every elected official has to build a base of support so that on election day, she or he will garner the most votes and win the election.  The broader and more diverse a politician’s base of support, the better, right?  Of course, we learn through experience that’s not the whole story.  Politicians need money to be able to run campaigns.  The