This past week the Temple Law community celebrated the legacy and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by taking part in a variety of service projects around Philadelphia. Students signed up to become certified tax preparers for low income families for the federal VITA program, paint a mural at Warren G. Harding Middle School, and be part of a beautifying effort at Jane Addams Place, an emergency homeless shelter for women and children. I signed up for the hands-on project at Jane Addams Place, excited for a day full of service with my fellow classmates.
Today over 40 million people in America live below the poverty line, with communities of color disproportionately affected, reminding us that we have far to go in realizing not only Dr. King’s dream of racial equality but economic justice as well.
At Jane Addams Place, law students along with volunteers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia engaged in a variety of activities. We deep cleaned base boards and the children’s play room, led arts and crafts projects with some of the residents’ children, sorted through donations, and generally helped the shelter staff take care of a lot of the small things that tend to slip by in such a busy place. Jane Addams Place houses about 35 families referred through the Philadelphia Department of Homeless Services. We heard from the staff about the services offered to the mothers and children including clinical case management, referral services, wellness classes, trauma therapy, and assistance with housing applications and placement. According to Project Home, about 15,000 people, including families, access the Philadelphia shelter system each year and numerous people are turned away because of capacity issues. These statistics are a snapshot of an even grimmer nationwide epidemic where, on a single night in January 2016, over 500,000 people experienced homelessness across the country, of which more than 100,000 were children under the age of 18.
Dr. King is most often remembered for his “I Have a Dream” speech and his work surrounding racial issues in America, but towards the end of his life Dr. King had begun to focus on the extreme poverty experienced by many Americans across the country. In the weeks before his assassination Dr. King was busy organizing the Poor People’s Campaign, a march on Washington that aimed to raise national consciousness around the issues of poverty and joblessness plaguing thousands of Americans across the country. Dr. King dreamed not only of racial equality but also of eradicating poverty in this country by providing a guaranteed middle class income to all Americans. Today over 40 million people in America live below the poverty line, with communities of color disproportionately affected, reminding us that we have far to go in realizing not only Dr. King’s dream of racial equality but economic justice as well. My few hours painting the bathrooms at Jane Addams gave me some time to not only reflect on the groundwork laid by Dr. King but on our responsibility to honor his work throughout the year.
