The 40 Days of Action in May and June were an exciting launch for the Poor People's Campaign in New York and nationwide, and we're excited to invite you to take part in the next steps of the campaign here in New York.

I'm with the Poor People's Campaign for my neighbors in North Central Troy: a Puerto Rican family who collects scrap metal to make a living as their house crumbles around them.  They can't get good food for their kids because there's no grocery stores near them and they can't grow any food on their property, because the soil is contaminated with lead and industrial chemicals.

But the struggle is made even harder by the narrative of condemnation that the poor face each and every day.  This immoral narrative says that we are greedy, lazy, sponges that take and take and don’t give anything back.  But that’s not true!  8 out of 10 adult SNAP recipients who are neither disabled nor elderly have worked within in the last year, and more than half of us have worked within the last month.  Many of the poor work multiple jobs at immorally low wages and still can’t pay their bills.  That’s not lazy, that’s not greedy, and that’s not right!