Community Voices Heard

At noon today, July 30, 2008, members of Community Voices Heard (CVH), a grassroots organization of low-income families, organized a soup line in front of New York City Hall.  Members of the organization stated that they wanted to highlight the precarious situation of many low-income families in the present economic downturn.  CVH members handed out cups of soup from tables that they were calling the “Linda Gibbs’ Soup Line”.  Linda Gibbs, the New York City Deputy Mayor for Health & Human Services, was called upon by CVH members to offer more opportunities to public assistance recipients to obtain career-path employment with real salaries as opposed to the unpaid workfare system.  Tayamah Gounden, a member of CVH and current welfare recipient said that “The WEP program makes me feel worst than being a slave because I want a real job.”  She was referring to the unpaid workfare program known as the Work Experience Program (WEP) in which over 10,000 welfare recipients participate in New York City.

CVH members chanted and waved four-foot spoons adorned with pictures of Linda Gibbs to try to catch the attention of the Deputy Mayor, whose office is in City Hall.  

“Mia Bell, leader at CVH said, “we need real jobs; Deputy Mayor Gibbs needs to stop playing with our lives and families.”

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