"Homeless Hero" Cheri Honkala speaks to students on Leadership, Activism, and Economic Human Rights

 Cheri Honkala, a formerly homeless mother who has been arrested over 200 times, discussed the prevalence of homelessness in the United States and described her efforts to preserve homeless individuals’ rights in a lecture Monday evening sponsored by the Rockefeller Center. The lecture, “Leadership, Activism and Economic Human Rights,” took place at the Top of the Hop, and was organized by the Rockefeller Leadership Fellows.

The majority of Honkala’s life has centered around “fighting and trying to secure a safe place called home,” she said to an audience of approximately 50 students, professors and community members. “I grew up in nine different institutions because we didn’t have battered women’s shelters,” Honkala, who went on to found the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign, said. “I then became a teenage mother, and I hit an all-time low. I had no financial resources and I began living in a white Camaro.”

Click HERE to read more from The Dartmouth's article on this event.