September 23-29, 2004

city beat

Trolley Follies

PLACE FOR THE DISPLACED: Hyacinth King spreads the word that homeless Philadelphians can, and should, vote in the presidential election. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Letitia McLendon's tale makes the pregnant-chad fiasco look like a borefest.

by Deborah Bolling

When a water main broke near Letitia McLendon's West Philly home last month, the pregnant mother of three packed her belongings and moved her family into the Salvation Army women's shelter on Arch Street. She wasn't prepared to join the homeless ranks, but that's precisely where she was.

It'd be easy to forgive the 32-year-old for not caring much about national politics but despite her woes, McLendon was among the 75 people who recently attended a rally targeting homeless voters at the Arch Street United Methodist Church.

The event was sponsored by Project H.O.M.E., a group that—in the run-up to the presidential election—has set out to mobilize and educate displaced people who are currently unregistered and want to vote and those, like McLendon, who no longer reside where they're registered but still want to participate in the democratic process.

Armed with signs, literature and an arsenal of speakers, group leaders delivered a simple message.

"You can vote if you're homeless," said Hyacinth King who, once homeless herself, hoped to get the message out to the nearly 4,500 Philadelphians who currently fit that bill. "You can bring your kids into the booth. You can vote if you're on probation. Remember: Information feeds democracy. Ignorance starves democracy. We matter and we will vote."

Having stepped outside between speakers, McLendon explained that she went on maternity leave from her job a day earlier. She's not collecting a salary from her $8-an-hour position at an adult mental health clinic—the job will be held for three months—but still has to fend for her children, ages 16, 13 and 10. That means sharing one room at the shelter with four other adults for the time being.

"I don't have any money, I don't have a permanent place for me and my kids—but I do plan to vote," says McLendon who, at the time, was due to deliver her fourth child on Sept. 29. "Maybe the next president will care more about people like us."

So far, however, neither George W. Bush or John Kerry has given McLendon any indication that her needs are even on their radar screens.

"To me, it's always been about what the upper-class people want," she says. "But everybody's making us so aware right now."

That, she adds, is reason enough to travel back to her West Philly neighborhood on Nov. 2 and vote.

While many of those at the rally agreed that the homeless and displaced are easily marginalized, McLendon's story also lends further credence to the theory that there's a compelling story to be told on every block in this city.

She had her first baby when she was 16, just three years after witnessing the death of her mother at the hands of a neighbor. "I wanted to be a lawyer when I was a kid," she recalls. "But after what happened to my mother, I got into drugs and a lot of trouble, and stuff like that. I had a hard time after that."

But on Sept. 10, the day before her daughter's 10th birthday, McLendon's luck may have changed. Speaking from her bed at Hahnemann Hospital, she explained that on her way to purchase a birthday gift, she ran into an unexpected bit of trouble.

"I was on the trolley at 19th and Market and all of a sudden, we heard a loud bang," she says. "People started screaming and it was so close to 9/11, we all thought it was a bomb or something."

Turned out, according to McLendon, that the trolley's brakes failed, a malfunction that sent it careening into another trolley. The impact sent the pregnant woman to the floor in a painful heap.

"That," she says, "is when I went into labor."

Early the next morning, she gave birth to a healthy, 6-pound, 1-ounce baby girl. While she was in the hospital, an attorney visited and recommended that she file a lawsuit against SEPTA, a suggestion she's considering.

SEPTA spokesman Jim Whitaker confirmed that McLendon was among the passengers involved in a trolley collision, the cause of which has yet to be determined. Describing McLendon's injuries as "minor," Whitaker said he was unsure whether she was among the two people who filed a claim against the transportation agency.

For her part, McLendon said from the hospital that she thinks she may have turned a corner since the rally.

"My 10-year-old has always been so upset that she was born on Sept. 11. She thought she was cursed or something," says McLendon, who now has two children with Sept. 11 birthdays. "But my new baby may be the luckiest thing that's ever happened to me. I've had a lot of problems in my life, but the way I see it, SEPTA's the one with the problem now."