Cheri Honkala: Homelessness, Heroin, and Helicopters
It’s not often that we interview a guest a few hours after their arrest, but then again, Cheri Honkala is the only guest we’ve had who’s been arrested over 200 times. Quite possibly Philly’s biggest badass, Honkala simply refuses to take no for an answer from our largely ineffectual local government, which has done nothing to address our city’s 25% poverty rate. When Honkala finds a homeless mother, and a city that doesn’t offer any help, she doesn’t ask for it, she demands it. It’s is impossible to measure the impact she’s had on our city, the countless lives she has saved, and the members of our local government she’s stood up to. She was once a homeless mother, and she has never forgotten the people who helped her, and she has therefore dedicated her life to helping others.Â
Not only does she help our city’s most vulnerable citizens, she also gets them politically active by way or her organization, PPEHRC (pronounced P-Perk). Furthermore, she was the Green Party’s 2012 Vice Presidential candidate alongside Dr. Jill Stein. She holds nothing back in this interview, not her disdain for Republicans nationally or Democrats locally. This is a good interview, and an important one.Â
