John Penley-led protest will call on NYU to help house the city's homeless

Longtime activist John Penley is staging a campout at NYU starting this afternoon at 4 to call on NYU to help house the homeless.

"There have been almost no street protests about housing in so long someone has to do it," he wrote on Facebook.

He will be stationed at Washington Square South, and hopes to sleep on the Judson Church steps at night. During the day, Penley said that plans to be in front of Bobst Library where he'll try to educate students about the issues of housing and homelessness.

Per the Facebook invite:

"I plan to ask NYU students to get involved in Housing for homeless and low-income people. I also plan to ask the University, which has built for-profit dorms all over the place, to build one building for poor and low-income people who are displaced by the gentrification NYU heavily contributed to."

A group of speakers, including Penny Arcade, Randy Credico, Joan Moossy and Frank Morales, are among those who are expected to join Penley this afternoon at NYU.

In 2009, Penley, a Navy veteran who is currently homeless, donated his extensive photo collection to the NYU Tamiment Library. (Find the photos here.) Penley said that he plans to take activists inside Bobst to show them the Tamiment Library.

Per an article in The Villager last week:

He hopes to maintain the campout for a month, but recently aggravated a back injury when his car was rear-ended while he was driving in North Carolina, so doesn’t know if he’ll be able to last that long. Rumor has it he may also go on a hunger strike.

"It's not going to look good if NYU arrests me," he told The Villager, "because they have my photo archives in there."

[Photo of Penley via Facebook]