Mitch Snyder

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Mitch Snyder (1946 – July 3 or 4, 1990) was an American advocate for the homeless. He was the subject of a 1986 biopic Samaritan: The Mitch Snyder Story.

Snyder worked in advertising on Madison Avenue in New York City in the early 1960s. At some point he left his wife and children and started hitchhiking west. Police found him in a stolen vehicle, and he was arrested and convicted of grand theft auto.

He went to Federal Prison and ended up in Danbury Federal Correctional Institute in Danbury, Connecticut with Philip and Daniel Berrigan. Through meetings with them and prolific reading, especially of the Bible started participating in hunger strikes and work stoppages over prison rights issues.

Upon being released in 1973 he joined the Community for Creative Non Violence (CCNV) in Washington, D.C. CCNV was at that time operating a medical clinic, a pretrial house, a soup kitchen, a thrift store and a halfway house. CCNV came out of a discussion group about the Vietnam War at George Washington University. CCNV was also very active in non violent direct action in opposition to the Vietnam War.

Synder passionately opposed the war, hunger, and homelessness. He once walked out of an arraignment hearing for being arrested at the White House and went directly to the White House and climbed over the fence and was rearrested. He once claimed to have the longest arrest record in D.C.

He became the driving force of CCNV but worked with many deeply committed people including his life and professional partner, Carol Fennelly, and Mary Ellen Hombs with whom he co authored Homelessness in America: A forced March to Nowhere.

He and CCNV pushed and prodded the District of Columbia, the local churches and temples and mosques as well as the federal government to open space at night for homeless people and staffed what space was made available.

Through a series of demonstrations, public funerals for people who had frozen to death in the streets of D.C., breaking into public buildings, and fasting, CCNV forced the creation of shelters in Washington and made homelessness a national and international issue.

In the 1980s Snyder, Fennelly, and other CCNV activists entered and occupied an abandoned federal building at 425 2nd Street, N.W. (now Mitch Snyder Place) and housed hundreds overnight while demanding that the government renovate the building.

In 1985, Snyder and CCNV hired sculptor James Reid to create a display for the annual Christmastime Pageant of Peace in Washington that dramatized the plight of the homeless. The display, titled "Third World America," featured a nativity scene in which the Holy Family was represented by contemporary homeless people huddled around a steam grate. The figures were atop a pedestal that stated, "And Still There is No Room at the Inn." In 1986, Snyder and CCNV wanted to take "Third World America" on tour, but Reid refused. Snyder and CCNV sued Reid, claiming that "Third World America" was a work for hire under § 101 of the United States Copyright Act. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the sculpture was not a work for hire because Reid was not an employee under the general common law of agency (490 U.S. 730). Thus, the work was not subject to the § 201(b) rule that when a work is made for hire, the employer is considered the author.

Snyder was known to exaggerate the problem of homelessness in order to call attention to the problem. During the 1980s Snyder also claimed that there were 3 million homeless Americans, but when questioned about the source of this figure, admitted that he had made it up to please journalists. He is also alleged to have said that 45 homeless people die every second (which would mean that 1.4 billion die every year) (Freakonomics, p. 90).

Snyder fasted twice to force the Reagan Administration to renovate the building. The first fast ended on the eve of Ronald Reagan's second election with a promise from him to do the necessary repairs. Reagan failed to follow through on his promises, and litigation ensued.

An Oscar nominated documentary, Promises to Keep narrated by Martin Sheen follows that story and tells why a second fast was conducted.

After setbacks in his personal and public life in July of 1990 he hanged himself in his room at the shelter.

He is survived by his son Dean, who marched with Jesse Jackson and Cher in tribute to Mitch in the days following his death, and by his oldest son Rick.

[edit] Sources

Gay, Kathlyn and Martin K. Gay. Heroes of Conscience: A Biographical Dictionary. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO inc. , 1996.
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything / Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

New York : William Morrow, c2005. Pp. 90-92.