Jean Rice (July 1, 1939 – March 12, 2025) was a lifelong fighter for the rights of poor and homeless people in New York City, across the United States, and around the world. A passionate leader with Picture the Homeless—a powerful, grassroots organization led by homeless and formerly homeless people—Jean embodied the group’s guiding principle: “Don’t talk about us, talk with us.”
As a leader of Picture the Homeless’s Civil Rights Committee, Jean was always ready to go head-to-head with anyone in defense of the legal rights of unhoused people. He was an avid reader and a dedicated student of the law, and he brought that knowledge into the struggle against the criminalization of homelessness with unwavering commitment.
Jean was also a vital part of the Poverty Initiative’s Poverty Scholars Program, where he played a critical role in connecting the struggles of poor and homeless communities in New York City with grassroots leaders from the US and around the world. He participated in countless strategic dialogues, immersion courses that took Union students and community leaders from NY to connect with grassroots struggles in poor communities across the country, leadership schools, and organizing tours that helped plant the seeds to launch a broad social movement to end poverty led by the poor, including the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. He was also clear that our movements here must be in global solidarity with movements of the poor in other countries, including around the right to housing, from the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra) to the South African Shackdweller’s Movement (Abahlali base-Mjondolo).
Jean had a gift for illuminating the deep connections between these struggles. While participating in a leadership school in West Virginia, he visited Larry Gibson on Kayford Mountain, where Larry’s home overlooked the devastation of mountaintop removal. Jean immediately made the connection: the same banks holding vast shares of vacant property in New York City—while thousands were forced into homelessness—were financing the coal companies destroying the land surrounding Larry’s family home. He saw clearly that poverty, environmental destruction, and systemic greed were all part of the same root causes.
Jean Rice was a mentor, comrade, and friend—an irreplaceable part of the history of the Kairos Center. We honor his memory and carry forward his legacy as a true Poverty Scholar and Freedom Fighter.
Jean Rice, presenté!
