She has organized numerous protests, holding marches, demonstrations and setting up tent cities, in the course of which activities she claims to have been arrested for civil disobedience violations more than 200 times.
To provide a support system to these families, the organization set up what they called an "'Underground Railroad,' a network of other poor people, students, social workers, doctors and lawyers.
[25] The organization created a makeshift "city" that it dubbed "Ridgeville" after Republican Governor Tom Ridge, who had slashed social service benefits.
[15] In April 1997, Honkala was arrested on a charge of "defiant trespassing" for attempting to build shacks for homeless families in Philadelphia on an empty industrial lot, though at the time, the shelter system was full and people were living on the streets.
[15] The organization's leaders maintained that "some U.S. laws, such as the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, which limits the amount of time a family can receive federal assistance, violate Articles 23, 25 and 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
"[21] Starting in June 1998, KWRU led the New Freedom Bus Tour, which traveled across the country, gathering stories of human rights violations to present as a petition to the United Nations.
[15][18][26] "Under the banner 'Freedom from Unemployment, Hunger and Homelessness,' the KWRU team collected additional evidence on the [negative] impact of [welfare reform] and held educational sessions teaching the poor about their economic rights.
"[27] In July 2000, a PPEHRC march for the opening day of the Republican Party's National Convention in Philadelphia drew 10,000 homeless and poor people from around the country.
"As the demonstrators marched toward Constitution Center single-file, carrying their own mattresses and led by children, park rangers, federal guards, and city police formed lines to prevent the families from approaching.
"[9] In August 2004, Honkala marched with the PPEHRC in New York City (without a permit) to protest President Bush and the Republican National Convention (RNC) and to publicly call for greater attention by the government to the needs of the poor and homeless.
[32] In early 2011, Honkala announced her run for Sheriff of Philadelphia on a "No Evictions" platform, with a campaign slogan of "Keeping families in their homes and protecting the 'hood.
"[11] As a publicity stunt, Honkala during the campaign rode a horse down Allegheny Avenue in Philadelphia while wearing a white hat resembling a Stetson, in imitation of the image of a Wild West sheriff.
[36] On July 11, 2012, Jill Stein, then the presumptive nominee of the Green Party for president in the 2012 U.S. presidential election, announced that she had selected Honkala as her vice-presidential running mate.
[40] On August 1, 2012, Honkala was arrested along with Stein and three others during a sit-in at a Philadelphia bank to protest housing foreclosures by Fannie Mae, on behalf of several city residents struggling to keep their homes.
[43] John Nichols, a commentator for The Nation magazine, compared the position of the Green Party candidates on this issue to the anti-banking rhetoric of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the New Deal.
[45] The four pillars of the Green New Deal, "the central platform of the Stein/Honkala ticket"[46] are: The Stein–Honkala campaign set two immediate goals: to get its candidates on the ballots of as many states as possible before election day (November 6)[47] and to make itself eligible to participate in the televised presidential debates, to take place in October.
[51][52] Honkala planned a novel political protest called a "fart-in" to be staged at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, held in Philadelphia, "to greet the rhetorical flatulence of Hillary Clinton with the real thing".
[63] Feather O. Houstoun, a former secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare under Republican governors Tom Ridge and Mark Schweiker, said "She has not been working, rolling up her sleeves on issues like Community Legal Services does.
He wrote: "No good can come of an organization-building strategy, which is based on misleading poor people or preventing them from obtaining access to available assistance and support.
She was convinced that America sought desperately to keep its poor out of sight so as not to be reminded of the social policies she believed exacerbated poverty.
She would assault people with her high-pitched nasal voice—in public demonstrations, in confrontations with elected officials, in media interviews, and in front of a ragged tent on Independence Mall.
[65]During the church takeover incident, William Parshall, the deputy city managing director, known as the Philadelphia "housing czar," was asked whether Honkala's in-your-face tactics "made his job difficult."
For example, during the first Liberty Bell protest, she negotiated successfully with park authorities to leave the site without the necessity of admitting guilt or of enduring mass arrests.
[71] One of the last photos taken by the late photographer Richard Avedon (1923–2004) was a portrait of Honkala for the series Democracy 2004, which appeared in an October 2004 issue of The New Yorker magazine.
[26] Honkala has been repeatedly and prominently featured in the work of documentary filmmakers Peter Kinoy and Pamela Yates, the latter a co-director of the award-winning film When the Mountains Tremble.
[76] Their work with Honkala has included Takeover (1990), a film, financed by Bruce Springsteen[77] (during the making of which they first met Honkala), "about homeless women that was planned as the first in a series on 'heroes of the new American depression;'"[78] Poverty Outlaw (1997), the story of a homeless woman "who must break the law to survive"[79] and which tells the story of the birth and growth of the KWRU;[80] Outriders (1999), about the New Freedom Bus Tour;[81] and The Battle for Broad (2000), about KWRU's and PPEHRC's march during the Republican National Convention in 2000 in Philadelphia.
)[83] In the 1990s, the Television Trust for the Environment, as part of its "Life" series, broadcast on BBC World News a short documentary on Honkala and the KWRU called The Philadelphia Story.
[84][85] The independent film, August in the Empire State, directed by Keefe Murren and Gabriel Rhodes, profiles several persons during the 2004 Republican National Convention, including Honkala, who is depicted leading her PPEHRC march against the RNC.
[90] In January 2004, Honkala was invited to speak at the annual World Social Forum (WSF) in Mumbai, India on the subject of the "War against the Homeless.
"[91] In 2006, Honkala again addressed the WSF, this time in Caracas, Venezuela, to discuss poverty and homelessness in the United States, information that many of her listeners do not often receive from mainstream U.S. media sources.