POVERTY OUTLAW is a story of hard choices posed by living in poverty without society's "safety net." It is told by one woman who descends from middle-class security to welfare, and then to abject poverty. Her fierce and tenacious drive to raise her children has brought this woman up against bureaucrats, politicians, and her own self-doubt. Eventually the choices she must make have put her on the wrong side of the law. As she tells us:

I'm an outlaw. My crime? Being poor. I, or I should say we, have taken over empty houses to live in, stolen thrown-away food and eaten it, found used clothing and worn it, and for those simple acts of survival the city is out to throws us in jail... I never thought I'd be and outlaw, so here's how it happened.

POVERTY OUTLAW was conceived in the grinding poverty in Kensington, North Philadelphia. This once thriving industrial neighborhood provided Yates and Kinoy with a fertile field for their 5-year investigation into the future of America's poor. In describing the film, Variety said, "Philly's Kensington area once played host to Rocky Balboa's dreams; these days, however, he'd be lucky to have a roof, let alone a chance at the big time."

POVERTY OUTLAW has a street-level immediacy in its urgent and straight forward realism. Shot over a period of five years in North Philadelphia, "Poverty Outlaw" tells the story of the birth and development of one of the leading poor peoples' organizations in the U.S., the Kensington Welfare Rights Union.

POVERTY OUTLAW was an official selection of the Sundance Film Festival, was named "Best Political Film" at the Hawaii International FIlm Festival, awarded the prize for "Right to Communicate" at the Videolympiads in Cape Town, South Africa, and was aired on PBS stations as part of the series "Just Solutions: Campaigning for Human Rights."

"Drawing standing room only crowds at the Sundance Film Festival." - Philadelphia Inquirer

"Results are both inspiring and sobering." - Variety

"A kind of 'how-to' film for poor women around the country." - The National Organization of Women (NOW) Times

"...the film gives the viewer a sense of what it's like to be poor. Too bad it's playing at the Film Festival instead of in Congress." - The Philadelphia Weekly

"Critics' Choice." - The AFL-CIO