people, including artists/vendors, used case management services in 2023,
28 of which were new clients.
VENDORS
Abel Putu, Abraham Aly, Aida Peery, Al Edmonson, Akindele Akerejah, Amia Walker, Amina Washington, Andre Brinson, Andrew Anderson, Angie Whitehurst, Anthony Carney, Beverly Sutton, Brianna Butler, Burton Wells, Carlos Carolina, Charles Armstrong, Charles Woods, Chon Smith, Chris Cole, Clinton Kilpatrick, Conrad Cheek, Corey Sanders, Daniel Ball, Darlesha Joyner, David Snyder, Debora Brantley, Degnon (Gigi) Dovonou, Denise Hall, Dominique Anthony, Don Gardner, Donté Turner, Doris Robinson, Earl Parker, Eric Thompson-Bey, Erica Downing, Evelyn Nnam, Floyd Carter, Frederic John, Frederick Walker, Freedom, Gerald Anderson, Greta Christian, Harriet Fields,
people moved into housing using case management services
In 2013, we began offering case management services to help anyone, including vendors, with their needs — from obtaining identification cards and emergency cash for bills and food, to accessing supportive programs and applying for housing vouchers. Our team builds long-term relationships with our vendors and other clients to understand their needs and help them create plans to achieve their goals.
Physical and mental health services, emergency cash assistance and housing services were provided hundreds of times throughout 2022 and 2023.
Henrieese Roberts, Henry Johnson, Invisible Prophet, Ivory Wilson, Jacqueline “Jackie” Turner, James Davis, James Hughes, Jeanette Richardson, Jeff Taylor, Jeffery McNeil, Jeffrey Carter, Jemel Fleming, Jennifer McLaughlin, Jermale McKnight, Jet Flegette, Jewel Lewis, John Alley, John Littlejohn, Josie Brown, Juliene Kengnie, Kenneth
Middleton, Kym Parker, Laticia Brock, Lawrence Autry, Levester Green, L. Morrow, L.Q. Peterson, Marc Grier, Marcus McCall, Mars, Martin Walker, Mary Sellman, Maurice Carter, Maurice Spears, Melody Byrd, Michael Warner, Morgan Jones, Nikila Smith, Patricia Donaldson, Patty Smith, Phillip Black, Queenie Featherstone, Rachelle Ellison, Randall Smith,
Rashawn Bowser, Reginald Black, Reginald C. Denny, Ricardo Meriedy, Richard “Mooney” Hart, Rita Sauls, Robert Vaughn, Robert Warren, Rochelle Walker, Ron Dudley, S. Smith, Sasha Williams, Shuhratjon Ahmadjonov, Sybil Taylor, Tony Bond, Tonya Williams, Vennie Hill, Warren Stevens, Wendell Williams, Willie Futrelle
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Ashley McMaster, Blake Androff, Clare Krupin, Corrine Yu, Jonquilyn Hill, Matt Perra, Michael Phillips, Nana-Sentuo Bonsu, Shari Wilson, Stanley Keeve
CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER
Brian Carome
and closures in D.C. Follow along for updates!
.C.’s Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services (DMHHS) cleared three encampments during the week of March 11: one at New York and Montana Ave. NE, another near Farragut Square at 1133 19th St. NW, and a third at 9th and Mt. Olivet St. NE, just outside Gallaudet University. The agency cleared these encampments “to remove all abandoned, bulk trash, and hazardous items,” a DMHHS representative wrote in an email to Street Sense.
DAll three clearings were “full clean ups,” which require encampment residents to temporarily remove all their belongings from the area. According to the DMHHS representative, the agency conducts clearings like these when “all other efforts to mitigate the negative impact on both the resident(s) and community alike have been unsuccessful.”
Some advocates and people experiencing homelessness, however, say concerns about safety and hazards at encampments are overblown, and argue clearings often result in encampment residents losing their belongings. Similarly, advocates say that such “engagements,” as the city terms them, rarely result in people experiencing homelessness gaining access to housing.
While the clearing at 1133 19th St. was scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on March 13, DMHHS officials arrived at the encampment shortly before 11 a.m. The encampment, which was located in front of a highrise office building, appeared to have been occupied by only one individual, who was not present during the clearing. A sign near the street, at least 20 feet away from the site of the encampment, notified readers of the planned clearing.
DMHHS officials threw away everything at the site — including three grocery carts full of items, several blankets, an umbrella, and several articles of clothing of clothing.
According to DMHHS’s encampment protocol, the Department of Human Services (DHS) should “make reasonable efforts” to store belongings that are “safe to store and of apparent value,” even if the encampment resident is not present during the clearing. “Our team did not find any items present that were appropriate for storage at the time of the cleanup,” the DMHHS representative wrote via email.
Partway through the clearing, a D.C. official left a few blankets nearby, presumably for when the resident returned. A second person later removed the blankets. Nothing was left of the encampment by the time DMHHS officials left the scene.
“We don’t leave blankets on site,” a DMHHS official said when asked why the blankets were removed.
DIRECTOR OF PROGRAMS
Darick Brown
DIRECTOR OF VENDOR EMPLOYMENT
Thomas Ratliff
VENDOR PROGRAM
ASSOCIATES
VENDOR PROGRAM
VOLUNTEERS
The resident of the 1133 19th St. encampment did not return before the clearing ended, and as a result, could not be reached for comment.
That same day, also scheduled for 10 a.m., DMHHS cleared another encampment, at New York and Montana Ave. NE, near the National Arboretum. Street Sense was not able to attend both clearings.
The following day, DMHHS officials arrived at least an hour and a half early to blocked off the encampment at 9th and Mt. Olivet NE. Like at 1133 19th St., a nearby sign alerted passersby of the 10 a.m. clearing.
Charles, a resident of the encampment, said DMHHS officials were respectful of his belongings; they did not take down the tent he was living in. He said he had been living there for “a year, a year and a half,” and this was the second clean-up to take place since he moved in. Another resident, Jennifer, said that she planned to stay at a shelter after the clearing. Both residents only shared their first name to protect their privacy while living outdoors.
DMHHS took down one of three tents set up at the encampment. Several garbage and rodent control trucks were present at the scene to clean, pick up trash, and clear part of the encampment. DMHHS used a bulldozer to clear the one tent, trash and other items. The DMHHS representative wrote that the agency plans to conduct another clearing in the area in the future, adding that there was too much moisture in the ground on March 14 to safely clear the area.
DMHHS publishes upcoming engagements at https://dmhhs.dc.gov/ page/encampments. Those include: Wed., March 27 at 10 a.m. at 1500 M St. SE, Thu., March 28 at 10 a.m. at 3rd and Virginia Ave. SE, Tue., April 2 at 10 a.m. at 198 and Virginia Ave. SE, and Wed., April 3 at 10
□ Sell copies of the Street Sense Media Photography Book with your papers! You pay $5 wholesale, you sell them for $20.
□ Find a list of farmers markets and other announcements just for vendors at streetsensemedia.org/ vendor-info.
□ We’re putting on a play!
Read this democratically elected code of conduct, by vendors, for vendors!
1. I will support Street Sense Media’s mission statement and in so doing will work to support the Street Sense Media community and uphold its values of honesty, respect, support, and opportunity.
2. I will treat all others, including customers, staff, volunteers, and fellow vendors, respectfully at all times. I will refrain from threatening others, pressuring customers into making donations, or engaging in behavior that condones racism, sexism, classism, or other prejudices.
3. I understand that I am not an employee of Street Sense Media but an independent contractor.
4. While distributing the “Street Sense” newspaper, I will not ask for more than $3 per issue or solicit donations by any other means.
5. I will only purchase the newspaper from Street Sense Media staff and volunteers and will not distribute newspapers to other vendors.
Ann Herzog, Beverly Brown, Madeleine McCollough, Roberta Haber
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Annemarie Cuccia
Aida Peery, Chon Gotti, Nikila Smith
EDITORIAL INTERNS
Andrea Ho, Margaret Hartigan, Nora Scully
GRAPHIC DESIGN INTERN
Bruna Costa
SOCIAL MEDIA INTERN
Azaria Jackson
ARTISTS-INRESIDENCE
Bonnie Naradzay (Poetry), David Serota (Illustration), Leslie Jacobson (Theater), Roy Barber (Theater), Rachel Dungan (Podcast), Willie Schatz (Writing)
OPINION EDITOR (VOLUNTEER)
Candace Montague
EDITORIAL VOLUNTEERS
Annabella Hoge, Anne Eigeman, August Ditcher, Benjamin Litoff, Cari Shane, Casey Bacot, Chelsea Ciruzzo, Dakota Bragato, Dan Goff, Grier Hall, J.M. Acsienzo, Josh Axelrod, Kate Malloy, Kathryn Owens, Lenika Cruz, Micah Levey, Miles Wilson, Rachel Siegal, Roman Peregrino, Ryan Bacic, Taylor Nichols, Zach Montellaro
6. I will not distribute copies of “Street Sense” on Metro trains and buses or on private property.
7. I will abide by the Street Sense Media Vendor Territory Policy at all times and will resolve any related disputes with other vendors in a professional manner.
8. I will not sell additional goods or products while distributing “Street Sense.”
9. I will not distribute “Street Sense” under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
10. I understand that my badge and vest are property of Street Sense Media and will not deface them. I will present my badge when purchasing “Street Sense” and will always display my badge when distributing “Street Sense.”
uring a marathon oversight hearing on Feb. 29, D.C.’s Department of Human Services (DHS) faced scrutiny for its failure to deliver on critical programs, including the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
DBoth have been in the news in the past year as part of a larger fight between Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Council over how much money to devote to social safety net programs. As DHS faces mid-year cuts in fiscal year 2024 and likely further cuts in fiscal year 2025, the future of ERAP hangs in the balance.
ERAP provides rental assistance to struggling tenants for a limited time during housing emergencies. Multiple witnesses at the oversight hearing, held by the Committee of Housing, called ERAP a critical frontline program that often makes the difference between housing stability and homelessness.
Historically, ERAP has been overwhelmed by a high demand for relief. Until the current fiscal year, the program accepted applications on a rolling basis and tended to run out of money several months before the end of the year. To spread funds, DHS tried accepting applications on a quarterly basis this fiscal year. During the most recent application cycle in January, the 3,500 application cap was reached in just four hours.
The narrow window to submit an application was compounded by the inaccessibility of the application process. Witnesses said the ERAP application portal posed technological and language barriers for many applicants, especially those who were elderly, had disabilities, or did not speak English.
“The application requires a computer, internet access, and a smartphone or web tablet,” Andria Chatmon, a housing organizer with Empower DC, said. “Many residents didn’t have this access and were relying on library computers with little privacy.”
Public witnesses said the ERAP application portal is known to crash during application windows.
“In October, [the ERAP application portal] was down for many days and people didn’t know when it would be open for sure. In January, it was down for an hour of the total of five hours that it was available,” Elena Bowers, a supervising attorney at Legal Aid DC, said. “If people were to reach out to tech support, they wouldn’t have gotten a response before the portal closed.”
Compounding this unpredictability of the technology, the portal was only open during traditional working hours in the latest round. In at least one case, someone seeking help saw that the ERAP application portal was down and left the day center, where he had computer access, only to realize that the portal was closed by the time he returned, Michael Broughton, a program manager with Pathways to Housing DC, told Street Sense in January.
The ERAP application portal is also only available in English. While there is an automated Google translate plug-in on the website, the translations are not always accurate.
Witnesses said this puts non-English speakers in danger of misinterpreting information. Chatmon, the Empower DC organizer, proposed that there should be web navigation in Spanish and Amharic — two of the six languages other than English that the D.C. government is legally obligated to provide support for.
Chatmon suggested DHS should also provide an in-person aplication option with language support for the elderly, people with disabilities, and non-English speakers. This would allow applicants to complete their application with the guidance of program staff. This suggestion was echoed by Amanda Eisenhower, a tenant support specialist at the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center.
Challenges persist beyond the application. A few witnesses said processing delays prevented successful applicants from obtaining benefits.
“DHS often misplaces or fails to timely process important documents regardless of how customers submit them,” said Haley Hoff, a staff attorney at Legal Aid DC. “Many customers have had their benefits terminated due to processing delays.”
Public witnesses further highlighted that ERAP, by design, does not triage applications or prioritize residents who are most at risk of eviction. This is because applications for ERAP are processed on a first-come, first-served basis.
In some cases, witnesses said ERAP even disadvantaged residents who needed rental assistance the most, aggravating existing geographic inequities in D.C. This is because the amount of ERAP benefits residents receive is dependent on their zip code. Under ERAP, residents in neighborhoods with higher average rent are eligible for more rental assistance.
“Residents in neighborhoods with a lower concentration of luxury apartments that raise the average rent are eligible for much less assistance, regardless of their actual rent,” Eisenhower said.
Consequently, residents in underserved neighborhoods, like many neighborhoods in Ward 8, are eligible for less assistance. Chatmon said Empower DC’s own outreach data showed most eviction filings from 2023 were in Ward 8, which is over 80% Black.
$7.6M FY 2020 ACTUAL
$15M
FY 2021 ACTUAL
$19M
FY 2022 ACTUAL
$43M FY 2023 APPROVED
$43M FY 2024 APPROVED
“I can’t forget the heartbreaking calls with community members who are suicidal because they don’t know where their next meal is coming from,” Assefa said.
Swapna Yeluri, a senior attorney with Legal Counsel for the Elderly, recounted how a client had tried to correct their household size for SNAP benefits in a tedious process that took three years, during which time they were deprived of benefits. Another client’s SNAP benefits were terminated because DHS lost their application.
Last March, the council unanimously passed the Give SNAP A Raise Act, which would temporarily expand benefits for each SNAP recipient by 10%. While initially refusing to fund the increase to SNAP, Bowser finally capitulated after the council threatened to take legal action.
The budget for fiscal year 2025 was supposed to be released on March 20, but was delayed to the end of the month. In the meantime, some councilmembers have predicted major cuts across the board, in part due to expenses like plugging the Metro’s deficit. For ERAP and SNAP, this could mean operating under even more financial strain moving forward.
Laura Green Zeilinger, the director of DHS, said ERAP was an expensive and ultimately unsustainable solution to the housing affordability crisis. In what seemed a nod to Bowser’s views, Zeilinger told the committee the infusion of federal funds into ERAP during the pandemic “created an expectation that [DHS] cannot meet,” referring to the high demand for ERAP.
“ERAP is never going to have a budget of $300 million and we need to be honest with residents that they need to do everything they can to pay their rent,” Zeilinger said.
ERAP is not the only DHS program that was said to have structural flaws. Several witnesses also voiced complaints about the inefficiencies surrounding processing and disbursing SNAP benefits.
In 2022, the District ranked worst in the country with only 42.86% of applications for SNAP benefits processed in accordance with the timelines required by federal regulations. According to Martha Assefa, an anti-hunger associate at DC Hunger Solutions, DHS takes up to two months to process expedited benefits. That is eight times longer than the oneweek period expected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Bowers, the Legal Aid DC attorney, nevertheless pointed out that DHS has imposed an “arbitrary” limit of 3,500 applications per quarter. She said the limit prevents other applicants from accessing rental assistance even when funds are still available.
“Instead of looking for ways to limit who has access to the program, DHS should be figuring out the true annual need for ERAP and pursuing funding for the program,” Bowers told the committee.
Other witnesses decried the historic lack of funding for ERAP, describing the inaccessibility of rental assistance as dehumanizing.
“It is wrong to force poor people to compete for crumbs of what is needed for survival,” said Sierra Ramirez, an organizer with the Woodner Tenants’ Union. “We need you to respect our human dignity by fighting for the resources we need and fixing the platforms necessary for accessing them.”
early 50 D.C. residents and community leaders signed up to comment on the Department of Employment Services’s performance over the past year, during what ended up being 11 hours worth of testimony spread across Feb. 21 and 27. Oversight of the department — including this annual assessment as the D.C. Council prepares to debate the budget for the next fiscal year — falls to the council’s Committee of Executive Administration and Labor.
NAs federal COVID relief funding runs out amid a local budget deficit, many residents focused on increased funding and support in light of expected budget cuts for the upcoming fiscal year. Others spoke to areas of improvement for the agency, like the implementation of benefits and recent legislation.
Almost a dozen people criticized delays in the implementation of the Domestic Worker Employment Rights Amendment Act of 2022, which established certain protections for domestic workers from their employers. Advocates and workers repeatedly highlighted the agency’s failure to post templates of written contracts on a new website and hire two additional DOES staffers to oversee enforcement of the legislation. The deadline for the implementation of these programs was Sept. 30, the end of FY 2023.
“So many times, domestic workers only have a verbal agreement with their employers. There’s a lot of informality in this sector, and it’s very easy for employers to go back on their word,” said Alana Eichner, the co-director of National Domestic Workers Alliance’s D.C. chapter. “Having a written contract makes all the difference.”
During the second day of hearings, Committee Chair and At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds questioned DOES Director Unique Morris-Hughes about the delays. MorrisHughes promised the website and sample contracts would be launched by March 1; they have since been published on the DOES website. The sample contract is available in both English and Spanish, and a disclaimer on the website asks readers to return in the near future for more language options of the sample contract.
“I watched and heard the testimony. I appreciate when people take out their time and let their voices be heard. We heard them. We are on it,” Morris-Hughes said in the hearing. Bonds did not ask for the reason behind the delay in implementation.
Eichner, with the National Domestic Workers Alliance, commended the recent implementation of the legislation during an interview with Street Sense, but said she hopes it will be followed by continued outreach to both domestic workers and employers, as well as efforts to make the language more accessible, both in plain language and non-English options.
Since the pandemic, DOES has struggled to clear a backlog of unemployment insurance claims. In 2021, Mayor Muriel Bowser spent nearly $11 million hiring additional staff to clear
the backlog.
Nearly three years later, however, the backlog remains substantial.
In February, MorrisHughes testified that the backlog of insurance claims had dropped from nearly 45,000 from last year’s hearings in 2023 to 16,000 as of January 2024, which she said will be resolved by the end of FY 2024.
She said DOES believes of the 16,000 claims, a significant portion — nearly 6,000 — are fraudulent. According to her testimony, it takes DOES less than 21 days to adjudicate claims.
The agency also recently launched its long-awaited new assistance portal, the Unemployment Insurance Benefits System, to help centralize the process. It allows claimants to submit and request forms like the 1099, communicate with DOES representatives, and access claims from mobile devices.
Some of the previous issues surrounding DOES’s management of claims were raised once again at the hearing. Megan Ocean, a staff attorney with Legal Aid D.C., noted in a joint testimony with the Claimant Advocacy Program that claimants still cannot file for employment insurance over the phone. This forces people with limited or no access to technology like computers to register for unemployment insurance in-person, adding an extra obstacle to receiving benefits.
The two organizations Ocean represented also critiqued the DOES for marking overpayments as fraud. If a claimant’s earnings don’t match what DOES has listed, the agency will automatically assume fraud without an investigation, Ocean said. This happens even if the discrepancy was simply a reporting error, they said, describing the experiences of several Legal Aid clients.
Morris-Hughes defended the assessment process, noting the new site has two-factor authentication that should make it more difficult for people to commit identity-based fraud, one of the top three reasons DOES finds claims to be fraudulent. The other two most common are employer separation information that can’t be verified and if a person files a claim after being fired for misconduct.
At least three people highlighted the impact that cuts to DOES’s budget have had on their work, which largely centered around expanding employment opportunities for minority communities. A half dozen more nonprofit leaders asked DOES to increase funding for their organizations, many of which receive year-to-year grants from DOES.
As federal funding from the pandemic — which included $250 million in American Rescue Act funding for D.C. agencies in FY 2023 — wanes, government services are left struggling to fill the gaps. Although Bowser has not yet presented the FY 2025 budget, councilmembers are bracing for further potential cuts to programs, including DOES. Last year,
DOES experienced a 23 percent budget cut, nearly $16 million, forcing the agency to trim some of its nonessential services.
“Every penny has to go much further than recent years,” Bonds said at the hearing.
To retain financial support from the council, several members of the newly formed Poverty Commission, charged with studying ways to combat poverty in the District, testified about its progress. Newly elected chair Dr. Marla Dean listed the commission’s goals, which include organizing the first D.C. Eradicating Poverty Summit and engaging government partners and residents with lived experience to reduce poverty levels. She also requested that the agency give them the support to meet these goals as it works to submit a poverty-reduction plan to DOES in the next several years.
Morris-Hughes testified that the universal paid family leave budget is solvent, meaning it should have enough money to fund benefits for the remainder of the year. Since its inception in 2020, Morris-Hughes said that the fund has paid nearly 55,000 claims from new parents.
Despite the program’s apparent success, advocates noted that there are sometimes difficulties accessing the benefits. Yael Shafritz, director of Jews United for Justice, said a glitch in the website delayed the processing of their organization’s medical leave benefits for three days. Others called for the website to be accessible in languages other than English. Morris-Hughes said the agency was set to launch a marketing campaign on March 1 to attempt to address equity issues in prenatal care.
Advocates also called on the council to move the Universal Paid Leave Portability Amendment Act of 2023 forward. The bill was introduced by Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis on Feb. 8 and would allow workers to receive paid family and medical leave when they are between jobs.
“I think it is time for us to bring that back to the table and take a closer look at it,” Bonds said of the bill.
Laura Brown, the director of First Shift Justice, also called for technical revisions to the paid leave program, including an expansion of family definitions to increase who can apply for benefits (such as allowing people like nieces and grandchildren who are eligible for caregiving leave under the Paid Family Leave Act to access paid leave benefits), removing bedrest as a prenatal medical recommendation, and include spending time bonding with children as an event eligible for paid family leave.
Diane Yentel opened this year’s National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) policy forum with a reminder to the audience that attendees already had several ideas about how to end homelessness and improve low-income housing — they just needed to get politicians on board.
“The only thing we lack to end homelessness and achieve housing justice is the political will to do it,” said Yentel, the president and CEO of the NLIHC. “When [politicians] have that will, they can absolutely act to get people in our country stably housed.”
NLIHC, a national nonprofit organization that focuses on expanding affordable housing, hosted its annual housing policy forum March 19 and 20 at the Capitol Hill Hilton. Speakers and breakout sessions focused on solutions to housing-related issues, including racial and disability-based discrimination, gentrification and displacement, and anti-homelessness laws local governments are passing nationwide. As elected officials push to reduce the visibility of homelessness through such laws, NLIHC hopes the policies they offer will bring about more permanent solutions to the affordable housing crisis.
“Elected officials are feeling this pressure to respond to unsheltered homelessness. But instead of investing in what we know actually works, they’re turning to these politically expedient but really harmful measures instead, like criminalization,” Sarah Saadian, NLIHC’s senior vice president of public policy and field organizing, said in an interview with Street Sense. “So it was really important for us to share with them what’s ahead and what can be done.”
Speakers offered solutions ranging from building community groups, to focusing on political mobilization, to challenging stereotypes about homelessness through storytelling. The day after the conference, many participants also attended a “Capitol Hill Day” and lobbied for improved access to affordable housing.
As part of NLIHC’s efforts to connect advocates with policymakers already pushing for legislation to reduce housing costs, three members of Congress spoke at the event: Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Cori Bush (D-MO) and Jimmy Gomez (D-CA). Each spoke about personally experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity, as well as legislation they’ve proposed to address housing-related issues.
Frost, the youngest member of Congress and the first member of Gen Z to be elected, spoke about experiencing homelessness during his 2022 campaign for Congress. He said that after his landlord raised his rent by 30% during the campaign, he lived in his car, on friends’ couches, and with his sister’s ex-boyfriend. When Frost moved to D.C. as a newly elected congressperson, he struggled to find housing due to a low credit rating.
“Often, the vast majority of the people who are homeless in this country are unseen,” he said of Americans who have experienced homelessness in a similar way. Living with friends or family due to housing insecurity — often called “doubling up” or “hidden homelessness” — is not counted as experiencing homelessness according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development definitions.
Frost also spoke about a piece of legislation he sponsored, the “End Junk Fees for Renters Act,” which prohibits landlords from charging application and screening fees, and from using credit scores to deny potential tenants. These fees and extra
steps are often not initially disclosed to renters and can act as barriers to stable housing, according to Frost and confirmed by research from the National Consumer Law Center.
Bush condemned laws that criminalize homelessness — like those that ban sleeping in cars — and advocated for the creation of public spaces to support those experiencing homelessness, like comfortable benches and public drinking fountains.
“Were my children and I criminals for sleeping in our car? Should I have been arrested for mixing up formula in a McDonald’s bathroom?” she asked the audience. “One could say that McDonalds has done more to support the needs of our unhoused population than any of our federal and local governments. And that’s not right.”
Bush highlighted the “Unhoused Bill of Rights,” which she introduced in July, which seeks to end homelessness by 2027 by expanding funding for low income housing, as well as officially declaring homelessness to be a public health emergency.
Another possible response to the housing crisis is the Rent Relief Act, which Gomez spoke about, remembering when redevelopment displaced his family while he was grwoing up. The bill would tackle the lack of affordable housing in the United States by providing a monthly tax credit to renters who spend more than 30% of their income on rent — a credit that would benefit half of all U.S. renters.
Gomez also noted that the price of housing has increased much more quickly than the minimum wage. “The average renter now is considered rent-burdened,” he said. “It is an issue that now touches almost every part of our country.”
“Unless we do something, this is just going to get worse and worse and worse,” Gomez added.
While the conference’s main discussions touched on a broad range of policy issues, the smaller sessions zeroed in on housing costs. Two focused on the links between homelessness and lowincome housing.
During a session on emergency-induced homelessness, speakers discussed strategies to quickly house victims of environmental disasters, borrowing from methods that homeless outreach groups already use. Such solutions include rapid rehousing, which temporarily subsidizes housing for people experiencing homelessness, and the use of technology like phone apps to quickly process requests for housing assistance.
However, speakers pointed out emergency-response efforts often focus on those who had housing prior to the disaster, neglecting those who experienced housing insecurity both before and after the event. When Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2018, NLIHC critiqued the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for failing to provide survivors with safe, long-term, and affordable housing options.
In another session, attendees discussed how to tell stories about homelessness while advocating for housing policies. Speakers said telling personal stories to politicians, community members, and via movies and TV is essential to change misconceptions and stereotypes about people experiencing homelessness. A shift in how homelessness appears in the media, they hoped, would lead to more compassionate treatment of people without permanent homes.
“Storytelling is the strongest tool we have in our advocacy work,” Marisol Bello, the executive director of the Housing Narrative Lab, said.
“We have to break all these negative stigmas about being homeless, being low-income,” Miracle Fletcher, a member of
NLIHC who has experienced homelessness, added.
Fletcher was one of many conference participants and attendees who had experienced low-income housing, housing insecurity, or homelessness firsthand.
“About half of the folks who are attending are people with lived experience — renters who live in subsidized housing, or who are tenant leaders in their communities, or people who are on the ground doing the really important work of organizing their neighborhoods,” Saadian said in an interview. The other half of forum participants tended to be members of larger advocacy organizations, she added.
During closing speeches, Jelani Cobb, a journalist who has written extensively about police brutality, noted a connection between housing inequality and police brutality and mistreatment. He said many types of inequality — including economic, housing, and racial inequality — are connected due to the U.S.’s history of housing discrimination based on race, and the lack of economic opportunities available in many majority Black neighborhoods as a result.
“I had been reporting on all of these police stories, but I was really reporting housing stories,” Cobb said.
Looming over the conference was an impending Supreme Court decision, Johnson v. Grants Pass, which will decide whether the enforcement of no-camping laws is unconstitutional. Such laws prohibit people from sleeping in public spaces using a pillow, blanket, or forms of makeshift shelter. The case will determine if states can make it a crime for those experiencing homelessness to sleep outside when no shelter beds are available.
Yentel and others encouraged conference attendees to attend a rally at the Supreme Court on April 22, the day justices will hear the case, to advocate for a decision that would not criminalize sleeping in public areas.
The focus on political activism continued after the conference had concluded. Over 170 members of Congress met with conference attendees advocating for policies that meet the needs of low-income people. Compared to past years’ forums, the number of meetings with senators and House representatives was “record breaking,” Saadian said.
“This movement,” Frost said, referring to the low-income housing rights movement, “it’s about looking every person in the eyes and saying ‘you deserve housing by virtue of being a human and nothing else.”
In the doleful mark of pre-dawn, with my Vietnamese-made earbuds anchored in, I lick my lips in delightful recognition. DJ Nate D. Skate is reminiscing dual visions of F Street NW’s kandy-lined sidewalk romeos coupled with the rhythmic framework of Motown Record Studios, a.k.a The Funk Brothers.
“Lil’ fly stingy-brim [hat] raked slightly south, buckled bucks or pointed brogans. And yeah, they even wore silk socks — I know, ‘cause I love ‘em, too!” Nate D. concludes his airy blast of the past with his usual sign-off from WPFW 89.3 FM. “See you next Wed-nes-day”, he says, in the phonetically correct cadence of a Foggy Bottom school teacher he had way back in the day. At 5:01 a.m. the genial program director takes the microphone, invariably saluting Mr. Skate as an “always welcoming sport who lights our way to the dawn.”
I lie back in my improvised “barriere” of Turkish throw pillows and zippered “Bucky” sawdust pouchs (imported from Puget Sound) and zone out on hand-dances past, swingin’ and swayin’ to easy rhythms from Ruby & the Romantics’s “Our Day Will Come” (1963), Fontella Bass’s “Rescue Me” (1965) and Martha and the Vandellas’s “Dancing in the Street” (1964) — all in the dreamscape of my lonely room, hand-dancing the Sacrament!
Reading old history posted on modern social media accounts is quite intriguing. I think that maybe our society should be geared more towards learning history in the latter part of life: when and where it could be better appreciated, absorbed, applied, and learned from.
What are most youngins doing? Smoking, drinking, experimenting? Learning from life can overwhelm learning from books and in the classroom — from teen pregnancies to other life and social issues that demand attention.
As I found in my studying at DCTV as an adult, it was very difficult to focus and concentrate. So I’m just thinking that’s how it must’ve been, for say, resource students back in the day, having difficulty with attention and understanding.
I thrived as a TAG student (Talented and Gifted). And as an adult now, I thrive for knowledge, especially in this day and age of cutting technology. I still find it difficult though, when I’m distracted and am not in such a calm and peaceful situation nowadays.
So we should have an emphasis on adult learning rooms and labs dedicated to such causes. Learning is a lifelong process, after all. The youth could care more for their futures, and us!
It’s not too late to say Happy New Year! There is always a lot to celebrate if you look for it.
I thank all my customers very much for their help, each time they see me on the street with the new Street Sense paper in hand. May the Lord bless you. From K Street to Eastern Market, I have eight regular spots where I work across the city.
And to my managers at Street Sense, thank you for your time. May the good God give you the courage and strength to continue your work.
We celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8, for women around the world. May God protect you and take care of your family. Long live women! The good God has given you a heavy load, and the courage to overcome everything. Thank you very much to moms all over the world.
And I wish happy birthday to everyone who was born in March like me. It’s a special month for my family. My birthday is March 23. My husband’s birthday is March 15. We got married on March 18, 2016. We are just now asking people to help us with the celebration. Our sincere thanks to you all. May God bless you.
Being held spirit and soul
being held I will behold the sound I sold
being held is not stone but something I can behold
being held can keep you bold or at least I have been told
being held is never alone why don’t you phone
so I won’t feel alone
Oh, Easter! That wonderful moment God showed His love to us by giving His Son to take it all.
We want to celebrate and cherish that moment and what Jesus sacrificed his life for.
The love God gave us is real.
Jesus died on the cross for us, to take away all our sins and have us make a fresh start with God.
For all we’ve done, Jesus took all our burdens and troubles, and for that, we want to thank Him.
The love of Jesus is sweet.
The love of Jesus is kind.
The love of Jesus is everlasting.
The love of Jesus is safe.
The love of Jesus is sacrificial.
The love of Jesus is everything.
We celebrate Easter because of the love we have from the Lord Jesus Christ.
That is why we have grace. This is why Jesus was resurrected.
I wish everyone a happy Easter that is bright, full of great moments, and full of delicious treats.
But it’s not just about enjoying the treats and having fun. We have to remember the true reason for Easter.
The debt for all our unrighteousness, just one man paid it all, for every soul. It’s an amazing gift.
We thank Him, the one and only, who went through the pains and burdens so we didn’t have to. We thank Him again.
Jesus Christ, the Savior of all.
Happy Easter Everyone!
The 6th Annual FITDC HerStory 5K celebrating Women’s History Month took place on March 9. And what a race it was!
“Each year, the HerStory 5K is an opportunity for D.C. to celebrate the women — past and present — who have given so much to move our city and nation forward,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said in a press release.
Outside of events like this, FITDC provides health and wellness resources for residents. It helps us to be the best version of ourselves by strengthening our bodies and enhancing our minds.
Before the 5K, children 12 years and under ran in the first HerStory Kids Dash, a modified race on the course. Each one received a special giveaway.
Everyone young and old had a fun time and made our city PROUD!
INVISIBLE PROPHET
Artist/Vendor
CONTENT WARNING: Abuse, miscarriage, suicide
Strangers do not know I live with the thoughts of… I used to believe in the hope and faith that carried my life. My life felt full, complete, and free from family pain hurting my heart every day. For 10 years of my life, I was healthy spiritually. Some “Bible thumpers” say, “God gives you what you can handle.” Shut up!! God does not do anything for me. Where was God when I prayed not to be homeless again? Why was God not protecting me from that evil family and their allies?
God doesn’t protect me from people who hurt me on
purpose, turn on me, are allies with the family who birthed me and created harmful events on purpose. God does not protect me from men who intentionally don’t love me but instead love my sister, men who intentionally let me know she’s better than I am or create lies that I am jealous of her, jealous of their relationship. Trauma brains discuss the outcomes of truth, gossip, and slander.
No! My anger is for creating me to be with humans who built a life on revenge against my heart. To drive me mad and then say I am crazy, making stuff up. I prayed to the holiest of grace and guess what? No one protects me, I do not have family, I am homeless because of others. Prayer does not repel
harm, but you know what I do hear? Some “Bible thumpers” praying to the devil’s friction.
Strangers do not know I live with the thoughts of… Does anyone else feel this way too? Why did God stop protecting me, but the subjective God never did? That is an illusion being suggested by a cult enforced upon humans. Can we as humanity heal trauma with therapy, medications, meditation, martial arts, or other strategies without killing our spirit?
Strangers do not know I live with the thoughts of… There are seven types of love the ancient Greeks discussed: EROS (romance, passionate), PHILIA (affectionate, friendly), STORGE (unconditional, familial), AGAPE
(selfless, universal), LUDUS (playful, flirtatious), PRAGMA (committed, long-lasting), and PHILUATIA (self-love). They are puzzle pieces, suggesting the greatness of humankind, that is of creation, a miracle, life and living with a grateful heart.
Strangers do not know I live with the thoughts of… Education is important when we as humanity do not know what a stranger feels every day. Abusers and enablers tell me to mind my business. Guess what, people did that to me as a child, minded their business. Now I live with trauma writing this piece, needing to go into a cocoon, hiding in a secret place where no one will find me, for the safety of my heart.
Strangers do not know I live with the thoughts of… She (my inner child) is exhausted from having to fight off the devil and its imps. I must protect my heart from feeling I am going to be arrested and “put away” to pay debts not of my own. My inner child is tired of protecting my mental health against hateful people who are child abusers, pedophiles, rapists, and enablers.
Strangers do not know I live with the thoughts of… I do not
need nor want motherhood, to be married and other things, because they would not be safe. I prayed for a miscarriage so they will be safe, not here on earth (wherever souls go) so no one can take them from me to pay debts and break my heart. That would destroy my mental health. I prayed not to be on the streets, so my soul, identity, and dignity would not make me stop protecting inherited teachings.
Strangers do not know I live with the thoughts of… I am an INVISIBLE PROPHET!! If you acknowledge the satires of life instead of “oh pity her and her words.” No!! Are you an INVISIBLE PROPHET? When someone assumes suicide, you are the problem, not the human heart expressing pain, because the inner child is still struggling to find her footing in this vicious world.
Strangers do not know I live with the thoughts of… As I am a stranger, here speaks an empath fading into the abyss that is evil, creation without the protection of God. How much more can your mental health carry the weight of an invisible being
you chant to every day asking for favors? This is my life that suggests I am wrong for having a cursed heart God created and I did not ask for nor “need.”
Strangers do not know I live with the thoughts of… Puzzle pieces of wolf and sheep!!
Strangers do not know I live with the thoughts of… This is an ODE to the mental health industry lacking accountability. False science based on assumptions is pertaining to the notion of notoriety. Government decisions are not based on my experience or anyone else’s. As a matter of fact, the government is losing their minds. Who will diagnose them?
Venting my thoughts to a therapist, will my words be turned upside down!! Meanwhile, the Council of the District of Columbia introduces a new Bill B25-0692 - Enhancing Mental Health Crisis Support and Hospitalization Amendment Act of 2024 (involuntary commitment). More on that next time.
Invisible Prophet is an artist/vendor with Street Sense Media.
t seems our local politicians have managed to turn the nation’s capital into a hellhole. A few weeks ago, I was waiting in line at McDonald’s when a desperate woman became frustrated because nobody would buy her a meal. She leapt over the counter as if she were qualifying to be an Olympic hurdler, grabbed someone’s Big Mac, and ran out the door. The worker at the counter was in shock. No one attempted to stop the woman, including the police officer standing guard there for the night.
ICrime engulfed Washington, D.C., last year, and I can’t sit idly by and watch my city become synonymous with it. Things have gotten so bad in D.C. there are videos of shoplifters entering stores as if they’re going through a buffet, grabbing what they need, and walking out. What’s the purpose of hiring security guards if they are seemingly powerless to prevent crime?
We have laws on the books to prohibit violent crime. The penalty under D.C. Code for simple assault is a maximum of 180 days in jail and/or a fine of up to $1,000. And the penalty for first-degree murder is a minimum of 30 years in prison and a maximum of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. But it seems like there’s been so much difficulty making arrests. And when there is an arrest, suspects are only prosecuted about 50% of the time. Anything less than 100% is unacceptable.
D.C. is a federal city with many local and federal law enforcement agencies. When Jan. 6 transpired, all the agencies were on top of their game. Why are the methods used for squelching insurrections not utilized for curbing crime? Could there be two different approaches because the insurrectionists aren’t classified as marginalized?
There was no hesitation to make arrests on Jan 6. And even protestors who went into the capitol but didn’t commit violent acts are being charged. A judge ruled that just being present “as part of an unruly mob contributed to the disruption of the Congress’s electoral certification and jeopardized public safety.”
But shockingly, the liberals that want those protestors jailed don’t have the same vigor to arrest carjackers, looters, and repeat offenders. This is absolute madness! Why are we debating whether car theft is a serious crime? Meanwhile, there are few discussions about victims.
While new data shows crime is trending downward, why haven’t advocates given the memo to the communities most affected by the robbing, looting, and shootings? It’s good to know that your D.C. government is on top of it while your neighborhood Walgreens and CVS close due to rampant theft.
Why does it make any sense to increase the price of the paper by $1? It makes sense because the vendors get a raise after 10 years. The paper has a cost and needs to keep publishing, and it’s greatly needed. Also, the prices of things in D.C. have skyrocketed. Eggs, milk, and all necessities a person needs have gone up astronomically. We can't totally make a difference by increasing the paper, but it sure will help.
Marc Grier is an artist/vendor with Street Sense Media.
The people who claim no action is needed because crime is down are not helping the people most affected by criminal activity. Those who weaponize stats are harming the people with the most to lose when a supermarket, thrift shop, or pharmacy closes. Those affected most by business closings are disabled people and seniors who must travel further to find a pharmacy to fill their prescriptions.
Nobody in the nation’s capital should live in fear. We all want to go to work and get home without carrying Mace or a Glock. As a long-time D.C. resident, the 36% increase in homicides last year should be unacceptable. It doesn’t matter that it’s trending downwards when your assaulter approaches you at gunpoint. I was almost murdered over the holidays for $50, so I know a little about what’s happening.
While my voice is in the tiny minority, what can I do when D.C. residents support policies that encourage violence, anarchy, and chaos? Some provisions in Secure D.C. are encouraging, such as allowing police to make more arrests, targeting the neighborhoods that have seen crime increases, and pushing the U.S. Attorney for D.C. Matthew Graves to prosecute and put violent criminals behind bars. But the bill is another about-face by far lefties who changed course when the criminals they romanticize violently attacked them. Because crime is hitting them, too, the days of worrying about criminals’ rights are over, and law and order will prevail.
The die is cast: Mayor Muriel Bowser signed Secure D.C. into law on March 11.
And despite my skepticism, the mayor has already implemented the drug-free zone policy included in Secure D.C. But harassing and scapegoating minor drug dealers doesn’t show you’re more serious about crime if you never arrest or shut down major distributors. You can’t have drug runners unless they’re purchasing drugs from a high-end wholesaler.
It’s very encouraging to see that people are fed up with the narratives and gaslighting from soft-on-crime D.C. Council members. There are petitions to remove Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen and Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau. Being politically homeless, I’m trying to understand why residents who are most impacted by crime vote for people who have no interest in keeping their communities safe. You won’t need to recall incompetent politicians if you read up on the people you vote for. I don’t get it. America is the only place where you can directly remove bad politicians through the ballot box. However, D.C. residents who vote 95% Democrat choose far-left politicians who worry about criminals’ safety instead of the residents.
Jeffery McNeil is an artist/vendor with Street Sense Media.
LATICIA BROCK
Freezing hands, blisters on my feet
Sandwiches constipate me
Bug bites through my clothes when I sit down on shelter seats
No food stamps left, belly is growling around
Mayor Bowser wants a $400 million budget for remodeling Chinatown
Drugs have taken over the city, things are crazy
They legalized marijuana to make the city look lazy
The whole time, while we sat around being angry and acting all bold
They are going to move us out and the city get sold
All we had to do was stick together
Prepare for a storm, because it gets no better
Laticia Brock is an artist/vendor with Street Sense Media.
ello, friends and family. People keep asking me about the crime in our city and why there are so many “thugs” and “criminals,” as they are so often called. I call them what they really are: kids with no guidelines, no love, and full of anger.
HI’ve told a few of my customers this problem didn’t “just start.” It’s been going on for a while, and the glass has overflowed. If you’ve read my past writing, you know I’ve written a lot about crime in the city. Remember, I just want people to think about what leads to this chaos.
I had my share of violence while growing up in a hood of Southeast D.C. I barely made it out of that place — and out of prison — alive and in my right mind. In the last year I’ve been attacked when selling my papers. People ask me, “Why don’t they just move out of the hood and do better for themselves?” Trust me, it’s really not that simple when there are no guidelines.
As a child growing up in the projects, I saw the police handcuff my mother. Why? Because she was on her way to night school to get a better job to get her family out of the hood. Despite the harassment and confusion, she DID graduate and move us out from being waist-deep in the hood. Thank God. Love and peace.
Andre Brison is an artist/vendor with Street Sense Media.
PEACEFUL TOBIAS
Idon’t think it’s fair when the District government closes tent cities!
I admit case management services and case managers can sometimes be sweet. And the city’s government does help with housing vouchers. Nevertheless, whether you are new or old to the system, too many people still haven’t gone through the emergency shelter process.
It also is unfair to make poor people who barely make enough to eat pay for part of their rent while on housing vouchers. Additionally, housing should not be a privilege. And tent cities will be a necessity as long as we don’t have affordable housing. We all should have affordable housing and not be denied food, hygiene supplies, or clean public bathrooms.
Yes, the District government does what it can for those who often can’t. But it still has a lot of work to do.
Peaceful Tobias is an artist/vendor with Street Sense Media.
Aprofile about me and my presence in McPherson Square Park in the Feb. 28 issue of Street Sense ended with the detail that I previously campaigned to be president of the United States. That’s where this introduction starts.
I’m one of many presidential candidates the media never told you about. You’ll find me listed on the Federal Election Commission (FEC) website in the first 100 candidates for the 2008 election cycle. You can see candidates as far back as 1980 by changing the year in the link address: https://www.fec.gov/data/candidates/president/?election_ year=2008&cycle=2008&election_full=true (Change “=2008” to whichever election year you want to review.)
Though I still want your consideration, I no longer maintain filing with the FEC; this campaign is different. One of my signs at the park says “Ask how reading and math stop political corruption.” (Just below the yellow “Donations” sign.)
This article, as well as others to follow, demonstrate how we already have the tools to help us find solutions to protect our rights and make Clean Honest Government our reality in this generation — even in this election year, if we work at it together. Those roadmaps are the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America.
If you have camped or slept in a public space within the busy parts of a city — or have thought about doing so — this article is for you. It is also for everyone who finds those acts unsightly. Let’s focus on our rights, not just as United States citizens, but simply as humans, and whether those rights are constitutionally protected.
First of all, a “right” is an action any person can exercise without unjustly violating another person or their property. The violation of a law while exercising that right is also covered.
To determine what rights are constitutionally protected, we need to consider both what is written into the Constitution and what is NOT written into it.
What is written is the easy part. Nearly everyone is familiar with several of these rights.
As for what rights are not written into it, we must rely upon the Ninth Amendment, which states: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
In order to present a stronger defense in court, we must be able to correctly identify those unlisted, unwritten rights that we retained. With this, we must know which came first, the right or the law prohibiting it. (“The chicken or the egg” is another story.)
The right came first. It was after people began abusing others’ rights on a large scale that the government passed laws to regulate or prohibit the actions of a specific right.
We must strive to comprehend the meaning of the words used in the Ninth Amendment according to what they meant in the early 1700s, before the Constitution was written. For this, I use a 1785 dictionary that the Internet Archive digitized. Let’s focus on five words; three from the Ninth Amendment; the other two clarify a word from the definition of “disparage.”
• Construe: To interpret; to explain; to show the meaning.
• Deny: To refuse; not to grant.
• Disparage: To treat with contempt; to mock; to flout; to reproach.
• Reproach: Censure; infamy; shame.
• To Reproach: 1. To censure in opprobrious terms, as a crime. 2. To charge with a fault in severe language.
When the government passes a law that denies you some part of a right; such as sleeping in public or camping on public grounds, they construe various other parts of the Constitution to deny, to disparage, or to limit your right to sleep and your right to camp. (Remember, the Ninth Amendment explicitly states that rights written in the Constitution shall NOT be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.)
You know I am ready. Like the song “Get Ready” that Rare Earth made. And you know I love to dance, too. But did you know, too, that I can do the moonwalk like Michael Jackson can?
My goal is to love my brothers and sisters in 2024. My name is Daniel Ball and I have worked for Street Sense for 13 years.
And yet, modern law disparages camping on public property, treating the individual with contempt and reproach. It criminalizes the person for doing nothing more than exercising a right protected by the Ninth Amendment.
We retained every right not specifically listed in the Constitution, so long as when exercising that right we do not unjustly violate the rights, or property of others, which includes using public space.
Society, by way of the government, possesses two constitutional remedies when it comes to people violating the rights of others. One, when constitutionally applied, makes it less desirable to violate others’ rights; it is the Thirteenth Amendment. Yes! This unfortunately is a hotly contested topic. The two paragraphs here will not do it the justice it deserves.
Right from day one to present, government abused this power by favoring the wealthier people who routinely violate the rights of those less fortunate. Constitutionally applied, it punishes the billionaire and the beggar equally for violating others’ rights.
The other remedy available to society and government is Article 5. Government may ask the citizens for power to infringe, deny, or disparage any given right when society abuses a right (as opposed to when a few individuals do). But, it has not. This negligence is the worst type of criminal activity by government. The Declaration calls it tyranny, and despotism. The Constitution defines it as treason!
I welcome comments and challenges of accuracy: danielmkingery [at] gmail [dot] com.
Thank you.
Daniel Kingery left the Marines in 1983, four years after swearing oath to a Constitution he knew little about; he could not honor his oath at the time. For 25 years after the military, he studied in accord with his parents’ word lessons; noting their word riddles and the dictionaries changing definitions. Daniel now owns and runs CleanHonestGov.com; a website that teaches others, in a matter of hours, what it took him 25 years to discover.
Every night I dream a little dream, as big as the ocean, as small as a boat, that is carried along, on the stream of the sea.
My dreams are big, much bigger than me but to the world, they are inconsequential... you see?
Do you see, or do you watch?
Watch as my overzealous, overactive dreams engulf me? They take over my mind, as they should take over the world.
I am little, but a big powerful Black girl fire starter, a queen. A pharosee, a deep purple, black, uninterrupted dream.
“Touch it and you die,” my sister Paulette yelled at me every time she thought I was misbehaving. If you did not obey, she would hit you. And that hurt! It was her form of controlling me.
Once I refused to leave the bathroom because I wanted to watch her. She asked me to leave because she was doing “personal business” she didn’t want me to see. “No!” I said. She hit me and pushed me out the door so hard I rolled down the hall.
So why is she my hero when she smacked me around? Because she always tells the truth about everything and does her best to show people how to love themselves first. She knows if you don’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else. That philosophy helped me a lot in life when I asked others for advice. She also reminds me that if you love yourself, you are happy most of the time. And to never forget God.
JET FLEGETTE Artist/vendor
I want to feel another’s touch without love or feeling too much
There is a bittersweet tenderness of that detached caress
What I want never lasts it’s just a temporary means to an end, just do it all over again
Could be to become a doctor because of the love one has for the next being
Could be spending life behind bars for breaking the law
Could be to become a teacher because one loves to teach about what life has to offer
Could be a murderer because the lack of love one has for life
Could be to become a scientist for the love one has for nature, health, and life
Could be to become a drunkard because one gave up on life
Could be to become a police officer to ensure the safety of others
Could be to become all alone, because one chose not to accept accountability or responsibility
Could be spending eternity with God, because one chose to abide by His law His way
Could be eternity with Satan because one chose to listen to the world
No matter the choice, good or bad, we need to choose wisely
Because what we say yes or no to within that second, Determines what we will be doing with our lives
And where we will spend eternity
Deuces
CONTENT WARNING: Loss.
It was 2009, and I had been off of drugs for two years. I'd also been working at the Wendy's on Piscataway Road for about two years. My manager took notice of me and knew that I didn't have a man. She knew all I did was work, so she said “I got the perfect man for you, his name is Harmon.” But I didn’t feel like being bothered.
I was at work one day and my sister called and asked to bring some salt and pepper shakers home. I had to ask my supervisor, and she said I could. She told Harmon to help me out. I wasn't interested at all.
He worked at night, and I worked in the daytime. One day I went home and I got frustrated at work and wanted a beer. He was out sitting at the bus stop. I wasn't attracted to him or anything. But he came over to me and told me to get myself a beer. So I went in the liquor store, and I got myself a beer, and I came back out to the bus stop.
And then he asked me for my phone number, but I didn't give it to him. But the next time I saw him I finally decided to give him my number. I needed a man in my life and I wanted love. Come and find out he was the perfect man for me. So when I gave him my number, he called that night and we were on the phone until 2 a.m. I fell asleep on the phone and I fell in love with his voice. He was the sweetest thing.
We talked on the phone every night, and I eventually was living in his house. We fell in love but we had a lot of complications cause I would get jealous. I hadn't been with a man for a long time and I didn't know what to expect of him. I was scared and vulnerable. I was jealous of everything that moved in front of him.
One thing he loved was the birds at Wendy's. He used to go outside and run towards them. He used to love to do that. He loved birds. He loved birds and he loved God. Another thing I learned about him was that he was so organized. All his paperwork was organized in a folder. He was just like that, it was so cool. We didn't fall in love at first. It took years before we really fell in love because we had to get to know each other, but I knew he was with me.
One night before we got married, something happened that made me so jealous I went back to drugs. I hadn't used drugs for like 10 years and I have been clean now for two years. But he didn't give up on me. He followed me and he saved me. So his mother said we should get married. I didn't know why then but I know now. We fell in love. And I mean madly in love. Nothing could come between us. He loved me for who I was and everything that came with me. And I did the same. It was so peaceful and so beautiful.
Every morning it was a kiss goodbye and every night it was good night. We went through so many struggles. We were homeless and he never left my side, even when I went back to drugs. His love for me helped me put that drug down. I don't need that trouble. We lost jobs, apartments, and a lot of things together. But we never separated. We always loved each other and we stood by each other.
I'm so sad. I'm so unhappy. I'm so mad but I have to get over it. I have to stand up and fight for his rights because I know he would do it for me. This man who hit my husband with a car will not get away with killing him.
I wish this never happened, but it did, and there's nothing I can do about it. I hope he is in God's hands. Remember to stay safe, stay sober and stay clean.
Stuck in time looking toward the future back at the past yet forever trapped in the present.
Time always flows at the same pace yet is relative to your experiences. It flies when you’re having fun, but 30 seconds can feel like eternity when holding your breath.
Because I’m stuck in time, I see patience to be of unrivaled importance. Retrospect is in 20/20 vision, while the future is a complete mystery.
One cannot change what has happened, but one can affect what will be. To master the present is to change destiny.
It’s never too late to change, or to embark on new ventures. Remember to live in the moment and never be rushed.
We are stuck in and defined by time. I hope you spend yours with love.
My purpose is to shine like the sun, even when life brings me obstacles.
Sometimes I wonder about what path I should take to get there. If I continue to have faith in myself, I can accomplish anything to which I set my mind.
CONTENT WARNING: Substance abuse.
My early years were spent in D.C. in a quiet little area in Northeast called Ivy City.
We lived directly next door to the Receiving Home for Boys and my mom would constantly admonish us, “If y’all keep acting up, you’re gonna end up next door.”
My younger brother and I never ended up next door but one of my older brothers did. There were six of us kids, though four lived with their father in Northwest.
I was always an excellent student and a very active and enthusiastic church member. I always rose to leadership roles in the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and extracurricular activities at school. Little did I know my life was about to make an abrupt turnaround that would lead me into a lifestyle far removed from that quiet innocence.
My father left us when I was about 12, and my behavior and attitude changed for the worse. I began acting out at school and my behavior at home became unbearable for my mom, who had to start working outside of the house to support the family. After a while I became incorrigible. My mom sent me off to live with my older brother, who was living alone in an uptown rooming house with two older adults. His father had recently passed. At 13 years old, when my friends were still riding bicycles and playing with G.I. Joe action figures, I was about to enter into a world from which it would take me years to escape.
Life in that house was different from anything I had ever experienced. Drinking and drug use was the norm all day, every day. Rules and discipline were nonexistent. I dropped out of school but would return years later to attain a GED and one year of college.
I spent the majority of my time drinking, smoking marijuana, and hanging out in the pool room. In those days, the pool room was a 24-hour operation. My brother was a well-established pool shark and, let’s just say, a “magician” at cards and dice. For the most part, we would be able to pay our modest rent with the proceeds made hustling at the pool room. But in those times when we would come up short, my father would kick in with the needed funds.
I would spend countless hours at the pool room and the gambling joints uptown, learning the ins and outs of street life. I learned to shoot pool fairly well but never developed the needed courage and skill to manipulate the dice and cards as my brother did. I remember him spending upwards of $50 on a pair of his “magic” dice or cards. Many times he’d work his magic and we’d live high on the hog.
But I also remember one episode where his magic was, should we say, “discovered,” and he ended up in the hospital for a couple of days. The hustlers, pimps, gamblers, and prostitutes took a liking to me and were always willing to teach me more and more about survival in the hood.
When my brother was drafted around 1969 and 1970, I was forced to move in with my father. He was living in a small dilapidated rooming house off of 14th Street in Northwest. I remember clearly those nights when he would have female guests and I would have to hang out on the front porch, or sleep in the hallway when the weather was bad. After a while, he did move us into a raggedy two-bedroom row house in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Northwest, Ledroit Park. We lived on a little three-block street situated in the Howard University area adjacent to where Howard University Hospital stands. It was that neighborhood that my life devolved into a lifestyle that would prove to be toxic and devastating to me and all whose lives I touched.
I remember I had to fight the first day we moved in. I had already learned to drink, and smoke cigarettes and marijuana. Before long I moved on to harder substances. At the age of 15, I took my first shot of intravenous drugs. Heroin. I overdosed three times before I was 20 years old. I shot dope for more than 10 years and finally kicked cold turkey after four days of agony, sometimes wishing I’d just die. I never shot heroin again, but did a wide variety of other substances. Through all my years of substance abuse, alcohol was always a constant. I learned that behavior from both my parents, who drank for the majority of their lives.
Through many years of struggling to survive in a world where the streets were my mentor, my teacher and my advisor, I’ve always resorted back to my “street sense” to get me through life’s tough situations.
It’s only been through divine intervention, God’s grace and his unmerited favor, that I’ve come to understand that the ways of the street, all those ill-conceived notions, which for so long steered my life, were myths directed at keeping me away from my higher power, whom today I choose to call Jesus Christ.
I’ve learned that any life lived without the guidance and direction of our almighty Father is doomed to oblivion, pain, and suffering. Just ask me — been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
I recently got my hair done. I’m thankful for the growth. I cut my hair last year, at the end of February, and I just recently got braids. I also like the streak in my hair. I call it wisdom.
I wanted to show off my growth before spring. Rainbows are my color. I wore a yellow cardigan that has a hood — y'all, let me tell you: there will be rain in our lives, but there is also sunshine.
After sitting under the dryer, I got my hair blown out. My scalp feels really good, and I like the colors I chose for the style. It was tough because I was having a rollercoaster of emotions. I was missing when my sisters and I would pick someone to do all our hair the same day. Don't get me wrong, sometimes you need to get rest and reschedule things, or cut people off, but not most of the time.
If anyone is dealing with mental health, it is important to seek support. It’s okay, cause life is happening. It doesn't matter what people think, because opinions ain't facts, plus most are lies. What matters is that you talk to somebody who can get you in the right direction. I want to share the crisis hotline number in case you or someone you know may need it — 202-671-3070.
Some people should really try to focus on living with themselves, stay out of people's business, and stop trying to figure out what people are doing. Some people can’t live with themselves honestly. Loving yourself is so important. Can’t nobody love you like you can.
I know if a lot of people were honest, they would realize that it's okay to be on your own, if that is where you should be. Can you honestly, really deal with yourself? Think about it.
61. Bank offering, for short (abbr./initialism)
This crossword puzzle is the original work of Patrick “Mac”McIntyre. It is provided to us courtesy of Real Change News, a street paper based in Seattle, Washington. Learn more about Real Change News and the International Network of Street Papers at realchangenews.org and insp.ngo.
Bread for the City 1525 7th St., NW // 202-265-2400 1700 Marion Barry Ave., SE // 202-561-8587 breadforthecity.org
Calvary Women’s Services // 202-678-2341 1217 Marion Barry Ave., SE calvaryservices.org
Catholic Charities // 202-772-4300 catholiccharitiesdc.org/gethelp
Central Union Mission // 202-745-7118 65 Massachusetts Ave., NW missiondc.org
Charlie’s Place // 202-929-0100 1830 Connecticut Ave., NW charliesplacedc.org
Christ House // 202-328-1100 1717 Columbia Rd., NW christhouse.org
Church of the Pilgrims // 202-387-6612 2201 P St., NW (1-1:30 on Sundays only) churchofthepilgrims.org/outreach
Community Family Life Services 202-347-0511 // 305 E St., NW cflsdc.org
Community of Hope // 202-232-7356 4 Atlantic St., NW communityofhopedc.org
Covenant House Washington 202-610-9600 // 2001 Mississippi Ave., SE covenanthousedc.org
D.C. Coalition for the Homeless 202-347-8870 // 1234 Massachusetts Ave., NW dccfh.org
Father McKenna Center // 202-842-1112 19 North Capitol St., NW fathermckennacenter.org
Food and Friends // 202-269-2277 (home delivery for those suffering from HIV, cancer, etc) 219 Riggs Rd., NE foodandfriends.org
Foundry Methodist Church // 202-332-4010 1500 16th St., NW foundryumc.org/idministry
Identification services
Friendship Place // 202-364-1419 4713 Wisconsin Ave., NW friendshipplace.org
Georgetown Ministry Center // 202-338-8301 1041 Wisconsin Ave., NW georgetownministrycenter.org
Jobs Have Priority // 202-544-9096 1526 Pennslyvania Ave., SE jobshavepriority.org
Loaves & Fishes // 202-232-0900 1525 Newton St., NW loavesandfishesdc.org
Martha’s Table // 202-328-6608 marthastable.org 2375 Elvans Rd, SE
2204 Martin Luther King Ave. SE
Miriam’s Kitchen // 202-452-8926 2401 Virginia Ave., NW miriamskitchen.org
My Sister’s Place // 202-529-5991 (24-hr hotline) mysistersplacedc.org
N Street Village // 202-939-2076 1333 N St., NW nstreetvillage.org
New York Avenue Shelter // 202-832-2359 1355-57 New York Ave., NE
Patricia Handy Place for Women 202-733-5378 // 810 5th St., NW
Samaritan Inns // 202-667-8831 2523 14th St., NW samaritaninns.org
Samaritan Ministry
202-722-2280 // 1516 Hamilton St., NW 202-889-7702 // 1345 U St., SE samaritanministry.org
Sasha Bruce Youthwork // 202-675-9340 741 8th St., SE sashabruce.org
So Others Might Eat (SOME) // 202-797-8806 71 O St., NW some.org
St. Luke’s Mission Center // 202-363-4900 3655 Calvert St., NW stlukesmissioncenter.org
Thrive DC // 202-737-9311 1525 Newton St., NW thrivedc.org
Unity Health Care unityhealthcare.org
- Healthcare for the Homeless Health Center: 202-508-0500 - Community Health Centers: 202-469-4699
1500 Galen Street SE, 1251-B Saratoga Ave NE, 1660 Columbia Road NW, 4414 Benning Road NE, 3924 Minnesota Avenue NE, 765 Kenilworth Terrace NE, 850 Delaware Ave., SW, 3240 Stanton Road SE, 3020 14th Street NW, 425 2nd Street NW, 4713 Wisconsin Avenue NW, 2100 New York Avenue NE, 1333 N Street NW, 1355 New York Avenue NE, 1151 Bladensburg Rd., NE, 4515 Edson Pl., NE
Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless 1200 U St., NW // 202-328-5500 legalclinic.org
The Welcome Table // 202-347-2635 1317 G St., NW. epiphanydc.org/thewelcometable
Whitman-Walker Health 1525 14th St., NW // 202-745-7000 1201 Sycamore Dr., SE whitman-walker.org
Woodley House // 202-830-3508 2711 Connecticut Ave., NW
For further information and listings, visit our online service guide at StreetSenseMedia.org/service-guide
Sales Floor Associate
Dollar Tree // 1548 Benning Rd. NE
Full-time
Assist in the merchandising of the store, handle all sales transactions while operating assigned cash register
REQUIRED: General math skills
APPLY: tinyurl.com/dcdollartree
Beer and Wine Team Member
Wegmans // 41 Ridge Sq. NW
Part-time
Provide service to our customers, share your knowledge to suggest tastings, as well as food and beverage pairings, stock shelves and displays.
REQUIRED: 21 or older
APPLY: tinyurl.com/wegmansbeerwine
Bartender
The Cheesecake Factory // 5335 Wisconsin Ave NW
Part-time/Full-time
Provide customer service, work at a highvolume speed, know popular and lesser-known beverages.
REQUIRED: N/A
APPLY: tinyurl.com/cheesecakejobdc
DC Medicaid sends renewal info by mail. Check your mail and renew. Don’t risk losing your coverage.
3 Update your contact information and check or renew your coverage at districtdirect.dc.gov.
3 Fill out the forms anyway. Even if you’re not eligible, your kids may be.
If you have questions, call us at 202-727-5355.
It’s the day Jesus rose after he died for our sins. We always put Him first. I love looking at all the kids dressed up and looking so cute. I love the
The last Sunday of this month is Easter… That always fun day when adults hide eggs in all those rainbow colors, and children seek (and usually find) and eat them very quickly, even though they might not do that at breakfast. That activity is one of many reasons why most people love Easter!
From your vendor, Thank you for reading Street Sense!
MARCH 27 - APRIL 9, 2024 | VOLUME 21 ISSUE 10
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