06 28 2017

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Volume 14: Issue 17 June 28 - July 11, 2017

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WHAT IS NEEDED TO END HOMELESSNESS?

“The

best cure is a home.”

A CONVERSATION WITH

O CRISIS

DCHOMELESS #DCHomelessCrisis

.press

SENATOR AL FRANKEN

n June 29, we join six other D.C.-based newsrooms to change how the media covers homelessness. We will pool our resources to publish, broadcast and share stories that investigate barriers and solutions to ending this national crisis. Homelessness

is a symptom of poverty, which can be random, systematic or generational. Kojo Show listeners will hear how public outcry garnered dental benefits for poor people.

Washingtonian.com will explore one man’s years-long struggle to replace an ID. Our vendors will share their personal solutions

to homelessness on social media. And much more. Collaborative reporting takes journalism back to its roots as a public service. Together with ThinkProgress, DCist, Current Newspapers and Washington City Paper, we have put the spotlight on a crisis that demands persistent coverage. >>>

Street Sense is the street media center of our nation’s capital. We aim to serve as a vehicle for elevating voices and public debate on issues relating to poverty while also creating economic opportunities for people who are facing homelessness in our community.

ONLINE EXCLUSIVES www.StreetSense.org Follow us on Facebook and Twitter for exclusive vendor testimonials and jarring infographics all day June 29. We’ll also be sharing our partners’ work — with everything archived at DCHomelessCrisis.press

COVER ART Street Sense Artist/Vendor Ken Martin and Volunteer Rober t a Haber inter view Senator Al Franken.

PHOTOS BY BEN BURGESS/K ST PHOTOGRAPHY DESIGN BY JOHN McGLASSON PROJECT LOGO BY STEPHANIE RUDIG/CITY PAPER

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OUR STORY Street Sense began in August 2003 after Laura Thompson Osuri and Ted Henson approached the National Coalition for the Homeless on separate occasions with the idea to start a street paper in Washington, D.C. Through the work of dedicated volunteers, Street Sense published its first issue in November 2003. In 2005, Street Sense achieved 501 ( c ) 3 status as a nonprofit organization, formed a board of directors and hired a full-time executive director.

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS Jeremy Bratt, Max Gaujean, Margaret Jenny, Jennifer Park, Reed Sandridge, Dan Schwartz, Jeremy Scott, John Senn, Kate Sheppard, Annika Toenniessen, Martin Totaro EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Brian Carome EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Eric Falquero COMMUNICATIONS & SALES MANAGER Jeff Gray VENDOR PROGRAM MANAGER Mysa Elsarag EVENTS & ADMINISTRATION MANAGER Dani Gilmour CASE MANAGER Colleen Cosgriff INTERNS Maren Adler, Justine Coleman, Tom Coulter, Dorothy Hastings, Zachariah Tollison WRITERS GROUP ARTISTS IN RESIDENCE Donna Daniels, Willie Schatz OPINION EDITORS (VOLUNTEER) Rachel Brody, Arthur Delaney, Britt Peterson EDITORIAL VOLUNTEERS Justin Benedict, Lenika Cruz, Roberta Haber, Jesse Helfrich, John McGlasson III, Laura Osuri, Andrew Siddons, Jackie Thompson, Marian Wiseman VENDORS Shuhratjon Ahamadjonov, Gerald Anderson, Charles Armstrong, Lawrence Autry, Daniel Ball, Aida Basnight, Phillip Black, Reginald Black, Melanie Black, Phillip Black Jr., Maryann Blackmon, Viktor Blokhine, Debora Brantley, Andre Brinson, Donald Brown, Joan Bryant, Elizabeth Bryant, Brianna Butler, Melody Byrd, Conrad Cheek, Aaron Colbert, Anthony Crawford, Walter Crawley, Kwayera Dakari, James Davis, Clifton Davis, Charles Davis, David Denny, Reginald Denny, James DeVaughn, Ricardo Dickerson, Dennis Diggs, Alvin Dixon-El, Ronald Dudley, Charles Eatmon, Deana Elder, Julie Ellis, Jemel Fleming, Chon Gotti, Marcus Green, Barron Hall, Tyrone Hall, Richard Hart Lorrie Hayes, Patricia Henry, Jerry Hickerson, Ray Hicks, Sol Hicks, Rachel Higdon, Ibn Hipps, Leonard Hyater, Joseph Jackson, Carlton Johnson, Donald Johnson, Harold Johnson, Allen Jones, Mark Jones, Morgan Jones, Linda Jones, Darlesha Joyner, Juliene Kengnie, Kathlene Kilpatrick, Hope Lassiter, John Littlejohn, James Lott, Scott Lovell, Michael Lyons, Jimmy M. Ken Martin, Joseph Martin, Kina Mathis, Michael Lee Matthew, Authertimer Matthews, Charlie Mayfield, Jermale McKnight, Jeffery McNeil, Ricardo Meriedy, Cynthia Mewborn, Kenneth Middleton, Cecil More, L. Morrow, Evelyn Nnam, Moyo Onibuje, Earl Parkin, Jacquelyn Portee, Lucifer Potter, Ash-Shaheed Rabil, Henrieese Roberts, Anthony Robinson, Doris Robinson, Raquel Rodriquez, Lawrence Rogers, Joseph Sam, Chris Shaw, Patty Smith, Smith Smith, Gwynette Smith, Ronald Smoot, Franklin Sterling, Warren Stevens James Stewart, Beverly Sutton, Sybil Taylor, Archie Thomas, Shernell Thomas, Craig Thompson, Eric ThompsonBey, Sarah Turley-Colin, Carl Turner, Jacqueline Turner, Leon Valentine, Grayla Vereen, Ron Verquer, Martin Walker, Michael Warner, Robert Warren, Angelyn Whitehurst, William Whitsett, Wendell Williams, Sasha Williams, Judson Williams III, Ivory Wilson, Denise Wilson, Charles Woods

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STREET SENSE June 28 - July 11, 2017

Advocates Dissatisfied With Proposed NEWS Amendment to Govern Homeless Community

By Justine Coleman justine.coleman@streetsense.org

H

omeless residents and community advocates voiced concerns at a June 14 Committee on Human Services hearing that Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed amendment to improve housing services would instead limit access to shelters and housing.

After 11 months and more than 20 meetings between D.C. departments, local advocates and people experiencing homeless, Bowser proposed amending the Homeless Services Reform Act of 2005 to align D.C. law with federal policy and to modernize the bill.

During the committee hearing, Kristy Greenwalt, the director of the D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness, and Laura Zeilinger, the director of the D.C. Department of Human Services, cautioned committee members and advocates that limitations for services are necessary to ensure that resources remain to help people entering the system.

“When the HSRA was originally drafted, our response to homelessness was focused on shelter," Greenwalt said at the hearing.

"Today our focus is on helping people exit homelessness to permanent housing as quickly as possible.”

One contentious change would increase the number of documents individuals and families must provide to prove their residency from one to two. People applying for shelter must demonstrate D.C. residency within three days of accessing services. DHS has found that people coming into shelters are using the three-day period to become a District resident, according to Zeilinger. She reassured that, under the amendment, if the person seeking shelter has qualified to receive other benefits in D.C., such as food stamps or Medicaid, the department would be able to confirm they are a resident by checking those records.

“We’re not just trying to keep people out. I want to be clear about that,” Zeilinger said during the hearing. “What we’re trying to do is just implement what was the intention of the council and create an expectation that we’re prioritizing services for District residents."

The Department of Human Services did not return requests for additional comment.

The amendment would also change when some are considered homeless. If passed, to qualify for shelter, people would need to present “clear and convincing evidence” that they cannot return to any other safe housing. Individuals or families looking for shelters to escape domestic violence, sexual assault or human trafficking would be exempt.

Amber Harding, an attorney at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, testifies at the committee hearing, expressing her concerns about the amendment’s requirement for families to present evidence they cannot return to previous housing to enter shelter. PHOTO BY JUSTINE COLEMAN Amber Harding, an attorney at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, said that most of the changes could greatly limit who is eligible for housing and services, especially since some families may not have access to evidence required to demonstrate they do not have other housing. She added that she is most concerned about the power the amendment would give to the mayor to terminate a family’s eligibility for services.

“I find it honestly a little hard to imagine anyone would pretend to be homeless to live in our shelter system considering what our shelter system’s like,” Harding said.

The Washington Legal Clinic for Homelessness hosted a session before the hearing to teach members and representatives of the homeless community about the changes the amendment would make and to help those willing to speak at the hearing with their testimonies.

Throughout the hearing, members of the homeless community and advocates praised

some parts of the amendment, including the addition of client rights for those living in permanent supportive housing, more available positions on the Interagency Council on Homelessness, and attempting to define a process to exit programs.

Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, the chair of the committee, told Street Sense that she anticipates more changes will be made to the legislation. She will be reviewing testimony submitted through June 28 to determine what will be adjusted. A markup date to adjust the amendment has not been set, Thomas Fazzini, Nadeau's deputy chief of staff and communications director, said in an email.

“My goal is to move carefully and thoughtfully so that we can have a bill that best reflects not only the intent of the mayor, but also the concerns of the advocacy community and the practitioners and the people that are being served by the legislation,” Nadeau said in an interview.

Some of the community members struggling with housing said the new

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amendment disregarded many problems they felt should be addressed.

Robert Warren, executive director of the People’s for Fairness Coalition, said the amendment failed to acknowledge many of the issues that the community has pushed for like extending shelter hours and adding case managers.

“The changes I’ve seen were based to benefit service providers,” he said.

“There wasn’t really anything in there that was really beneficial to the client.”

Greenwalt added during the hearing that the DHS and ICH are addressing shelter conditions and case management problems separately from the amendment.

Several public witnesses testified about their involvement in the rapid rehousing program, including frustrations about being unable to work and with the housing conditions, and requested the program be revamped.

The amendment defines rapid rehousing as a permanent housing program because the housing is considered permanent, Greenwalt testified.

Zeilinger testified that 86 percent of families do not have another episode of homelessness after the rapid rehousing program, but the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless published a study in May that states two out of five families are able to maintain housing on their own.

Nisa Harper, a mother of four, testified at the hearing about living in the rapid rehousing program for more than two years. Harper said in an interview that she has dealt with flooding, rodents and roaches in her apartment. She said currently she is unable to take a job because of the housing issues in addition to a lack of childcare.

“You can’t tell me it’s working,” she said. “I’m in it.” ■

D.C. Evicts Tent Community Under NoMa Metro Bridge

By Maren Adler, maren.adler@streetsense.org

The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services issued another homeless encampment teardown.

City officials were set to arrive at the NoMa encampment under the 2nd Street Metro bridge at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, June 20. Department of Human Services, Department of Behavioral Health, and community outreach workers from local non-profit Pathways to Housing arrived as scheduled, along with sanitation workers and dumpsters.

Several city ordinances were posted on lampposts under the bridge. In accordance with the city protocol, the ordinances were dated June 6, two weeks before the cleanup. Kristy Greenwalt, Director of the D.C. Intercommunity Council on Homelessness, along with a few other government officials were present to watch the eviction. Greenwalt defended the necessity of the clean-up of this particular encampment, stating that pitched tents on the sidewalk force pedestrians to walk in the street.

Greenwalt also said, “we are one of three cities with a legal right to shelter. We want folks to go inside.”

Greenwalt said there are “active conversations” going on about alternatives to cleanups. She mentioned having shelters provide more necessities to incentivize people to go inside. Despite the presence of shelter and housing outreach at the cleanup, no one chose to go to shelter.

Outreach workers knocked on tent fronts to let tenants know they were officially being moved. The clean-up was well attended by the press. In addition to Street Sense, news outlets with reporters in attendance included two television networks and the Washington Post. Many eyes watched as city officials threw away the possessions of the tent dwellers. Some eyes were more welcome than others; a cyclist passing under the bridge pulled out his phone to snap a picture and was met with jeers from those tent dwellers.

Quick work was made of the cleanup; by 10:30 the

majority of tents had been taken down. Many of those evicted from the area around the 2nd Street bridge picked up and moved to a new encampment three blocks away in front of an empty building in the vicinity of M, N and 3rd Streets Northeast.

On the next day, June 21, a representative of NoMa Business Improvement District, a police officer, and the owner of the vacant building arrived to inform those who had moved to the new encampment that they were required to be gone by 9 am the following day or the police would force them out, according to homeless advocate Eric Sheptock. Because the campers were on private property, DMHHS does not require two weeks’ notice. Sheptock and others have speculated that NoMa BID asked the building owner to file the complaint that allowed the police to come in. The building is vacant and has had a raze notice posted since August 2015. The neighboring building is also vacant; the campers were not interfering with business.

By 9 a.m. the next morning, many of the tents that had been pitched at the 3rd Street building had been taken down and moved by their owners. After the 9 a.m. cleanup on 3rd

street, the cleanup crew went to the 2nd Street bridge to re-sweep the area. This second clean-up was not attended by government officials or by press other than Street Sense.

The wording of the ordinances posted around encampments has been updated to include a new feature in the tent removal protocol, the “re-cleaning clause,” which states that the government may return at any time in the two weeks following the initial cleanup without giving notice. After those two weeks, the cycle starts over and the city must post another ordinance giving two weeks’ notice.

The impetus for these recent evictions may be the expanding footprint of gentrification in Northeast Washington. A block from the 2nd Street bridge is a new REI, where expensive camping gear is sold. The building on 3rd Street is set to be replaced by a boutique hotel.

Sheptock says that residents are left feeling more chased around than helped. He calls the encampment eviction cycle a “cat and mouse” game, a way to keep the homeless out of sight rather than addressing the underlying causes of chronic homelessness or providing permanent solutions. ■

District Government Responds to First Heat Emergency of 2017

By Maren Adler, maren.adler@streetsense.org The D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency declared the first heat emergency of 2017 on Tuesday, June 13 , followed by two more later in the week. The heat index climbed as high as 97 degrees and stayed there for nearly 10 hours. During that time, the HSEMA 2017 Heat Emergency Plan was fully operational.

The plan is activated when the air temperature or heat index reaches 95 degrees. HSEMA uses a variety of strategies to communicate the plan with the public.

Notifications from AlertDC reach more than 165,000 subscribers via email or text message. AlertDC notifications include the National Weather Service forecast and heat index temperature, information on heat safety, and information about the D.C. heat website and the hyperthermia hotline.

The heat-specific website heat.dc.gov contains a list and maps of cooling centers, shares information on heat related health issues, and promotes the hyperthermia hotline. HSEMA Twitter and Facebook pages are used to announce the activation of a heat emergency and promote the hyperthermia hotline. HSEMA and DHS coordinate a press release with the Mayor’s office to share alert activation and general public safety tips about heat, impacts to city services, cooling center

information, the hyperthermia hotline number and heat.dc.gov.

The plan lists several suggestions for individuals to stay cool and safe, including government-designated cooling centers. The buildings that typically serve as cooling centers are libraries, government buildings, and community centers. These air-conditioned locations open to the public during extreme heat were far more prepared for the heat wave than they were last year. As reported previously by Street Sense, several of the cooling centers listed in the 2016 Heat Emergency Plan were unaware of what that responsibility entailed when called during a heat emergency last year.

Communication with the homeless community about heat response procedures often does not begin until an emergency has already been declared.

At that time, four United Planning Organization vans canvas the streets to offer transportation to cooling centers.

Despite this improvement in service, many members of the homeless community are still unaware of the resources available to them. Employees of each of seven the cooling centers catering to people experiencing homelessness reported little to no usage. “That’s good

to know,” Joe Malual said when told about the existence of cooling centers.

“We need places to go when it gets hot.”

Malual was waiting to access services at Miriam’s Kitchen in Foggy Bottom.

Awareness and access to cooling centers is vital. People experiencing homelessness are more vulnerable to heat-related physical illness than the general population due to increased time spent outside in urban areas.

Furthermore, oppressive heat can exacerbate symptoms of mental illness and interact negatively with antipsychotic medications to accelerate the progression of heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

The heat-trapping nature of concrete and asphalt-laden metropolitan areas, in combination with climate change, puts most major cities in the position of needing heat emergency plans.

For the most part, D.C. is in line with the national status quo for homeless outreach during a heat emergency. Local officials from Denver, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles reported outreach efforts almost identical to those here in the District, including cooling centers, and outreach teams which canvas the streets on hot days with water and sunscreen.

San Francisco lists an activation

temperature for their Homeless Outreach Team that is five degrees cooler than the city-wide heat emergency threshold. When temperatures are low enough that a heat emergency is not declared by the city but high enough to be potentially dangerous, the HOT plan is activated and small teams of outreach workers check in on their clients more frequently, trying to keep them cool and comfortable with water and the option of transportation to cooling centers.

In addition to homeless outreach teams that are dispatched during heat emergencies, New York City uses an advance warning system to alert nearly 2000 organizations of emergencies that could interfere with the daily lives and independence of people with disabilities or access and functional needs. Participating agencies receive information designed for use by individuals with special needs.

The HSEMA Heat Emergency Plan lists homeless people as a “vulnerable population.” The plan provides resource but struggles to connect them to those in need. San Francisco and New York City’s heat responses do not rely on media consumption of vulnerable populations to communicate resources, nor do they wait for the declaration of an emergency to open channels of communication. ■

STREET SENSE June 28 - July 11, 2017

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NEWS Diversion Program Keeps Youth Out of Justice System, Lowers Risk of Future Homelessness

CInquetta Williams and her son, Elijah Payne.

By Tom Coulter tom.coulter@streetsense.org

E

lijah Payne says June 24 was the best day of his life.

On that Saturday, he graduated from the Capital Guardian Youth Challenge Academy, a highly structured, quasimilitary program for at-risk youth. The 16-year-old entered the academy after years of poor school attendance and impulsive behavior.

While the first few weeks were tough, Payne said part of him didn’t want to come home by graduation. Throughout his time in the academy, his mindset and behavior improved. His mother, Cinquetta Williams, said he’s become more affectionate, often coming by the house just to give her a hug.

“He always knew he wanted more for himself,” she said. “He got so far gone, he didn’t know how to reel himself back in.”

The opportunity to do so came when a social worker contacted Williams last year and offered her son a spot in the city’s Alternative to the Court Experience Diversion Program, which gives young people options to avoid arrest. Payne was referred to the program because of excessive school absences.

“At first I didn’t want to comply,” he said. “But then instead of trying to run from it, I figured I might as well go ahead and do it.”

Eventually, his case workers convinced him to undergo a mental health evaluation, which helped him address some underlying trauma from having witnessed his friends die. However, he still wasn’t meeting the program’s requirements, prompting his

PHOTO BY TOM COULTER

case workers to suggest enrollment in the CGYC Academy.

The school prepares students for the GED test, which is equivalent to a highschool degree. On his first try, Payne barely missed the required score, but he plans to keep studying to pass the test.

While Payne hasn’t officially gotten his diploma yet, the graduation day was a moment of immense pride for him, his mom and their family.

“I didn’t have enough tissues,” Williams said.

Payne isn’t certain about his future, but he has considered joining the Navy. For the next few months, he is taking an automechanic class. Without the ACE program, Payne knows he would have continued on a dangerous path.

“I already know where I’d be — most likely in jail,” he said.

The ACE program matches 10-to-17year-olds with activities ranging from mentoring to after-school sports that address their individual needs. By completing the program, youth like Payne can avoid formal arrest while decreasing their risk of future homelessness.

Bridging the Gap ACE was created in 2014 when Hilary Cairns, deputy administrator for the Department of Human Services, recognized a disconnect between youth in need and available behavioral health services.

Before then, D.C. lacked options to divert young people from the court system.

Three years later, more than 1,500 young people have been referred to the diversion program, which includes DHS,

the Department of Behavioral Health and several juvenile justice entities.

In May, the city released its first strategic plan to end youth homelessness, which lists expansion of ACE as a key strategy and calls it “an evidence-informed and highly successful program.”

The program is largely measured by how youth fare after completing it.

Since taking office in 2015, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine has pushed to give DHS more access to recidivism data, which shows 81 percent of the program’s youth have not been rearrested.

Given the program’s evident success, Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Council have increased funding for it each year. The city budget for fiscal year 2018 provides an additional 13 ACE staff members. Cairns said the increase in staff needs to coincide with the program becoming accessible to more youth.

“The issue is trying to give more young people the opportunity to participate in diversion as opposed to participating in court and the things that we know are ultimately linked with homelessness,” she said.

From Prison to the Streets The link between the juvenile justice system and homelessness is partially due to the difficulties youth face after their release from prison. Amy Louttit, a public policy associate for the National Network for Youth, said reentry plans for young people are often nonexistent or insufficient.

“It’s all well and good to make sure they have a roof over their heads, but without the support of services to aid that transition, we’ve seen huge failures,” she said.

Louttit said greater collaboration between ACE and homeless youth organizations such as Sasha Bruce will allow the city to have more success with its plan. A closer relationship between law enforcement and runaway youth programs would also allow city officials to address a pervasive problem: chronic absences from school.

“Programs like ACE can be really useful at digging a little deeper and seeing why those truancy issues are occurring,” she said. “They really help, especially if the young person is experiencing homelessness.”

Forty-one percent of diverted youth were also criminally absent from school, according to DHS data. While ACE prioritizes delinquency cases, such as vandalism or shoplifting, the staff also helps youth with truancy charges when resources are available.

Seema Gajwani, who works on juvenile

justice reform in the Office of the Attorney General, said the city has yet to develop a successful method to reduce the number of kids who are truant.

“There’s no evidence that shows prosecuting a young person for not going to school makes them go to school even more,” Gajwani said.

She pointed to resources offered by ACE, such as family-focused therapy, as effective solutions to problems associated with truancy and homelessness.

A Bright Future Cairns said youth whose crimes are as miniscule as not paying a Metro fare often end up having the greatest needs.

Meanwhile, some youth in the program have supportive families and don’t require much attention during their six months of participation.

Young people express stress and trauma in different ways, but they can only enter the ACE program through referrals from the OAG, Metropolitan Police Department and Court Social Services, making it difficult to help those who aren’t in the justice system.

Gajwani said strengthening the relationship between ACE and schools would allow more youth to receive the help they need.

“This kind of evidence-based, highquality intervention to support children and families should not be reserved only for children who end up in the justice system,” she said. “It should be for families and children who need that support in their schools.”

Cairns said the suggestion resembles an existing DHS program, Parent and Adolescent Support Services, that matches young people with resources similar to those in ACE. The city’s new youth plan recommends developing the PASS program.

“I think it’s just an expansion of opportunities for young people outside of the delinquency system, whether they can come in voluntarily by a parent or school referral versus a youth having actually touched the delinquency system.” Cairns said. “There are different ways of getting to us.”

Gajwani agreed, but she said the programs should have a more institutional and visible role in public schools with high truancy rates. With many distressed kids still not receiving help, Cairns is open to ideas about how to use the new ACE staff members.

“The ultimate goal is keeping young people out of the delinquency system whatever way we can do that,” she said.” ■

‘Housing Not Handcuffs’ Forum Brings Together Legal Professionals, Advocates in D.C.

Community Envisions a Right to Housing

By Reginald Black Artist/Vendor A group of advocates met in May to discuss what a campaign for a right to housing in D.C. would look like.

Attendees went over several definitions and discussed what is needed for the community to produce housing that is realistically affordable for low-income individuals and families.

Some of the voices in the room said that one-third of the rental units in the city should be regulated as “universal” and geared to accept any person, regardless of income or background.

Group members called for avoiding n e gle ct f u l l a n d l o rd s a n d p r o p e r t y managers. They said quality maintenance of existing units would be less expensive than developing new units and would show dignity and respect to tenants.

They theorized about the application of low-income tax credits to support public housing and said the newly-approved fiscal year 2018 budget did not do enough to prioritize housing and support the level of development and repairs needed to house low-income residents. All agreed that the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act should be made applicable to public housing units.

One guest featured at the meeting was Commissioner Bill Slover of the D.C. Housing Authority. He shared his experience with different housing projects and attempted to address concerns from public housing residents regarding the Barry Farm Neighborhood, where redevelopment is planned.

“Everything is feasible,” Slover said in response to attendees’ ideas. “But one voice can’t move the machine.”

He also said that the public housing project conversions into mixed-income developments looks good on paper, but is often different on site. His biggest concern right now is the loss of public housing.

Slover suggested that advocates could lobby for redeveloped locations to be managed by the Housing Authority, as a way to hold DCHA accountable for ensuring current residents’ continued access to housing. “People think the only way to redevelop somewhere like Green Leaf is to make it private,” Slover said.

He added that mixed income developments are designed to funnel profits from market rate deals back into public housing funds.

There is great concern around the treatment and fate of public housing residents in the District. Even lawyers like Patricia Mullahy Fugere, executive director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, are offering their assistance.

“Allow me to build a paper trail” she said the meeting attendees. “If there are things that are a concern let’s put them on paper and get the board to enact them.” ■

By Amelia Ferrell Knisely The Contributor — Nashville, TN

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c r o s s t h e c o u n t r y, p e o p l e experiencing homelessness are subject to arrest for sitting, sleeping and eating outside, despite the lack of other options. An arrest could mean that individuals experiencing homelessness are taken to jail, where they remain until they can pay fines, and are subject to loss of property or employment.

The criminalization of homelessness is on the rise, as documented by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty in its “Housing Not Handcuffs” report. The issue, plus the fight for adequate affordable housing, brought together more than 150 legal professionals and advocates at “Housing Not Handcuffs: The National Forum on the Human Right to Housing” June 6-7 in Washington, D.C. The event was hosted by Sidley Austin LLP. The NLCHP, based in D.C., has hosted the forum since 2003. Over the past few years, the event's focus has been the criminalization of homelessness.

“It’s very important to bring people together working at different levels of government in different parts of the country on similar issues,” said NLCHP Executive Director Maria Foscarinis. “If we come together, we can learn from each other. We can also become a more powerful force for change and that’s the idea.”

The two-day forum included educational sessions that touched on preventing homelessness by strengthening housing protections, modeling policies to address the criminalization of homelessness and the current coverage of homelessness and poverty by the media.

Keynote speakers included Catherine Lhamon, chair of the U.S.

Commission on Civil Rights, and Peter Edelman, professor of law at Georgetown Law Center and author of So Rich, So Poor: Why It’s So Hard to End Poverty in America.

Many speakers touched on how Pr e s i d e n t D o n a l d Tr u m p a n d H U D Secretary Ben Carson have threatened the gains that have already been made in homelessness and housing policies.

While many advocates agreed Trump's proposed budget, which calls for a 14 percent decrease in HUD funding, is “dead on arrival” on The Hill, they find the neglect of current affordable housing needs troubling.

“I think the Trump administration is a huge threat right now. If those cuts are accepted, or even a watered down version of them is accepted, then homelessness is going to increase dramatically,” Foscarinis said.

In her opening remarks, Foscarinis said NLCHP is “increasingly looking at the state and local levels” to implement its Housing Not Handcuffs campaign, which calls for stopping the criminalization of homelessness, eliminating unjust evictions and increasing access to affordable housing. One panel at the forum celebrated successes in cities across the country that embody Housing Not Handcuffs principles.

D o n S a w y e r, a f i l m m a k e r f r o m Indianapolis with A Bigger Vision, shared how Indianapolis’ city council passed a landmark “Homeless Bill of Rights” following h i s 2 0 1 6 d o c u m e n t a r y, Under The Bridge: The Criminalization of Homelessness. The film, available on Amazon Prime, gives an unfiltered glimpse into homeless life in Indianapolis as a tent city is being torn apart.

Sawyer said, “What motivates us is that the general public has no idea.

The two

most common comments we get when people see our film is that ‘I had no idea,’ and two, ‘What can I do to help?’ If we can be a tool that everybody here can use to educate their communities and make everybody’s life a lot easier, then that motivates us.”

The NLCHP provided legal and legislative advice to Sawyer as Indianapolis’ city council was responding to the film’s portrayal of the criminalization of homelessness.

Indianapolis’ mayor ultimately vetoed the “bill of rights,” which would have outlawed discrimination against homeless people when they attempt to access city services.

Sawyer said the forum is a great reminder that advocates and professionals are not siloed in their work at ending homelessness.

“Sometimes you feel hopeless, you feel like it’s never ending. But when you get to a place like this and you see that everyone is working on this, it’s almost like a community itself. It’s great to come here and be able to get progress reports.”

Forum attendees also included people who are currently experiencing homelessness, or have experienced it in the past.

“It’s very important to us that people who’ve experienced homelessness are at the table and play a key role,” Foscarinis said. “That actually is a human rights principle — people who are directly affected have to play a key in advocacy and devising solutions.”

Bonnie Lane is formerly homeless and now advocates in Baltimore for people living on the streets. She said she’s leaving the conference “a little more fired up.”

“It is my passion. (Advocacy) is very necessary; without housing it’s hard to do anything else. I don’t see the government doing it, and I don’t think our government is ever going to solve it,” Lane said.

Earlier this year, the NLCHP reported that the majority of lawsuits filed to challenge the criminalization of homelessness had been successful in court.

The Housing Not Handcuffs report and its companion piece, a litigation manual, are available at www.nlchp.org. ■ Photos by Artist/Vendor Henrieese Article shared courtesy of insp.ngo Roberts. More to see on StreetSense.org

STREET SENSE June 28 - July 11, 2017

7

Council Cuts Already Underfunded NEWS Emergency Rental Assistance by $2 Million

By Dorothy Hastings dorothy.hastings@streetsense.org

T

he final vote on the District’s Fiscal Year 2018 budget cut funds for the Emergency Rental Assistance Program by $2 million — a 21 percent reduction from Fiscal Year 2017. This is $750,000 less than the cut proposed by Mayor Bowser, but ERAP’s insufficient funding has been an issue since the program started in 2007. Although the city council has approved more funding for the Homelessness Prevention Rapid Rehousing Program that began in 2015, this should not be seen as an alternative to emergency rental assistance, according to Max Tipping of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless.

ERAP is funded by the Department of Human Services to aid low-income and homeless individuals and families in emergency housing situations. The program will pay up to $4,250 for five months of overdue rent and up to $900 for a security deposit or first month’s rent on a new unit. ERAP will only provide the money if the client has a payment plan in place to cover the rest of the security deposit or the rent. Assistance to an individual or family can be provided only once in a 12-month period.

ERAP Provider

FY2016 Annual Funding

The Community Partnership

$2,468,000

Housing Counseling Services

$2,354,666

Catholic Charities

$2,111,666

Salvation Army

$1,611,666

G W U r b a n $620,000 League United $620,000 Planning Org. According to Dora Taylor-Lowe of the Department of Human Services, DHS is looking into revising ERAP’s regulations to allow more funding to be given to each applicant, but this would require a change in the current legislation. During FY2016, two of the six ERAP providers could not sustain funding and ran out two months early. DHS also stated that from FY 2011

to FY2016, ERAP received a total of 24,990 applications and of that, 15,7171 were approved.

A few hundred people call The Salvation Army each month requesting ER A P, a c c or d in g to JaNe s e Simon , program manager for the organization’s Emergency Assistance and Homeless Outreach Program. However, each of the organization’s two locations that offer emergency assistance has only one case manager who sees 30 to 40 clients per month. The Salvation Army is one of the six non-profit agencies that receives an annual grant from the DHS each October, and is usually spent by the following September, according to Simon.

When funds run out, each ERAP agency can call other nonprofits and churches, and can occasionally use a limited amount of internal funding to help the client. If those funds are not available, or there are simply too many people in need, the client must apply for additional rental assistance elsewhere.

Similarly, Tomeka Seaborn, program manager at the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center, one of the largest ERAP providers under The Community Pa r t n e r s h i p f o r t h e Pr e v e n t i o n o f Homelessness, says that out of the 120 to 140 callers per month, 80 percent get approved for ERAP. There are two case managers to work with each ERAP client.

For those eligible that cannot get the funding from ERAP, Community Partnership can refer a client to any of the four nonprofits who offer emergency assistance under the Department of Housing and Community Development’s Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing program.

ERAP clients face the difficulty of finding payment for what these agencies cannot cover. If the client needs more than the $900 ERAP can provide to cover a security deposit or first month’s rent, then the client must come up with the rest of the money on their own. If within 60 days they cannot come up with the funds or their request for a payment plan is denied by their landlord, then they receive no funding and ERAP closes the case.

There has not been an increase in the amount of funds an ERAP provider is allowed to provide to a client since the program’s birth in 2007, despite an overall increase in rent. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the fair market rent for a 1-bedroom apartment in D.C. is $1,513 and $1,746 for a 2-bedroom.

Assuming one is spending no more than 30 percent of their income on rent, annual income needed to afford the fair market rent for one-bedroom and 2-bedroom apartments would be $60,520 a year and $69,840 a year respectively.

“That amount of money is not enough to help people who have housing subsidies, who are very low-income, who don’t have the means to get the money to pay for that,” said an official at Legal Aid Society of D.C. about ERAP’s $900 limit.

“Clients who have vouchers, are disabled and are not working, do not have the time or the extra income.”

Sasha Williams, a Street Sense vendor, has been trying to secure a home in a safe neighborhood since she left D.C. General family shelter in 2015. In April, she found an available 2-bedroom unit in Northeast for her, her 4-year-old daughter and her baby due in September. Like many in need of rental emergency assistance, Williams has been working within the time frame of the housing choice voucher, which expires every couple of months.

Catholic Charities, one of the six ERAP providers, covered the security deposit for her new apartment. However, ERAP would not cover the $75 application fee or the $600 convenience fee so she had to receive additional assistance from a church. While Williams waits for the D.C. Housing Authority to inspect the unit and for her housing assistance application to be approved, there is still a possibility the unit she found can be rented to someone else, which would mean starting the process over again.

“It can get frustrating and depressing going through all this red tape,” Williams said, referring to the various additional fees renting an apartment can come with. “It’s confusing. I don’t know if I’m being turned down, discriminated against, I don’t know the whole process.

Communication needs to be better. People just deserve to have housing.”

D . C . H o u s i n g A u t h o r i t y, E R A P Providers, and landlords seem to make it exceptionally hard for homeless and at-risk individuals and families to receive

“People just deserve to have housing.”

—Sasha Williams, ERAP Client housing. Many of these individuals cannot afford to wait a month or two months for rental assistance just to have their case ultimately dropped. At-risk and homeless families cannot afford to pay refundable and nonrefundable fees such as “reservation fees,” “convenience fees,” or even expensive application fees that ERAP does not cover.

Ken Martin, another Street Sense vendor who has been homeless off and on since 2009, found a 1-bedroom

apartment in Adams Morgan in early May. Martin had spent 14 years on the D.C. Housing Authority’s Section Eight housing voucher waitlist. Despite his history of three heart attacks and seven heartrelated surgeries, Martin said the housing authority continued to neglect assisting him in finding a place to live and his DCHA housing navigator never reached out to him.

“All these people were working to have me housed by Father’s Day to spend the day with my kids and it didn’t happen,” Martin said. “My housing navigator was not held accountable for not doing their job...some helping professionals just are not concerned that people are dying.”

While he waited, he lived in a friend’s basement paying rent and storage fees.

Martin went through the ERAP provider Housing Counseling Services, who agreed to cover $900 security deposit if the rest of the deposit, $1,798 could be provided through another agency. The $45 application fee and $100 reservation fee were not covered by ERAP and had to be provided by Martin.

In cutting funds for ERAP, the city is losing a unique service that cannot be provided through the Homeless Prevention Rapid Rehousing Program on its own. HPRP offers rental assistance only to those who are at or below 50 percent of the average median income and can prove they are “literally homeless” or will be homeless without immediate assistance. The four nonprofits mostly provide financial and counseling assistance to those already evicted, living in shelters, or living on the streets, according to Tipping. It is a successful program in moving people out of shelters and motels and into permanent housing. ERAP can help in preventative measures, specifically in payment of back rent for up to four months. In special cases for households with seven or more children or for a person with a disability, an ERAP provider can pay up to $6,000 in overdue rent. “[HPRP is] not catching people in eviction court, most are already homeless,” said Tipping. “ERAP keeps people in their homes. The solution is not to remove money from that program. It is a highly effective means of making sure people don’t lose housing.”

A core component to Mayor Bowser’s vision to end homelessness in D.C. by 2020 is that “better coordination of mainstream anti-poverty programs is critical to create a stronger safety net and to prevent individuals and families from losing their housing in the first place.”

However, further cuts to emergency rental assistance leave people at risk of becoming homeless with few options. ■

A conversation with Senator Al Franken

By Ken Martin and Roberta Haber Photography by Benjamin Burgess

S

treet Sense Vendor Ken Martin took advantage of a chance meeting with Senator Al Franken to arrange an interview. Franken was getting out of his car and Martin was nearby, doing what he normally does when he sells the paper. Remembering Franken’s questions during the confirmation hearings for Jeff Sessions and Betsy DeVos, Martin greeted the Senator and told him what a great job he was doing.

“I never went into much detail about my opinion of him as a comedian — just as a senator,” Martin said. “He responded very humbly and kind of matter-of-factly. He said thank you and asked me how I was and how things were going with me. He didn’t say anything especially statesman-like and I didn’t elaborate on my own situation. I knew he was a man on a mission [to pick up his dry cleaning]. I gave him a paper and told him I had interviewed John Lewis.

I dug out a copy of that slightly old issue while Senator Franken was in the store and gave it to him on his way out. I said something to the effect of, ‘We got John Lewis, you might want to consider being a follow-up.’ He said he’d think about it.

It took a couple more encounters on the street, but he eventually gave me his scheduler’s phone number.”

On June 15, after signing a copy of “Al Franken: Giant of the Senate,” the senator sat down at the Hart Senate Office Building with Ken Martin for a formal interview and some laughter: Street Sense: Is there an aspect of D.C. that says “home” to you?

Al Franken: I just moved to Tenleytown 6 or 7 months ago. We moved from Capitol Hill, where my wife and I had been for about 7 years. We’re now two blocks from my daughter and her husband and two of our grandchildren. We bought kind of a nondescript apartment that doesn’t feel like home yet. — but their home does. It’s a big help for my daughter and her husband.

My wife loves it and I love it, too, if I get over there. I’ve been over there twice this week and get to see my grandchildren.

I often run into you while I’m in Tenleytown, a fairly wealthy area. And my colleague once saw you sitting on a bench in Franklin Park, talking with a man who appeared homeless. Do you do this often? What do you talk about?

Franken: I don’t think I do it terribly often.

I might talk about the person’s circumstances or I might not. I just talk about whatever he or she wants to talk about. I don’t want to be intrusive. I just talk about whatever happens to come up, such as whether they enjoy the park or spend a lot of time there. I don’t really have an agenda when I do that.

I feel comfortable with pretty much anybody.

What do you think is key to ending homelessness in the U.S.?

Franken: I think there are a lot of keys. I’m a big champion of cradle to career models of education. Jeffrey Canada of The Harlem Children’s Zone has a good approach. They have a Baby Academy where parents learn how to be parents. It starts very early. You have to attack it in different ways.

One, you need housing. The best cure for homelessness is a home. There are a lot of homeless people in America who have one difficulty or another, whether it be mental illness or whether it be addiction or a criminal record or whatever.

We have a thing we do in Hennepin County where I’m from, in Minneapolis. The county Medicaid system has changed because of the Affordable Care Act and they use some of that Affordable Care Act money to get people housing. If you get housing for someone who, say, has an addiction or a mental health issue, then they won’t get arrested, and they won’t end up in the emergency room. Those outcomes are very expensive for the county, especially the hospital and the jail.

Instead, if they are in a home and you can get them wraparound services — including a navigator to help because sometimes all this stuff is very complicated to qualify for and there’s a lot of bureaucracy — you can also get them either some kind of treatment and job training. That’s something that can actually save the county money.

Right now I’m trying to do something with Tom Tillis, a senator from North Carolina, a Republican. Our staffs have gotten together to try to find ways to continue with pilot

programs like that, so we can find a model that is proven to work. I think providing a home does a number of things. One, emergency rooms don’t get tied up. Jails don’t get tied up. But also, more importantly, it improves people’s lives.

It starts with the premise that the best cure for homelessness is a home. You get someone housing and their life becomes much, much, immediately better in terms of the ability to know where you’re going to be and to be able to buy food and all that stuff.

Compared to what you’ve seen in D.C., what does poverty look like for your constituency?

Franken: I haven’t done a comparative analysis but I would imagine there are some of the same factors. In Minneapolis, we have a lot of American Indians in urban settings, so demographically it’s a little different. What’s interesting is that in Indian country, that’s on reservations, there are no homeless shelters and essentially what people do is just go live with somebody else. That’s not always the best thing for the kids because the kids could become exposed to different traumas.

Earlier, I was saying that the Promise Neighborhood model that Jeffrey Canada put together is a good thing. It includes not just Baby Academies but also social workers who work with the family, starting when the kid is zero, and home visits, and making sure that those kids aren’t exposed to situations or conditions that create trauma.

There are a lot of studies about the effects of trauma in childhood, early childhood. The term is “adverse childhood

area. People who have low to moderate income, while they can’t actually afford to move in there based on their actual income, can apply to a lottery. Their names are placed in a lottery and if they’re selected they get an opportunity to get subsidized housing.

Franken: OK… It’s bringing about a cultural change.

Franken: Economic diversity.

Economic diversity and environmental diversity, because people are coming from different cultures and they’re mingling with each other and they’re blending, as opposed to separating.

That’s why I see gentrification as being an issue: this used to be the gateway to the South and I watched it go from being a hospitable town to being a place where neighbors don’t know neighbors.

experiences,” or ACEs, and there are studies showing that ACEs lead to a change in brain chemistry and that change creates barriers to learning. The fight-or-flight impulses kick in and it’s harder to concentrate on homework and it’s harder to succeed.

[Jeffrey Canada] has been very successful in creating an environment that kids learn in.

I think it’s all tied together and that’s just the way life is. Everything is connected to everything else.

As it should be.

Franken: The kids, by the way, who come through that, are very resilient. Not just the kids who come through the Jeffrey Canada program, but kids who survive ACEs and manage to overcome the trauma. There are ways to do that. These kids tend to have tremendous resilience and grit.

Ben Carson, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, stated that public housing encourages dependency and should not be too comfortable. Personally, I’ve never seen comfortable public housing and I was raised in Washington, D.C. I’ve been through all the projects. What is your experience with public housing and how do you think Secretary Carson’s outlook will affect policymaking and implementation of HUD safety net programs?

to rely on wealthy donors, will there ever be the political will to address the problem of gentrification?

Franken: Some of that question I don’t know how to address. I’m not sure that the people you get your donations from are in neighborhoods that have recently been gentrified. Those neighborhoods seem to start with younger people, younger affluent people, but younger people who aren’t necessarily your big donors. After a neighborhood has been gentrified for quite a while, then you get your big money people in there. Gentrification has always been, to me, a puzzle. Because your saying, “Well, the neighborhood’s improving.”

But the people who have lived there for a long time are getting priced out. I like multiincome housing so that in the same housing development you have low, middle and upper housing. I’ve seen that model work very well in Saint Paul, [Minnesota].

If you start isolating people who are in poverty in neighborhoods, that neighborhood is powerless and they don’t get the transportation, they don’t get services.

That’s why public housing can’t all be put in one area and that’s something that I’m afraid Carson doesn’t understand. Public housing should be comfortable and it should be a home you can have pride in.

Franken: That’s been a change all over the country. There’s a book by Robert Putnam called “Our Kids” (Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis. Simon & Schuster. 2015) that talks about his class of 1959 from his town in Ohio where every kid in the high school knew each other.

The richest kid in town and the poorest kid in town were in the same school and knew each other.

The poorest kids in town were two Black kids and both now have post-graduate degrees. But now there are two high schools: one is in the upper middle class neighborhood and one is in the working class poor area. The way he describes it is everybody used to take care of everybody else’s kid, and you could go out and all that stuff. But now it’s become too dangerous for that. That doesn’t happen anymore.

It’s a really terrific book.

At the end, after he does that in [his hometown] then he goes around the country and the same pattern exists, the exact same pattern has happened.

Changing the subject — you recently stepped away from the “I’m a house n****r” retort from Bill Maher. To me, that demonstrated wisdom. On the other hand, speaking as a member of the Black community, and one that was not offended by the comment, I understood it was a comedic reflex.

That’s similar to Inclusionary Zoning in D.C. Franken: I don’t buy his political and personal philosophy at all and I just think that’s something that he shouldn’t have said.

Gentrification tends to create housing instability. Given that local politicians tend

Franken: What is Inclusionary Zoning?

I’ll give you an example: Cathedral Commons. That’s below Tenleytown, near where the Giant is, a fairly affluent

Franken: You said it right: it was a reflex.

In his head, he went [snaps fingers], “I am now saying something about how bad slavery

STREET SENSE June 28 - July 11, 2017

NEWS

was, which is that slavery was so bad that the favored slave got to work inside.”

Making an observation that has some information and knowledge and perspective to it isn’t racist, but the problem is that you just can’t use that word if you’re not African-American.

I pulled out of the show because, frankly, I didn’t want people condemning me for a whole week. And also, I know the format of the show and the format of the show is that he gives an opening monologue and then he goes to the first guest. So it would have been him apologizing in the way he chose, followed by me as a guest.

And why would I be the guest on that show?

Instead, he had Michael Eric Dyson, who is a professor at Georgetown University, is African-American and writes about this stuff. So what’s better for his show?

For him to interview a comedian turned Senator, and me having to go into, ‘oh yes, he’s a satirist, I knew blah blah blah…” or having Dyson? Having Dyson was better for the show.

Indeed, and that’s why I said it showed wisdom.

Franken: Yeah. It didn’t take me long to figure it out. (laughter) Why does it take America so long to figure it out?

Franken: Well, because they don’t think in the same terms.

With Bill Maher you expect a certain degree of political incorrectness.

Franken: Of course you do, which is why I will be on that show in the near future. ■ This interview has been edited for space and clarity.

OPINION

Push Back Against Greed in Housing

By Anonymous

Greedy landlords are responsible for the housing crisis in Washington, D.C. Too many landlords refuse to cooperate or play fair with D.C. Housing Authority and renters.

I was shocked to learn in my job as housing coordinator 30 years ago, when I first moved to the district, that landlords consistently added $300 to the rent when I approached them about accepting a housing voucher. Landlords know the district is desperate for affordable housing – so a $900 per month apartment across the river near Benning Road and Capitol Street Southeast rents for $1,200 per month with a voucher.

Landlords did this in 1987, and they continue to do it in 2017.

I appreciate the housing voucher programs. Without them, many people could not live in the District. However, the housing vouchers reward greed. Isn’t there a way to hold landlords accountable?

Don’t they receive tax breaks, incentives and all kinds of gifts from the city? When are they going to give back?

Landlords extort money from all of us with high fees: a $50 credit check fee here, $100 holding fee there, a $400 administrative fee — and that’s just to apply for renting the apartment. A late payment penalty fee sets one back by 10 percent of one’s rent, and, at some apartments, mandatory renter’s insurance fee means another $15 per month. To add salt to the wound,

landlords often do not return security deposits. And in the past 10 years, landlords added utility bills. That automatically increased our monthly bill another $100 to $200. No wonder the economy won’t jumpstart! After paying rent, people have very little to spend.

Landlords extort money from all of us with high fees: a $50 credit check fee here, $100 holding fee there, a $400 administrative fee — and that’s just to apply for renting the apartment.

Why does one of the richest countries in the world have homelessness? Why are we paying 50 percent to 100 percent (if you earn minimum wage) of income on rent?

When I was in college in 1968, we didn’t have homelessness like we have today. About 1.5 to 3 million people experience homelessness every year in the U.S. Historically, the U.S. only experienced homelessness during severe depressions, like after the Civil War and during the Great Depression of 1930s. So why do we have homelessness today?

We have homelessness because of greedy landlords, greedy developers and greedy people with second homes who want to flip houses and get rich quick.

The greed is so perverse, that more than once I’ve had to find shelter for 70-year-old grandmothers. A frail 88-year-old lady was evicted from her apartment of 35 years in upperNorthwest D.C. She ended up in a shelter on 2nd and D streets. Some nut pushed her, and she broke her hip and ended up in a nursing home. After three to four months, I was able to place her into an efficiency apartment. In the process, she lost three storage units of valuable art and antiques. Despite the stress, she lived another six years. (The life expectancy of a person experiencing homelessness is just 48 years, according to the advocacy group Healthcare for the Homeless Maryland.)

So what can you do? Call the City Council members at (202) 724-8000. Tell them you want affordable housing. Ask them to support Bill #22-025 to reduce yearly rent increases and Bill #22-100 to limit the amount landlords can raise rent when apartments become vacant.

You can help right the system in D.C. This author has extensive experience working as a case manager with a local nonprofit and elsewhere. These days she is an advocate who spent seven years facing homelessness in her youth.

By Jeffery McNeil

the left it’s emotion. They’re angry, but can't base where their anger comes from; they blame Republicans for why their lives are miserable. They hate Trump because they hate Republicans. From the womb to the grave, all you ever hear about in Blue America is how awful Republicans are.

Liberals are reasonable but leftists – people that want to silence others – are extreme. Conservatives don't wake up worrying about President Donald Trump.

They may think he’s a bumbling idiot, but they don't think he’s a threat to our republic. However, if you listen to the left, you’d think fascism has arrived in America.

W h a t l i b e r a l s f e a r i s n ' t Tr u m p , but that he’ll actually succeed and undermine their socialist fantasies.

What they hate about Trump is he’s braggadocious and boastful – he claims he had the greatest 100 days of any president in history, with the stock markets hitting all time highs and unemployment hitting all time lows.

GAGE SKIDMORE / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

During a May 23 Sirius XM interview with his friend Armstrong Williams, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson said the following:

The Extreme Left I never cared for ideologues and partisans. You can't deal with those people. It’s all about feelings and emotion; facts don't matter.

As someone who doesn’t affiliate with a specific political party, I’m ahead of the curve because I saw this tribal mentality while growing up in New Jersey – if you weren't a Yankees fan, then you were a Met, so therefore you weren't human.

I saw friendly arguments about Derek Jeter or Jose Reyes descend into bar room brawls and knife fights.

Politics is similar to sports, where people become so passionate and riled up about their parties and cause that the other side becomes not wrong but evil. As in baseball, I can understand why journalists and pollsters have loyalty to certain parties, but I never understood the lunchbucket and chicken wing crowd coming to blows over Republicans and Democrats.

Many of my colleagues at Street Sense share this tribal mentality – you can't have a fact based rational debate, with

Street Sense Vendors Respond

He isn't the fascist ruler liberals told their minions. He abandoned the TransPacific Partnership, plans to tighten up restrictions on travel and business in Cuba and committed to pulling out of the Paris Accord.

Unlike leftists that want high taxes or redistribution of wealth, or even liberals who teach the poor how to apply for food stamps and unemployment, conservatives teach people how to read The Wall Street Journal and Investor's Business Daily.

For the left, everything is us versus them – it's the oppressed vs the oppressor. To the looney left, freedom of speech is only free when you agree with liberal causes and dogma. However, they become angry, violent and unhinged when you come out for President Donald J Trump. In short, leftists have become no different than those crazy New York fans I remember; they eat their own.

Jeffery McNeil is an artist/vendor for Street Sense.

“You take somebody that has the right mindset, you take everything from them and put them on the street and I guarantee in a little while they’ll be right back up there. And you take somebody with the wrong mindset, you can give them everything in the world, they’ll work their way right back down to the bottom. ... You know, that’s real poverty. If you don’t have that defeatist attitude, there’s hope for you. I think the majority of people don’t have that defeatist attitude, but they sometimes just don’t see the way and that’s where government can come in, and be very helpful. It can provide a ladder of opportunity.”

The facing page collects reactions from some of the men and women who work to distribute our newspaper.

Have an opinion about how homelessness is being handled in our community? Street Sense maintains an open submission policy and prides itself as a newspaper that elevates community voices and fosters healthy debate. Send your thoughts to opinion@streetsense.org.

STREET SENSE June 28 - July 11, 2017

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OPINION

We Need to Want Out of Homelessness

An Invitation to Work Together

By Cynthia Mewborn

Is homelessness a mindset? Yes. But getting out is not easy nor quick. But if you are proactive and not reactive, you can do it. You can expedite the process by having a case manager because they are aware of what you are dealing with and how to approach the situation, and hopefully get you the results you want. So, align yourself

with outreach services, such as Miriam's Kitchen and Friendship Place.

I am sure those services are among the best places in the country to seek help.

The District also has a lot of resources of which to avail yourself, and because homelessness is seen as a mindset, we need to want out – and the best way to do that is to pray. Prayer is important.

Context

By Gwynette Smith

It’s a State of Being

enough help to get off the street are too often forced to live in demoralizing and deplorable housing conditions. The only beneficiaries of these situations are slum landlords. When you seek government assistance, it feels as if you are treated as lesser than. Like you deserve to be abused — and nobody’s watching when you are.

This is the reason why our safety net programs appear to be broken, when in fact, the only thing that is broken is management. There needs to be accountability and it needs to be understood that the housing programs work, under the right leadership.

Dr. Ben Carson is a man I greatly respect. He is a heart surgeon and possesses a skill that is needed not only by adults but many children.

He did not want to become the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

Apparently though, no one else could be found for the job. He might have wanted to return to the practice of medicine.

His own conflict about taking the job may have caused him to be less positive about what this new job was about. On the other hand, he grew up poor and lived in public housing and his childhood plight did not stymie his plans to become a physician.

So he probably does have sympathy for people in impoverished situations and want to help them break out of their conditions.

Secretary Carson’s statement that with the right mind-set, a person can break out of poverty quickly, is false. There are many factors that contribute to being poor.

These can include but may not be limited to: health, race, level of education, job skills or the lack of, a criminal record and/ or a mental health problem.

Dr. Carson is already doing good things in his new job by helping people to purchase their own homes. One statement made by a person does not determine who he is.

Clearly, if he grew up poor and became a doctor, the transition was not quick.

Poverty isn't a state of mind. We hear this more often than enough. But avoiding poverty comes at a price that no one wants to pay.

I believe we are the richest country in the world: we can eat what we want, sleep in our own beds and have clothes on our backs.

And that’s what made made us poor.

We treat debt as a state of mind and many choose not to pay out debts. We spend more than we have and debt becomes a state of being. You owe the car dealer and you owe on your house. Yet we still decide to spend more than we have. Poverty is something that can't be helped in this environment and some countries have a higher rate of poverty than others. Washington spends billions on things we don't want or need.

The people who run this country spend and spend. Our nation is in a state of poverty. The broader question is what are we going to do about it?

It would be a pleasant metaphor if poverty were “a state of mind.”

Then humanity would only need to clear our minds and all of poverty around the world and within the United States would go away indefinitely. But you and I know that’s not how poverty was created. Nor would this be a realistic way to resolve a condition that has spun out of control over the last 40 years.

In order to solve poverty and homelessness we have to recognize that America has a very serious man made condition that will require human interventions to resolve. One of the driving forces behind the increase of poverty and the deterioration of American communities has absolutely nothing to do with the individuals who live within these systems. One class is oppressed in order for others to maintain stability. Ending these generational cycles of poverty will require old approaches by government and that starts with cleaning house.

Trillions of dollars have been wasted on services where the only people benefiting are the people providing the co-called service. Approaches that failed to contain homelessness twenty years ago certainly won’t end it now. We need fresh perspectives from the very people who are or who have experienced homeless.

We need to overhaul all municipal service agencies, including administrators, supervisors and management teams, which have caused total disenfranchisement within these programs.

Destitute consumers who receive

Poverty is a state of being, not a state of mind. Why? Because the former is not without resources, a roof, cash and food to feed children, etc. While the mind may hunger for emotional support, thirst for knowledge and even long for comfort, I doubt anyone out there struggling to stay afloat (or alive) is thinking, "Why don't I plan to underachieve for life? That is the surefire route to my dreams come true!”

I suspect the good doctor has been affluent for so long that he doesn't realize how hard the struggle is today for minorities, the disadvantaged and particularly those with children. It is no crime to be out of touch with reality. It is, or at least should be, a crime when you abuse your position to negatively impact others.

Lacking, from my experience, is not created by thought, though sometimes by deed. Often the very deed that does it is when a credible authority figure conveys the message to traumatized or depressed people that they can't — not unlike a certain public official.

Where Carson is concerned, I'll grant him this: He has proven himself correct that he is not an administrator or a statesman or an empathic visionary with aspirations to end poverty. My diagnosis is that the doctor needs either a lobotomy — or a heart transplant.

By Damon Smith

Gwynette Smith is an artist/vendor for Street Sense.

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Damon Smith is an artist/vendor for Street Sense.

By Sheila White

Sheila White is an artist/vendor for Street Sense.

Our safety net programs appear to be broken, when in fact, the only thing that is broken is management..

Dr. Carson, I ask you to take the homeless challenge with me and a few other homeless advocates: sleep outside with us for two nights in a row. See what it’s like.

Furthermore, please come have a real conversation with some of the very faces of homeless and impoverished individuals who have had to endure some of the most horrifying circumstances a human being could ever endure. This could be accomplished by coming to meet with our vendors at Street Sense (Metro Center) or attending a People of Fairness Coalition morning meeting at Miriam’s kitchen (Foggy Bottom).

Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing your response and hopefully meeting you soon.

Cynthia Mewborn is an artist/vendor for Street Sense.

The Doctor Is Out By "The Anti-Apathetic" Some time ago, Dr. Ben Carson, now U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (and who, by the way, couldn't pass me the Pepto-Bismol, let alone perform surgery upon moi), voiced his opinion on the (lack of) intelligence of American voters. I responded that one of us needed a mental adjustment.

As evidenced then, during the confirmation hearing as questioned by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), about ensuring that then-president-elect Donald Trump's family construction enterprises would not profit from housing production or related expenditures; and now with this "state of mind" utterance (for lack of a sympathetic term) he has, as they say, "removed all doubt!”

The Anti-Apathetic is an artist/vendor for Street Sense.

The Street Sense Writers’ Group is led by writing professionals and meets every Wednesday at 10:00 a.m. The group’s goal is to develop ideas and collaborate on the next great issue of Street Sense.

This Country Has M o n ey W i l l N eve r B e M o r e Nothing For Us Valuable Than Life, PT 2

Summer Ramadan

By Barron Hall Artist/Vendor

By Marcellus Phillips Artist/Vendor

By Robert Warren

I haven’t really celebrated the Fourth of July since I returned from military service. The way I was treated let me know that I will never be accepted as a citizen of the United States of America.

I will never be seen above the status of a slave to these people. I was a homeless Vietnam vet, living on the streets of the nation's capital.

All this country has for us is a jail cell and a grave.

I’m thankful for the God that loves me as long as I live right. I’ve found that I don’t have to live poor because I am poor. The God I serve takes care of all my needs. I don’t have to be on drugs or be a thief or kill my brother just because I am poor. I see this country reaping what it sows in sins against humanity.

I successfully graduated high school and my grandmother passed away peacefully, knowing that. But I nearly followed her.

The night of my ceremony I almost killed myself when my body tried to jump out of a car going about 60. My family had to snatch me back in.

That’s when I found out I have epilepsy.

My family took immediate action to find out what the problem was and how to fix it. The doctors did a CAT scan and couldn’t figure out what was going on. When the test results came back, it was declared that I have a seizure disorder. The next chapter in my life is the beginning of a journey that I never expected. My plans were to get a job and go to college. But things don't always work out the way we want them to.

My first job was at KFC in Montgomery County. I was fired in my first week — for eating chicken. But I didn’t know I was doing it. My manger caught me while I was working. And my friends ragged on me. They couldn’t believe I had the audacity to eat his chicken right in front of him. And I continued to deny it. “If you’re gonna do it, don’t eat it in front of the manager genius!” they said.

This is when I realized how having epilepsy would affect my life.

When I have an episode, I blank out for

Happy Fourth!

By Latishia Graham, Artist/Vendor

I like to go out to get some seafood and find a good place to sit and look at the fireworks. I usually start out around 9 or 9:30 p.m. and like to wear my Fourth of July cap — it’s red, white and blue outfit.

On this day, I’ll also be mourning Adam West. He was an American actor widely known for his role as Batman in the 1960's ABC series of the same name. His career spanned seven decades and began in films in the 1950's. I loved Batman and when I was a little girl I would sometimes wake up in the morning hearing the songs and seeing him in action.

School Days

By Elizabeth Bryant, Artist/Vendor I"m going to school to get my General Equivalency Diploma (GED). My teacher really work with me. I've passed the Reading course, so I don't have to go to that class. I'm getting closer to passing Math, which I take Monday-Thursday 9:30 to 10:30. These courses really help my self-esteem. I think everyone should go to school. Working for Street Sense is helpful, too, because I work my own hours and no boss hangs over me. I'm also gaining more insight into myself by going to church.

5 to 15 seconds. I might tense up or act a little strange.

If you don’t know me, you won’t realize it.

When I have a s e i z u r e , i t ’s usually no more than a minute, but I have NO control over my action. You can probably tell what I’m about to do. But I don’t know. And I won’t remember.

To this day there’s probably stuff I’ve done that I don’t know about.

So at this point I’m 18 and have only two choices. Because I can’t even hold a job at KFC with this disorder. So the first option was to have someone take care of me, some type of government program. Or I could go back and live with my mother.

In my mind I’m thinking, “I’m not brainless and I know how to take care of myself.” So the government program options were not really a choice.

Before this, I had plans to stay at my grandmother’s house and go to college.

Instead, with my mother. She had just got another place and agreed to have me stay there so she could watch over me.

As you read this I need you to think about how any decision can drastically affect your life. (to be continued)

A month to renew sun up to sundown For you To become brand new All his mercies sent down to you A time to achieve You believe In his blessed word To forgive with no need to forget And yet to give a kind word To come into a light To give a one’s life For the greeting of peace To live and learn restraints In this time of mercy received From His grace we came to be One of many who prayed for this day one month of truth To read for fill, refill You need in the spirit of love of one who knows every hair on her head and cages the devil this month But still the test of his helpers whispers of misdeeds For you who believe in the blessed month of mercy A thousand years of prayers received O for my father’s father My mother’s mother To see to behold. Mercy in your hands Read this month and believe in the one Who gives us peace Of a Ramadan Summer

Have Your Got a Good Childhood Story?

By Vennie Hill-Bracey, Artist/Vendor

Well, I do.

I remember being about nine or te n . I h ad a best boy cousin by the name of Third. That's what we called him.

We used to go to Virginia every summer to spend time with Third because we had a country store there owned by a Miss Bryant. It was about a 30-minute walk. Candy cost 1 cent and on top of that we traded our Pepsi Cola bottles.

I used to spend all my summers there.

Miss Bryant was a nice lady that didn't have anyone living with her. You know the type, someone that is old enough to retire but refuses to do so. Boy did I love her cookies. I used to get about a hundred of those windmills each time I went there.

We would spend all day at the store.

My cousin Lucy was grown and had kids by then. She had built a playground for them and we would always stop to play on the swings on the way home from the store. It was usually getting dark or already dark by the time we’d leave because we were young and would lose track of time. So my cousin always walked us to the road.

One specific time my aunt told us to come early. We didn't always listen. but she incentivized us by saying we would certainly get a good butt-whipping if we got home late. It was already dark when we left, but someone in our group, I think he was younger and shorter than I was, said he knew of a shortcut but it would involve climbing over a barbed-wire fence.

Of course we took it. We made a mad dash to jump over that fence.

Unfortunately, Mr. Shortcut couldn't make the jump. Moments later, he

started jumping up and down, beating himself all over.

Suddenly something started stinging me! When I looked around, I saw he had knocked over a bee's nest and it was my turn to beat myself all over. The bees were attacking and my God that was so painful!

After we all made it more or less safely across that fence and left the bees behind, there came Miss Bryant down the road with a shotgun. Someone must of have told her we were in trouble.

I wondered if she had heard that we were attacked by a hoard of killer bees!

Well, we finally made it home. I was stung from head to toe. It was so bad that my aunt just said to forget about being in trouble. I’d punished myself enough.

I would like to know if any of you have stories like that from your childhood that you still might laugh about! You can send them in to editor@streetsense.org!

STREET SENSE June 28 - July 11, 2017

13

ART

How do we end homelessness, together?

It’s Complicated

By Reginald Denny, Artist/Vendor

To begin with, what is homelessness? It is a lack of a supervised public or private facility that provides temporary living.

It can also mean having no home or permanent place of residence. If your name is not on a fixed lease, then you are considered homeless.

My sentiments concerning how to end homelessness are of ill repute. With that being said, it has been spoken in the

annals of life that the poor will always be with us until the end of time, as we humans know it to be.

Then there is another take concerning this thing called homelessness. To my knowledge there is a group of individuals who have chosen this state of being as a way of life for one reason or other. Some of us have decided to give up on normal living, so to speak, in favor of the easier safer path, which has no set rules or boundaries or guidelines.

Then there are those of us who are caught-up, tied-up, tangled-up, bound and totally given up. They are just stuck for

reasons that are no secret to our society: life-controlling issues with situations or sub-stances. There are circumstances we have chosen to evade and not seriously deal with and confront.

Then there are those who do have the mental capacity to deal with life on life’s terms and have not sought assistance or have refused help with their situation.

Consequently, they stay stuck. Stuck in that vicious cycle of life. So the remedy for homelessness is not and will never be black and white.

At the end of it all, many of us will recover and some of us will not. It’s a choice.

Treat and Support the Whole Person

By Gwynette Smith, Artist/Vendor

Homelessness can be ended very easily.

A template program could be used in most instances. Though in others, there may be some people who are disabled to such an extent that special housing, care and treatment might have to be employed.

Some might become able to live on their own, but some might not be able to work at least at traditional jobs.

Mostly though, the format involves shelters and programs at YWCS’s and YMCA’s. The person comes in, gets a bed or a room and a locker with a key. He or she is given physical and oral exams and psycho-logical and background interviews.

Treatment begins for any illness and drug treatment assessment is made available by way of referral. Non-emergency health problems might be able to be resolved at the program or when the person returns.

During these initial intake meetings, the counselors should be required to determine the educational level and job readiness of each person. It would then be possible to later, if necessary, go to

job train-ing or adult education classes.

You have to treat a person’s abilities and opportunities right alongside their health.

When the time comes to go to work, the shelter or The Y would make the job referrals. Those going to work would live in separate wings of the facility. The housing host and the potential employer would work together to try to make a successful job placement. There could even be tax incentives for an employer.

The formerly homeless person would work and live at the location for one-anda-half years, paying very little for lodging and meals on the weekends and holidays.

He or she would save to get an apart-ment and furnishings. The temporary home would initially provide clothing, transportation money, and spending money until the person receives their first paycheck.

The recipient of these services would agree to continue contacting the former housing provider every six months indefinitely to give updates on their

situation. They would have to inform the provider im-mediately if there is a problem at the job site and soon if there are any other personal problems, es-pecially if law enforcement is involved. Failure to do so would result in the inability to be readmitted to the housing provider unless it is determined that the problem was insignificant. There would be coach-ing on problem solving and life skills.

Lawyers could work closely with these places too.

If the problem involves criminal law issues, the individual might have to serve time, but the program’s willingness to work with the individual might result in an earlier release.

This sort of holistic early assessment and support network would determine if the person should get any help in these stages here or elsewhere.

All of this assistance requires that the rich pay their fair part of taxes.

The remedy for homelessness is not and will never be black and white.

In closing, how can we end homelessness? Stay homeless and get a rest! Seriously speaking though, we are working daily to alleviate this condition.

It’s really an inside job. Don’t take it personal, at the end of the day it’s entirely up to the individual. You have to want your independence. Keep the dream alive.

Like Surviving a War

By Patty Smith, Artist/Vendor

Rhannan rings like a bell in the night Homelessness is a state of mind All children crying in the desert With no water or food Send water and food To my children, said God They are in war times Mothers and babies Being separated from their dad Sometimes dad must flee He's fighting a terrible war I just can't see no way out Bombers and tanks are Racing through The small villages Killing everything in sight A mother puts her hands Over her baby's eyes and Prepares to die

These Things Save the Homeless My Secret to Getting off the Street

By Barron Hall, Artist/Vendo

By Marcus Green, Artist/Vendor

The person has to take some steps: 1.

Get clean and sober 2.

Want to have a home 3.

Work or get some income to take care of yourself 4.

Manage your money and food Find a balance and do the same to keep your home (for myself, I pray 5 times a day, sometimes more, depending on where my life is going).

I am homeless, but I am not in a shelter.

I am clear that my girl can put me out on any given day. I feel like this situation is unpredictable though. I need to stay plugged in and not be complacent.

I need to set goals and see them through.

I’m praying for all homeless people.

Praise God and thanks for listening.

There was a time when I was living on the street, until I decided to completely let go and let God. It came to me that there is only one God and His word is present everywhere — in the Old Testament, the Gospel of Jesus and the Quran. Most of us want to separate the three but they all have an expla-nation for the other.

The Word says to know the truth and the truth will set you free.

The world may be divided, but God’s world has never and will never be divided. So, in order to live well in this world, we have to put God in our lives. In His world, there is no poverty, no sickness, and no eternal death. But belief is the most important thing to bringing God into your life.

Everything we see, we want. But everything that is here is temporary. In God’s world, everything is eternal.

sudoku!

last edition’s solutions

COUTESY OF KRAYDAD.COM

Remembering Sir Roger Moore

Remembering Adam West

On May 23, 2017 Sir Roger Moore passed away from cancer. I remember him on “The Saint” every Sunday night at 10 p.m. Our whole family would sit in front of the television set watching the show.

And every time someone mentions his name, the famous Simon Templar appears, followed by this halo on the top of his head.

What I liked about Sir Roger Moore was his charm: that cool, smooth, charisma. His suave, debonair character especially came through when he played James Bond.

One of my clients has a friend that knew Moore.

He said that if you actually met him, he was the most humble person. Moore was also a humanitarian, known to have supported UNICEF’s Unite to End AIDS campaign and the London-based nonprofit The Passage, which focuses on ending homelessness.

Sir Roger Moore is another great actor that will be missed.

—Leonard Hyater, Artist/Vendor

On June 9, 2017, actor Adam West died in Los Angeles at the age of 88, following a brief battle with Leukemia.

We s t w a s b o r n i n Wa l l a Wa l l a , Washington in 1928. He was best known in the role of Batman for the 1960s television show. He was also recognized for performances in Robinson and Crusoe on Mars, The Young Philadelphians, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Soldier in the Rain and as the mayor on the animated series Family Guy. I will always remember him as Batmen.

I used to watch the show growing up and still some of the reruns today.

Mr. West has done more than 50 movies and some television roles as well. He was a good family man and always working to feed his kids. May he rest in peace.

—Leonard Hyater, Artist/Vendor

STREET SENSE June 28 - July 11, 2017

15

COMMUNITY SERVICES Housing/Shelter

Food

Clothing

Showers

Case Management

Health Care

Transportation

Laundry

Education

Employment Assistance

Legal Assistance

Vivienda/alojamiento

Comida

Coordinación de Servicios

Seguro

Educación

Assitencia con Empleo

Academy of Hope Public Charter School: 269-6623 | 601 Edgewood St, NE aohdc.org

Bread for the City: 265-2400 (NW) | 561-8587 (SE) 1525 7th St, NW | 1640 Good Hope Rd, SE breadforthecity.org

Calvary Women’s Services: 678-2341 1217 Good Hope Road, SE calvaryservices.org

Ropa

Lavandería

D.C. Coalition for the Homeless: 347-8870 1234 Massachusetts Ave, NW dccfh.org

Línea de juventud

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE: (202) 749-8000 Línea directa de Violencia doméstica

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH HOTLINE: 1-888-793-4357

Assistencia Legal

Covenant House Washington: 610-9600 2001 Mississippi Avenue, SE covenanthousedc.org

Línea directa de alojamiento YOUTH HOTLINE: (202) 547-7777

Duchas

Transportación

Community of Hope: 232-7356 communityofhopedc.org

SHELTER HOTLINE: (202) 399-7093

Línea de Salud del Comportamiento Jubilee Jobs: 667-8970 2712 Ontario Rd NW | 2419 Minnesota Ave SE jubileejobs.org

Samaritan Ministry: 1516 Hamilton Street NW | 722-2280 1345 U Street SE | 889-7702 samaritanministry.org

Loaves & Fishes: 232-0900 1525 Newton St. NW loavesandfishesdc.org

Sasha Bruce Youthwork: 675-9340 741 8th St, SE sashabruce.org

Martha’s Table: 328-6608 2114 14th St, NW marthastable.org

So Others Might Eat (SOME) 71 O St, NW | 797-8806 some.org

Catholic Charities: 772-4300 catholiccharitiesdc.org/gethelp

Central Union Mission: 745-7118 65 Massachusetts Avenue, NW missiondc.org

Charlie’s Place: 232-3066 1830 Connecticut Ave, NW charliesplacedc.org

Christ House: 328-1100 1717 Columbia Rd, NW christhouse.org

Church of the Pilgrims: 387-6612 2201 P St, NW churchofthepilgrims.org/outreach food (1 - 1:30 on Sundays only) Community Family Life Services: 347-0511 | 305 E St, NW cflsdc.org

Vagrancy Comics #7: Fake News

By Justin Benedict Former Vendor

Father McKenna Center: 842-1112 19 Eye St, NW fathermckennacenter.org

Miriam’s Kitchen: 452-8926 2401 Virginia Ave, NW miriamskitchen.org

St. Luke’s Mission Center: 333-4949 3655 Calvert St. NW stlukesmissioncenter.org

Food and Friends: 269-2277 219 Riggs Rd, NE foodandfriends.org

My Sister’s Place: 529-5991 (24-hour hotline) mysistersplacedc.org

Thrive DC: 737-9311 1525 Newton St, NW thrivedc.org

Foundry Methodist Church: 332-4010 1500 16th St, NW foundryumc.org/ministry-opportunities

N Street Village: 939-2060 1333 N Street, NW nstreetvillage.org

Unity Health Care: 745-4300 3020 14th St, NW unityhealthcare.org

Friendship Place: 364-1419 4713 Wisconsin Ave, NW friendshipplace.org

New York Ave Shelter: 832-2359 1355-57 New York Ave, NE

Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless 1200 U St NW | 328-5500 legalclinic.org

Georgetown Ministry Center: 338-8301 1041 Wisconsin Ave, NW georgetownministrycenter.org

Jobs Have Priority: 544-9128 425 Snd St, NW jobshavepriority.org

Patricia Handy Place for Women: 810 5th Street, NW, NW | 733-5378

Samaritan Inns: 667-8831 2523 14th St, NW samaritaninns.org

The Welcome Table: 347-2635 1317 G St, NW epiphanydc.org/thewelcometable

Whitman-Walker Health 1701 14th St, NW | 745-7000 2301 MLK Jr. Ave, SE | 797-3567 whitman-walker.org

VENDOR SUCCESS: SHEILA WHITE ACCEPTED AT UDC

By Sydney Covitz, Storytelling Intern

MEMORIAL:

JOEY HENDERSON

By Maren Adler maren.adler@streetsense.org

Rev. Scott McFerran (center) led a small memorial service for Joey Henderson.

PHOTO BY KEN MARTIN / VENDOR

Duane “Joey” Henderson died of a heart attack on Wednesday March 29, 2017. Joey lived at the field in Fort Reno Park for the past several years, where he was highly regarded by many Tenleytown neighbors. According to friend Jim Steeps, he was a friendly guy who was "independent, intelligent, and articulate.”

Steeps and Henderson first met when Henderson initiated a conversation while Steeps was walking around the Fort Reno baseball diamond. They bonded over a shared interest in sports. Henderson read the Post sports section thoroughly whenever he had the chance, according to Steeps. He would learn nearly every sports stat in the paper and keep up to date with his favorite teams. Henderson and Steeps enjoyed having "strongly opinionated and well-informed conversations" on the current standings of various teams, recalled Steeps.

They saw each other regularly when Steeps brought him groceries.

Henderson often requested crackers to be used as feed for the dozen or so birds that stayed in the trees near where he lived. Henderson delighted in feeding the birds that came to wait for him.

Henderson was “a gregarious guy, particularly with those in the neighborhood where he lived.” Steeps said he was well loved by his neighbors, who often stopped by to chat or check in during the colder months.

He preferred to live outside, only staying in

shelters when his health forced him to do so.

An outdoor memorial service was held on April 22 by Reverend Sam McFerran of the First Congregational United Church of Christ.

McFerran had known Henderson personally since he began living at the field. The service included a song, prayer, testimonials and a flower planting in Henderson's honor. Twelve people — housed and unhoused — attended the intimate service, including those who frequently stopped by to chat or drop off food and other necessities.

While his friends described Henderson as kind and personable, he was quite guarded with personal information.

Henderson shared few details about his personal history or relationships. Even his real name is shrouded with uncertainty.

Neighborhood acquaintance Danna McCormick and Steeps believe Henderson's real name to be Hans Berger. From what Steeps was able to gather over the course of their friendship, Henderson's mother was an American who met his German father toward the end of World War II. While his identity and past were a mystery, his positive attitude and kind nature will be remembered.

Joey Henderson was loved by his community and will be missed. ■ Street Sense aims to write an obituary for every member of the local homeless community who passes away.

StreetSense.org/obits.

June 28 - July 11, 2017 • Volume 14 • Issue 17

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On a Tuesday afternoon in June, 55-yearold Sheila White found herself the 115th prospective college student waiting in line to register for the University of the District of Columbia’s fall term. White remembers the time fondly, unbothered by the line’s length. She would have been willing to wait all day if necessary, the task’s tedium incapable of diluting her excitement at taking a monumental step towards a dream that had been put off too long.

White, a D.C. native, has always possessed a knack for learning and an inclination to tackle any academic challenge. Although she was forced to drop out of school in ninth grade to raise her first child, she continuously stressed to her children the importance of an education, ensured that all of them completed high school on time, and worked as a teaching aid and substitute teacher at Fletcher-Johnson Middle School for over 10 years.

Still, White knew from the moment she left school that she would find a way to return.

“I was always going to go back,” she states. “It was instilled in me. I made it so important to my kids — I preached it so much — so there was never a question. As long as I had breath in my body, I was going back!”

At the age of 49, White enrolled in the External Diploma Program at Ballou STAY High School. Ecstatic to be back at school, she threw herself into her work, and after completing her requirements in just three months, on a hot D.C. summer night, she stood in a gold cap and gown and proudly collected her high school diploma.

White never intended to stop there, her love for learning prompting her to pursue plans for further education at the collegiate level. However, these plans were derailed three years ago when a series of devastating events including being robbed, a flood in her apartment, and an illness landed her on the streets.

“I would stay up all night and watch the sun come up,” White remembers. “Then I would go to a museum and sit. First I was angry about my situation. Then something told me I needed to fight back and do what I needed to do for me. I had that time to think what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, and so I decided to go to the shelter.”

At the shelter, White was initially intrigued when she found out they had a daily art class. Seeing the class as an opportunity to learn, she decided to attend; however, she was disappointed to find it was nothing more than coloring books.

“It’s not for me,” White remembers thinking. “I’m better than this. It’s not the class I need.”

After two years at the shelter and prospects of her continued education slipping

away, White accidentally stumbled upon the 13th and G Street location of Street Sense.

This happy accident has allowed her to return to the classroom, expand her intellectual horizons and discover a passion for filming.

Coming in each morning from her shelter on 5th street, White has taken full advantage of every artistic and media program Street Sense has to offer.

“I’m here Monday through Friday, and I go to every workshop they have. I’ve done everything from writing in the newspaper to taking pictures to doing theatrical work to the film cooperative to interactive art,” she declares.

Through S t reet Sense, White has also become involved with DCTV — D.C.’s only television station devoted exclusively to local programing with a focus on empowering citizens to tell their own stories. It was there where White found her passion for the camera. When Street Sense offered to pay for a 16-week class at the station, she jumped at the opportunity and graduated from the program with certifications in videography, editing, and production.

“I loved learning how to edit the film, interview people, and do the lighting” she exclaims. “I’m always telling my story, which I don’t mind telling, but my best thing is being behind the camera. I like to zoom in on people and let them tell their stories. That led me to go sign up at UDC because then I knew I wanted to go to college for media.

“With my first year, I’ll have to take basic English and stuff like that, but once I’m done with the basic classes, I want to transfer to American University or Trinity to study liberal arts and communications.”

With regards to her post-grad plans, White intends to come full-circle.

“Once I get my degree, I think I would like to do my internship here at Street Sense. I love the work they do, and I want to go behind the camera and video them,” White declares.

On Tuesday, June 20, White received her acceptance letter from UDC, rendering her an official Firebird. She is doing everything she can to be ready for August 17, the day her courses will begin. Her smile radiant, her eyes sparkling with anticipation as she glances every few minutes at her phone, waiting for a text from her registration advisor about her fall schedule, she can barely contain her excitement.

“I’m a freshman” she repeatedly exclaims, incapable of uttering those words without a grin spreading instantly across her face. “I’m a freshman. Once I got my high school diploma, I thought, this ain’t enough. Once I got that degree, I knew I wanted another one.”

White is more than ready to get after her next cap and gown. ■