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Encampment closures double as federal government closes parks to camping
FRANZISKA WILD
Editorial Intern
alim didn’t actually believe they would destroy the home he had built. He told the officials and outreach worker there he would only move if he saw the bulldozer make its first move.
SHe had lived on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Waterside Drive for over seven years in a structure he built himself. It wasn’t visible from the road — he had taken pains to camouflage it with tree branches and plants — and it was neat and clean with a stone walkway he built by hauling the stones up from the park himself.
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Now, the National Parks Service (NPS) was forcing Salim was being forced to move by the National Parks Service (NPS), and he didn’t want to go.
“They can do whatever they want there. I have only this small spot here,” he said, trying to negotiate any way to stay. “If I leave, I lose everything.”
Salim is one of many D.C. residents experiencing homelessness who have been impacted by the rapid increase in encampment closures this year.
As of May 15 this year, NPS — which manages a great deal of available green space in the District — has begun strict reinforcement of its no-camping rule on all
of its land, closing at least nine encampments in 2024 so far. But it’s not only NPS that has ramped up closures. The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services (DMHHS), the agency that is responsible for encampments that are on land owned by D.C., has already closed more encampments this year than it did in all of 2023.
Advocates worry that this increase in closures is arbitrary, leads to increased instability and harmful situations, and does little to improve the underlying conditions of homelessness. And they worry that the situation will worsen for unhoused individuals, while doing very little to improve the city overall.
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The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services and The Department of Behavioral Health staff remove tents during the closure of 21st and E St.
Photo by Franziska Wild
“It would be reasonable to believe that what we’re going to see is people in perpetuity being chased around the city until there’s a fence around everywhere you think you might put up a campsite,” Adam Rocap the Deputy Director for Miriam’s Kitchen, said. “And that really is just ineffective and harmful.”
The increasing use of encampment closures are a new approach
Encampment closures — when the city or park service removes an encampment and prohibits people from coming back to the site — are relatively new. In fact, “closures” are not outlined as one of the encampment engagement options in DMHHS’ encampments protocol.
The protocol only lists what it calls “standard dispositions” and “immediate dispositions.” For “standard dispositions,” residents must be given 14 days notice before a “clean-up,” during which their property could be destroyed if left at the site. Nowhere does it say residents are not allowed to return to the site, although the protocol states: “if there are pending issues that need to be addressed to secure the site, DMHHS will serve as the lead in coordinating these efforts.” In immediate dispositions, residents are only given 24 hours to remove their belongings and relocate.
In practice, DMHHS also regularly conducts two other kinds of encampment engagements: full clean-ups and trash removals. In the case of full clean-ups, encampment residents must temporarily remove their belongings in order for the area to be cleaned by DMHHS and Department of Public Works staff. This cleaning can involve rodent abatement, grass cutting, power washing and other measures designed to promote public health, and residents are allowed to return to the area after. In trash removals, DMHHS and DPW staff will only remove items that residents designate as trash.
Ann Marie Staudenmaier, a staff attorney with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless who works on encampments and public space rights, noted that before DMHHS started conducting site closures and using measures such as fencing or concrete barriers to prevent people from returning, all encampment engagements fell into the “full clean-ups” category.
“In my mind, a full cleanup is what they used to just do in the old days. They called it an encampment engagement, you know, sort of like benign language to not really say what it is,” she said. “And that just means, they give the 14-day notice; they come and do the cleanup at some point after that 14 days; and then those people would come back to the same site.”
Staudenmaier said beginning in 2023, DMHHS began closing encampments much more frequently.
“In the past, it was really unusual to do a so-called site closure. They started to do those more often, where they would put a sign-up that said, ‘this site is permanently closed to encampments,’” she said. “It’s not something that’s in the protocol that governs these. It’s a thing that they kind of made up to basically to prevent people from coming back to the site.”
The recent uptick in closures, Staudenmaier noted, also predates the recent City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, where the Supreme Court ruled that cities could punish people for sleeping outside with as little as a blanket or a pillow.
Just how much have closures gone up?
Over the course of 2023, DMHHS conducted a total of 13 closures. As of July 2024, DMHHS has already conducted 14
closures, and plans to close at least another four encampments in September, according to the encampment engagements website.
By contrast, DMHHS’s website states that it did not close a single encampment in the two years prior. (However, the city closed 22 encampments between October 2021 and, February 2023 displacing 142 people according to DMHHS Director Wayne Turnage at a city council hearing in 2021.)
Jo Furmanchik, who works as an outreach specialist at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, has recorded an increase in both closures and overall engagements this year. Furmanchik has only been tracking data since July 2023, but she’s noticed in 2023 DMHHS conducted only 4.33 engagements per month, whereas in 2024 DMHHS conducted 7.43 engagements per month — a 71% increase.
Furmanchik tries to attend most encampment engagements in the District in order to give residents information about their public space rights and provide other kinds of support. She said that immediate dispositions add to the total encampments closed each month. For example, in March, DMHHS conducted seven immediate dispositions on top of the seven official engagements.
In 2021, DMHHS conducted only six immediate dispositions. In 2022, that number increased nearly tenfold to 59. That rate has dropped slightly since: so far in 2024, DMHHS has conducted 20 immediate dispositions between January and July, a rate of 2.8 immediate dispositions per month.
NPS has also ramped up closures on federal land — a strategy outlined in a 2022 letter from Jeffrey Reinbold, the Superintendent for the National Mall and Memorial Parks, to Deputy Mayor Wayne Turnage obtained by Street Sense.
In the letter, Reinbold writes that as the pandemic restrictions were lifted, parkland in D.C. experienced an increase in visitation and that this increase led to “growing tension in some parks between returning users and significant growth in encampments.”
The letter also refers to the issues encampments on NPS lands pose to reopening D.C. after the pandemic.
“Administering parks in the Central Business District, we are also acutely aware of the challenges encampments present to maintaining vibrant, multi-use parks that support the District’s goal to reopen the city,” Reinbold wrote.
The letter states NPS had originally planned to gradually enforce their no-camping ordinance by the end of 2023. (The enforcement pause was later extended by six and a half months.)
“Starting May 15, 2024, the NPS is enforcing the no-camping rule on all NPS lands in Washington, D.C. NPS works with the District of Columbia and its social services partners to provide outreach and housing, since NPS itself does not offer social services,” an NPS spokesperson wrote in an email to Street Sense.
The spokesperson added that in 2022, NPS began “enforcing the no-camping rule in areas without encampments and areas where encampments had been previously closed” in order to “prevent new encampments from forming and dissuade the reestablishment of previously closed encampments while encouraging people to use social services.” And NPS has always reserved the right to close encampments “if dangerous conditions persist.”
Two NPS spokespeople told Street Sense NPS has closed at least nine encampments in 2024. These include three closures in Rock Creek park, one closure near the Key Bridge and Foundry Branch Tunnel, one closure in the Foggy Bottom area, and four closures in areas such as the George Washington Memorial Parkway, Theodore Roosevelt Island, and Columbia Island.
The resounding impact of closures
One of the residents impacted by these changes in policy is Benjamin Crutchfield, who was born and raised in D.C. Crutchfield was displaced twice in two months this summer, by both NPS and DMHHS.
He lived for a year at an encampment in Foggy Bottom before it was closed by NPS in preparation of the 250th Anniversary of the Fourth of July in 2026. He then spent a brief stint at another spot in the neighborhood before being forced to move again. While many other residents were angry about being forced to move, Crutchfield says he only tries to worry about what he can control to manage his anxiety.
“I’m numb now, at first I was taking it hard, but now I realized you’ve got to go with the flow,” he said. “It’s not like I have a choice.”
Crutchfield now lives in another encampment near the Foggy Bottom neighborhood — he and many encampment residents are on the housing voucher waiting list — and he expects he’ll continue to go through cycles of displacement while he waits to receive housing.
The increase in pressure from both DMHHS and NPS means that people end up moving back and forth from D.C. land to parks District land. In the process, they get no closer to housing and often lose their tents, electronics, family heirlooms, and a sense of stability, according to residents and outreach workers.
“It often hurts the goal of ending homelessness. When you displace someone from an encampment, they don’t move into housing. They move somewhere else,” Rocap said. “ And it often sets us back as outreach workers or outreach agencies: sometimes we never find people again after a closure.”
Encampment closures not only make it harder for outreach workers to do their jobs properly, but can also lead residents to less safe situations. Randy Boone has experienced this first-hand: his move after an encampment closure nearly killed him.
Randy Boone who broke his neck after falling off a ledge along the C&O canal after the closure of his encampment. Photo by Franziska Wild
Boone, who used to work for the Teamsters Union, and is disabled, had been living in a tent along the C&O canal at one of the sites NPS closed at the beginning of the summer. The day of the closure, Boone moved his tent to the only patch of land he could find: a small sliver of alongside the canal wall near the Alexandria Aqueduct footbridge, in Georgetown. His tent opening faced a drop from the wall onto the other wall below it and that night, Boone fell asleep and then fell off the wall — breaking his neck.
“I don’t know how I ended up down there because I blacked out because my head was all bloody,” Boone said. “Before this, I was just fine. I could walk. I could probably even run if I wanted to. But now I sit here and I got an infection. I got pus leaking out of my neck.”
Boone, who doesn’t drink alcohol or use drugs, was adamant that it was the forced displacement, that led to his injury. In his eyes, encampment closures are part of efforts by the city and federal government to “kick” people experiencing homelessness out of D.C. by “treating them like crap.”
“If they wouldn’t have kicked me out of the park, I wouldn’t have broke my neck. I mean, I could have died,” Boone said. “So I’m just wondering how they can be so cruel to people?”
Since the Grants Pass v. Johnson decision, the criminalization of homelessness has become a national issue. While encampment closures can be dangerous and traumatic for residents, in D.C. they don’t generally lead to legal sanctions the way they do in Oregon or California.
On D.C. land, the no-camping ordinance is not an arrestable offense, although someone could receive a ticket or citation for camping, according to Staudenmaier.
However, NPS land, which makes up 90% of the district’s parkland, is a different story. “The park police can theoretically arrest somebody,” Staudenmaier said. “I have not heard of them doing that, like on a regular basis, they kind of do what DMHHS does, which is like threaten people, cajole people, tell people you have to move.”
While arrests at encampment clearings are rare, Street Sense Media has observed city officials and Park Police threaten residents with both arrest and involuntary commitment when they did not want to move. In April, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department temporarily detained a pregnant resident at an encampment. She relieved herself while in custody, while DMHHS removed her tent and threw away her belongings.
In rare cases, encampment closures can also lead to residents becoming entangled with the legal system, even though D.C. law doesn’t intend to criminalize camping — particularly when they refuse to leave the sites they may call home.
Daniel Kingery lived in McPherson Square for nearly three years. He picked up litter, cleaned the park, tried to help his neighbors in emergency situations, and worked on his human-powered vehicle. The human-powered vehicle, a multi-use kind of automobile, is one of Kingery’s life’s works that he’s been slowly building for years, adding a solar panel here and a pedal there.
Kingery is a staunch libertarian, and refused to leave the park when it was closed in February of 2023. McPherson Square is federal land, and he was arrested by the Park Police for violating the no-camping ordinance.
The closure of McPherson Square Park is the biggest encampment closure in recent years, displacing over
70 people, including Kingery. It was supposed to be accompanied by an extensive housing push, but Kingery says he didn’t see anything of the sort until the days leading directly up to the closure. In the weeks after the closure, city officials confirmed 49 people remained living on the city’s streets.
In the reporting of this story, Street Sense spoke with at least five people including Kingery who have also been displaced from McPherson Square over a year ago, and still live in different encampments scattered across the city.
Kingery’s arrest in Feb. 2023 has followed him since, causing issues with the Park Police — in his eyes, it put him on their radar.
On May 22, 2024, Kingery was arrested again in McPherson Square at 2 a.m. while he was sleeping with only a blanket, and was charged by the Park Police with violating the no camping ordinance despite not having a tent or other structure.
Park police didn’t respond to requests for comment in time for publication.
This second arrest led him to lose a portion of his belongings, including many of the tools he was using to build the human-powered vehicle—which the Park Police has still not returned, Kingery said.
Even when they don’t result in arrest or a lifethreatening situation, encampment closures can still be deeply traumatic and unsettling for residents and lead to a variety of setbacks that make finding housing that much more difficult.
Eric, who also goes by Beer Can, lived next to Boone along the canal. He told Street Sense that being displaced by the closure left him feeling off-balance and depressed, and caused him to relapse after being 60 days sober from drinking.
“I had a spot where I could come back. I didn’t have to panhandle. I could come back and like actually lay down somewhere and not have to sleep on the sidewalk,” Eric said. “It was a nice place, it was stable. I mean, it was a tent, but it was a stable place.”
What’s behind the increase?
Advocates find it particularly frustrating that there don’t always seem to be clear reasons why closures happen.
“I think everyone could live with the idea that sometimes encampments need to be closed—But that the reasons for those would be pretty well-defined, that there would be a clear process with some accountability about that judgment that the D.C. government was making,” Rocap said.
Furmanchik concurred, and said that when the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless asks DMHHS why they have carried out a closure or an immediate disposition, they are most often told a closure is necessary due to a “health and safety hazard.” But that term is relatively unclear.
“We don’t know what a health and safety hazard really actually means, and they’re not willing to provide more information about what that is,” Furmanchik said. “It feels arbitrary because we don’t have any more information about what they can tell us. And it seems unequally enforced depending on where it is, who it is, and where the site is.”
At a recent closure at 21st and E St. Kirk, Johnsen, an encampment resident, echoed these frustrations. Johnsen says that the camp there was relatively healthy and safe, but that officials wanted to shut it down because it was
an “eyesore.” While DMHHS listed several reasons for the shutdown, including tables blocking ventilation grates, failures to dispose of trash, and human waste, Johnsen believes that he and other residents would have been happy to address those issues if it meant preventing another stressful move.
His frustrations illuminate another issue residents and advocates have with the encampment protocol and engagements process: there is no formal mechanism to appeal decisions DMHHS makes about an encampment. While public housing residents and other beneficiaries of D.C. government programs have a grievance process if their benefits or housing get taken away, no similar process exists for encampment residents.
“The protocol doesn’t give any sort of appeal rights or grievance rights to the subject of an encampment clearing,” Staudenmaier said.
The ambiguity behind why encampments are closed combined with the increase in closures this year leave advocates fearful that a cycle of closures will continue to shuffle people around the city without moving them closer to housing.
Instead, Rocap advocates that encampments should be approached with the goal of making homelessness brief and non-recurring by focusing on housing first approaches, not with the goal of dealing with an individual encampment.
“We have to keep in mind that we’re trying to end homelessness and housing ends homelessness, and we need sufficiently funded, dedicated outreach to encampments. We need housing,” Rocap said. “That’s the structural solution.”
In the meantime, advocates and encampment residents worry residents, like Salim will continue to be displaced, in traumatizing and distressing ways, and like Salim, they will just move to different spots on city or federal land.
As staff from the Department of Behavioral Health and officers of the Park and Metropolitan Police tried to talk him into leaving, Salim kept trying to explain his presence wasn’t bothering anyone, that he had a home right here where he was, and he kept it and the area around it clean and hidden. And he asked over and over again:
“What is the benefit of moving me?”
Signs posted before the closure at 21st and E St. Photo by Franziska Wild
The 988 mental health hotline has growing pains
CARI SHANE Freelance Volunteer Reporter
essica got an alarming call from a friend this past April. Jessica, whose name has been changed to protect her and her friend’s privacy, hadn’t seen or talked to him in a few years. He was audibly drunk, says the 29-year-old who lives in New York City; he told her he was going to kill himself. She called 988 three different times in two hours, and each time a different person told her to hang up and call 911.
JSixty-year-old Scott says that during the wee hours of the night, when he is suicidal but can’t call his psychologist or psychiatrist and doesn’t want to wake a family member or friend, he’s briefly considered calling that same 988 number – the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. But Scott, whose name has been changed because of the sensitive nature of his story, hasn’t yet out of fear that gun-toting police officers will show up at his New Jersey home and forcibly drag him to a mental hospital.
Jen Basinger says the 988 hotline saved her life – not just once, but over and over, since the mental health line launched two years ago. The 50-year-old from Ohio says she’s called 988 more than 50 times, sometimes because she’s suicidal, othertimes just to talk to a stranger. And it has always helped.
In July 2022, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline became the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, shifting from ten digits to three and expanding its reach to include a range of mental health needs. Since then, call centers have fielded more than 10 million calls, chats and texts from every state, as well as Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.
The year 988 debuted, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that in the U.S., suicide had reached a record high, with more than 49,000 confirmed suicides, 80 percent of them men. A report by Pew Charitable Trust, “America’s Mental Health Crisis,” published in December 2023, shows that since the COVID-19 pandemic, 38 percent more people are in mental health care than before. But help is not always available. Data compiled by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) shows that 160 million Americans are in what amounts to mental health deserts.
Like 911, the three-digit 988 lifeline number was created because it’s easier to remember, says Hannah Wesolowski, chief advocacy officer at the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). However, a NAMI/Ipsos poll in June found that only 23 percent of respondents said they are “somewhat familiar with 988.”
“We know we need that number to be much higher,” says Wesolowski. “A lot of people are often worried about taking this resource away from somebody else if their crisis isn’t, quote, unquote serious enough. If it’s a crisis for you, it’s a crisis. There isn’t a threshold.”
Since last year, text messages to 988 have increased 51 percent and calls 34 percent. “We’re trying to implement this system on a fast track,” she says, because of high demand and climbing suicide rates, up 16 percent since the 2011-2022 reporting period.
Congress gave a total of $1 billion to states to build out their 988 hotlines. Reporting shows, however, that the success of 988 is directly linked to each state’s existing mental health infrastructure. Take response rates, for example. While federal data from May shows an average, overall the national response rate of 89 percent, the numbers vary widely among states: 97
percent of 988 calls in Mississippi, Montana and Rhode Island were answered. In Washington, D.C., the answer rate was 85 percent, Colorado response rates were in the low 70s, the reponse rates are below 70 percent in Illinois, and in Nevada, fewer than 64 percent of 988 calls were answered.
Response rates, however, don’t tell the whole story. Arizona, which had a 72 percent response rate in May, is considered a model for crisis care, having built up its mental health crisis response systems for the past 30 years. Its continuum of care includes mobile units (similar systems are used in 20 other states) and Crisis Stabilization Centers, designed to help those in serious psychiatric distress – no other state in the country has crisis centers like Arizona’s. But what works there may not necessarily be the solution everywhere, says Wesolowski. While the goal is a system in which every caller has a comparable experience, Wesolowski believes the system still a few years away from that. Further, she says it will require not only a coordinated effort by the federal government, states, territories and tribes, but also the building of a national back-up system to ensure calls and texts are answered no matter a state’s capacity.
“I know that most people are getting a good experience when they call,” Wesolowski said. “I hate it when I hear people have a bad experience.” She also hates when people are afraid to call. Worries about anonymity and the kind of help they’ll receive is a concern for about a quarter of the population. While 72 percent of Americans responding to the NAMI/Ipsos poll said they would be comfortable calling 988, Scott isn’t one of them. “More scary than the actual trying – attempting suicide – was being in various hospitals and facilities where you’re locked in and you can’t leave, and those just scare me to death. That’s what’s stopping me from calling 988,” he says. That’s exactly what happened to Scott in the past when he was suicidal and his then-wife called 911 and he was hospitalized by police. “When I’m at my lowest, I’ve thought about calling 988, hoping it would be somebody just to talk to, to see me over the hump,” especially in the middle of the night when he can’t get hold of his therapist. But he’s too afraid of what might happen.
“This fear is prevalent and repeated often. It comes from a place of real trauma,” says Wesolowski. However, the 988 and crisis system is meant to reduce law enforcement involvement and hospitalization, she says. “Unlike 911, contacting 988 is the intervention and [using it] drastically reduces in-person responses. But the fear is based on real experiences, and an uphill battle for this system to climb,” says Wesolowski. Unlike 911’s system, which tracks where a call comes from, 988 is anonymous – in name and location, says Wesolowski. Only if someone meets the imminent risk protocol, which the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) estimates is only 2 percent of contacts to 988, will they try to locate that individual to send life-saving services, says Wesolowski. Half of that 2 percent share their location willingly, she adds.
While Scott is not convinced that 988 is a “resource where you could feel safe talking without there being ramifications,” Basinger says the conversations she’s had with the trained counselors have saved her dozens of times.
Basinger says that after multiple failed visits to an ER in Cincinnati in 2022 when she was feeling actively suicidal, “the most desperate that I’ve ever felt in my entire life,” she says, she called 988. “There’s a power in talking to a stranger,” she says of the 50 calls to 988 she estimates she made over the course of nine months that year. “I would contact them when
I was suicidal. I would contact them when I was not suicidal, but in crisis,” she says. “They weren’t friends, they weren’t family, they weren’t part of my care team. It was just, it was freeing, honestly.” Studies show that as with for Basinger, speaking with a crisis counselor helps callers feel more hopeful and less depressed and suicidal.
Still, there are 21st century issues exist that never plagued 911 when it first rolled out in 1968. Geolocation is one of them and may have been an issue for Jessica when she called 988 from New York City using a cell phone with a Washington, D.C., area code to report a concern about someone in Virginia. It’s an issue NAMI has been pushing Health and Human Services (HHS) to fix for years, says Wesolowski of a system she calls “a work in progress.” She expects new georouting technology to launch this year enabling calls and texts to be routed based on physical location, not area code, while still blocking the individual’s location.
But Jessica believes her bad experience wasn’t just about technology. When her friend called, she was looking for someone to help her – and him. “[He] called me, basically, saying goodbye, telling me he didn’t want to be alive anymore,” she says. They’d worked together during summers in college and hadn’t for a while. While she knew he’d stopped drinking years ago, she could hear a slur in his speech. When her mother suggested she call 988, “I was expecting someone to help me and to walk me through what to do,” she says.
Instead, they sounded like they were “simply reading from a transcript. No sympathy, no warmth, no, ‘You’re doing the right thing, we’re going to help you.’ I felt questioned, almost like they were checking to see if I was being honest,” she says. When she told them she didn’t have her friend’s address, the counselor told her to call 911, a recommendation that shocked her. “You want someone with a gun on them to show up at his house when he’s having a mental health crisis?” she recalls asking the 988 counselor.
She hung up and called back two more times while also juggling phone calls and texts to check on her friend, “and they kept just telling me to call 911.” Finally, she enlisted the help of her brother who reached out to a friend – a former social worker. He found the number for Virginia’s Emergency Mental Health Services, CR2 Crisis Response. “The person who answered was the opposite of the people on 988,” says Jessica. “I felt that I could trust him.”
In the end, “it took me talking to my mother, my brother, my brother’s friend and three separate calls to 988 and social [media] to find someone who could actually help my friend,” says Jessica. DM’ing mutual contacts on Instagram, she tracked down his parents’ phone number. Eight hours after the whole ordeal began,it was the police who ended up at her friend’s home. The crisis counselor assured her the officer they were sending was trained in mental health response but was not a mental health officer, apologizing for the fact that there just weren’t enough mental health professionals available to match the need. When they knocked on her friend’s door, the police had his parents on speaker phone.
“988 is only a piece of a crisis system. You need mentalhealth-related, in-person response. You need places for people to go when they need it. And so we’ve been focused on advocating for that full continuum of crisis care that treats people humanely and gives them the care that they need,” says Wesolowski. “We can’t rest until everyone is getting the support that they need.”
Re-established drug-free zones make D.C. less safe, local advocates argue
JESSICA RICH Freelance Volunteer Reporter
ast March, the D.C. Council approved a sweeping crime bill, known as the Secure D.C. Omnibus Amendment Act. Among the bill’s many provisions, which were largely seen as “tough on crime,” was the reintroduction of drug-free and loiteringfree zones, which are reminiscent of heavy-handed anti-drug measures of decades past.
LDrug-free zones, along with anti-loitering restrictions, have a contentious history in D.C. dating back to the late 1980s and mid-1990s. This approach to tackling crime rates may be traced back to Law 11-270, the “Anti-Loitering Drug-Free Zone” (Bill No. 11-441), which was enacted in July 1996 and implemented in 1997. This legislation marked a turning point in the District’s approach to drug enforcement through criminalization but was later repealed. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a councilmember at the time and a now proponent of the Secure D.C. Act, voted for the repeal.
Declaring an area a “Drug-Free Zone” means the police chief has designated an area of up to 1,000 square feet as a police enforcement hotspot — places where law enforcement claims to have witnessed open-air drug dealing, which Bowser has stated is her number one concern for these zones.
Those in favor of drug-free zones argue they enhance public safety. “If you are not drinking alcohol in public, if you are not consuming illegal drugs in public, you have nothing to worry about,” said ANC 5D06 commissioner Kathy Henderson in an interview for ABC7.
But the zones can have unintended consequences — and advoctes disagree on how effective they are. When drug-free zones are announced to neighborhood residents, they effectively transform public spaces for five-day periods, criminalizing the “congregation” of two or more individuals suspected of drugrelated activities. Failure to comply with these zones can result in fines or arrest.
Drug activity that occurs in a designated zone before enforcement will just move to another area, according to advocates at HIPS, an organization in D.C. that advances the health, rights, and dignity of people and communities impacted by sex work and drug use through the provision of harm reduction services.
Advocacy groups and justice organizations, like HIPS, have raised significant concerns about the likelihood of racial profiling and the disruption of vital community services resulting from drug-free zones. The Metropolitan Police Department and D.C. Government websites list “active” drugfree zones and their enforcement periods, but advocates say the impact of these designations extends far beyond their official timeframes. The zones have lasting, detrimental effects on communities long after their stated expiration date, said Alex Bradley, outreach and community education manager for HIPS.
“The point of the crime bill is to make life unsustainable for people who use drugs or people who are homeless or living in precarious situations. Any time drug-free zones pop up, services are interrupted,” said Bradley.
Posters used to indicate an area as a drug-free zone often remain up long after their expiration date, which can lead residents to believe there is ongoing enforcement and increased police presence, Bradley said. This can discourage residents from feeling comfortable enough to return to areas where they
may have previously received helpful services.
The Sentencing Project and the ACLU have also expressed worry about the Secure D.C. Crime Bill, including the portion related to drug-free zones, citing concerns about the violation of D.C. residents’ civil liberties associated with stop-and-frisktype policies.
The new drug-free zone policy has been dubbed “hotspot stop and frisk” by advocate Johnny Bailey, hotspot program manager for HIPS. The term reflects the discriminatory enforcement that occurs when policies like this are enacted.
The D.C. Council Office of Racial Equity examined the policy’s potential for discriminatory enforcement before the bill passed. The agency published a racial equity impact analysis of the Secure D.C. Act, that concluded it will exacerbate existing inequities and harm Black and Brown communities.
The existence of drug-free zones is not effective in reducing drug-related activity, and they generally “fail to meet the constitutional standard of equal justice because they subject individuals, certain classes of individuals, or whole communities to harsher punishment than others for similar conduct,” according to the agency.
The report is partially based on the difference between absolute safety and perceived safety. Proponents of the zones may feel safer with them in place, despite evidence the zones do not make “higher crime” areas safer and put more D.C. residents in harm’s way.
Drug-free zones will likely exacerbate racial inequity in the District, according to the report. The probable location of these zones in areas currently deemed as “high crime” and the District’s existing practices around policing and enforcement mean a disproportionate number of Black residents will be arrested, according to the report. While Black and white people use illicit drugs at similar rates, Black people in America continue to be disproportionately arrested for drug-related violations.
The zones can also stop people from seeking services. A resident of a location where a drug-free zone is in place could be arrested for talking to a nonprofit service provider if either of them are considered suspicious by D.C. police, said Bailey of HIPS.
As a result, those people will not return to areas where drug-free zones have been enforced for some time, potentially leading to an inability to reach people that organizations like HIPS usually serve, according to Bailey and Bradley.
“We can’t find the people that we normally reach out to at all. We lose connection with the community when we do these. They’re scared. They have to hide or find a new place to exist. When people feel unsafe accessing resources, people die,” Bradley said.
During the 2023 vote, Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White tried to amend Secure D.C. to require more outreach and intervention in areas before police can establish a drug-free zone, but the amendment was rejected.
Some have likened drug-free zones and other disruption tactics to “whack-a-mole” type strategies in a never-ending, nationwide war on drugs. These tactics may stop drug activity in one area by moving it to another. Or, as advocates like Bailey and Bradley argue, they may reduce safety and increase preventable deaths in more areas of D.C.
Proposed solutions include establishing help centers in drug hotspots, fully funding housing initiatives, providing funding to organizations helping vulnerable communities, and focusing on evidence-based approaches to addiction and drug use rather than trying to criminalize those using drugs.
“We need to get away from the concept of a drug-free America,” Bailey said, emphasizing the need for more support services rather than punitive measures.
Posting of drug free zone. Photo by Annemarie Cuccia
The storied career of Wendell Williams, from breaking into broadcast to retirement
It’s Sunday morning in Alexandria. Vendors are loading tubs of produce into their cars and heading for the neighborhood of Del Ray. Soon, they will prop up colorful tents that throw into relief the gray sky overhead.
Like the others, Wendell Williams begins his morning with a drive to the farmers market, traveling fifteen minutes west of his residence in Prince George’s County.
Once there, Williams settles into his usual spot on the sidewalk. The neighborhood’s farmers market straddles two sides of the street, and Williams places a stool right in the middle of foot traffic. He pulls out a milk crate containing copies of the latest edition of Street Sense, plus a sign that reads: “Support jobs for the poor and those experiencing homelessness!”
Shoppers begin to stroll in, many of whom Williams greets by name. He trades quick jokes with those who buy a copy of the paper, and even tosses dog treats to his four-legged visitors. Within view from the market, a local Black church called First Agape Baptist Community pokes above the tent tops. Williams once lived in an apartment above the church, which is how he first discovered the market years ago.
“I started in this market by helping the farmers set up,” he said. “And then I would go leave and sell my papers.”
Eventually, Williams realized he could sell papers at the farmers market instead of going into the District, which was further away and already covered by other vendors. He has been a regular at the market ever since, and said his success there has inspired other weekly stops outside the city, like another farmers market in Takoma Park.
Williams is a native Washingtonian, but his decades in the street newspaper scene started outside the District. He began his career in broadcast sales and marketing, bouncing between jobs in the DMV and Ohio. But in the 1980s he began to struggle with addiction and mental health issues, ultimately falling out of both the industry and long-term housing. He moved through shelters and short stints and friends’ houses, winding up at a Cincinnati shelter called Drop Inn Center in 1996.
During this time, Williams began volunteering with the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition. That’s where he met the team behind a local publication called Streetvibes, who encouraged him to sell their paper as a vendor. He took the job on and found his background in marketing came in handy, securing $300 in his first few hours of sales.
When Williams returned to his native Washington, D.C. years later, he parlayed his success selling newspapers into a position with Street Sense, becoming one of the publication’s earliest vendors. He takes pride in the fact that his employee badge number is in the double digits, making it one of the first given out.
In 2016, Williams also began writing for Street Sense, one year later launching his own column called “Random Acts of Kindness.”
“It was very important to me to chronicle the nice things that perfect strangers did for me during and after my journey of homelessness,” he said. “The whole premise of my column was to remind people that the nice things we do for perfect strangers could be crucial to their existence or their survival.”
Williams said that people who have never experienced housing insecurity often do not realize the impact their actions can have on individuals struggling with homelessness.
“To us, it could be just, ‘Hey, I just did something nice here, and I keep on with my life and totally forget about it,’” he said. “But I still remember things people did for me 27, 28 years ago when I was in the midst of homelessness or addiction.”
Over the next seven years, Williams penned 29 columns reflecting on moments of generosity he encountered in his day-to-day life. He continued writing and selling papers even as he secured long-term employment.
From 2018 to 2020, Williams served as a peer counselor for individuals struggling with opioid addiction in Arlington. Then, in 2020, he became a case manager for people experiencing homelessness with the Prince George’s County Department of Social Services.
“I helped them navigate the Prince George’s County social service system to help them access services that they need to move away from their homelessness or prevent them from falling into homelessness,” he said.
Williams is one of many DMV residents whose experiences with housing insecurity inspired and informed a later career in advocacy work surrounding homelessness. For him, experiencing firsthand the struggles his clients have faced made advocating for their needs more intuitive.
“I pretty much have focused the last six years on people who have mental health and substance abuse issues,” Williams continued. “I’m able to do that from the basis of using my own lived experience from being homeless myself and recovering.”
Throughout this time, Williams continued to work for Street Sense, and said it has provided a supplement to his income through major life changes. In days of financial hardship, he said working as a vendor has meant the difference between “living on the McDonald’s extra value menu” and having the choice of a higher-quality meal.
“Selling the paper allows me to have Chipotle every now and then, in terms of a metaphor for life,” he said.
“If I want Chipotle I can have it, versus being stuck.
Williams is currently in the midst of another career shift, retiring from his position as a case manager. But he said he did not have a full say in departing from the role, as his supervisors chose not to renew his contract. He believes it ultimately came down to a personality difference with management.
In part, Williams thinks that has something to do with his involvement with Street Sense and
Wendell Williams sells copies of the latest Street Sense edition at the Takoma Park Farmers Market in Maryland on Aug. 4.
Photo by Jack Walker
JACK WALKER Freelance Reporter
his advocacy work. He was traveling through South Carolina and Georgia with a friend in 2022 when they learned there was a hurricane forecast and that they needed to evacuate. While they got out of the region safely, it pushed Williams to think about weather emergency procedures in place within the District for people experiencing homelessness.
He called several different county agencies in the D.C. region, including his own social services department in Prince George’s County, to inquire about whether they had emergency policies like these on the books.
To his surprise, he said many did not have plans for how to support people experiencing homelessness during extreme weather events like hurricanes. He wrote about his experience and the need for proactive policies like these in a column in Street Sense, but said the scrutiny on county agencies upset some of his colleagues.
After years of advocating for and working with those in need, Williams said he hoped for a retirement that was celebratory or exciting. Instead, he found his final days of work for the department lackluster.
“It was unceremonious,” he said. “I didn’t get a luncheon. I didn’t get any cards.”
For now, Williams said he is getting used to retirement, and still has his newspaper sales to lean on. While Williams has maintained his role as a vendor over the years, he stopped writing for Street Sense in 2022, citing editorial differences with the paper’s previous leadership. But with his newfound free time, Williams said he hopes to start writing regularly again, largely because he sees a need for the gratitude and positive thinking his column brought in the past.
Plus, Williams said his column helps readers understand they can make an impact in the lives of people experiencing homelessness in small ways, too.
“I need to remind people that when you see that homeless person out there, you don’t have to do this big thing that
changes their life totally,” he said. “Maybe it’s just the kind of thing at a moment that reminds that person that they are still human.”
Wendell Williams throws a treat for local dog Bubblegum at the Del Ray Farmers Market in Alexandria, Virginia on Aug. 17.
Photo by Jack Walker
Wendell Williams holds up copies of the latest Street Sense edition at the Takoma Park Farmers Market in Maryland on Aug. 4. Photo by Jack Walker
Wendell Williams in front of his stand at Takoma Park Farmers Market in Maryland on Aug. 4. Photo by Jack Walker
This election will be a battle between common sense and nonsense
JEFFERY MCNEIL
ave you ever found yourself in a situation where you don’t support the candidate everyone around you is cheering for? Regarding the election, I try to be cordial while keeping my opinions on Kamala Harris to myself. This is the torment I go through every day. I don’t have the luxury of being a Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity; I have to be careful because many of my liberal customers are out there saving lives, feeding the disabled, and helping the homeless. Is it communism? Maybe. But what would happen without organizations like Bread for the City, Miriam’s Kitchen, or Street Sense?
HAlthough I love my liberal audience, I’m conflicted because I want to be like Tiger Woods, not Charlamagne tha God. I have no opinions on George Floyd or racial injustice. I’ll never be caught protesting or complaining about social topics that might alienate my high-end customers. Pandering to the capitalist is my wheelhouse, and the Biden administration is the most anti-capitalist administration in history. If Harris is elected, we may become Venezuela.
I don’t know what to say to my liberal friends. I like people who fight back against the establishment. I see Donald Trump as a kind of white Malcolm X — a man unafraid to speak out against the elites who think I’m going to sign off on higher taxes, more crime, and a culture where men stay in bed while women hold down the home front. You’ve got to admire a man telling the establishment the things I wish I could tell them without having my life destroyed.
The Trump years were the golden age of prosperity. You don’t believe me? I can show you photos of my round belly from eating at steakhouses and Red Lobster almost every night, thanks to the economic boom under Trump. Under Biden, everything is gone. My buffets have closed their doors, and my favorite steak place on 15th Street is gone. Downtown
D.C. looks like Dresden after World War II — no more T.J. Maxx, H&M gone, and only two CVS stores are left, closing at 10:00 p.m.
Downtown D.C. has become a ghost town — empty streets, no foot traffic, despair as far as the eye can see. It’s so bad that a homeless guy tried to sell me a stolen bag of potato chips because he was desperate for cash. And let’s not even open the can of worms about my electricity bill, or how I’m paying $5 for bread and almost $4 for milk when it was half that four years ago.
Nothing makes sense to me. I have Jewish friends telling me, “I know you’re not going to vote for him,” yet they’re on the same side as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. I have black friends telling me Trump’s a racist because of the Central Park Five — an incident that happened almost forty years ago — even though he funded HBCUs, created jobs for the Black community, signed the First Step Act, and created opportunity zones. Meanwhile, Harris’s open negligence on the border and rewarding of illegal immigrants with resources that deplete African American communities goes unchallenged.
Not only African Americans, but anyone who played sports, turns a wrench, or shoots a gun should support Trump. I’m not a misogynist but a realist. I was born a man, and I like being a man. When did this become misogynistic? I was born to lead, not be led by bad ideas.
I don’t care what the stats say. When I tell you my pain, and you come at me with stats, that’s why I won’t support you. I’m getting my ass kicked, working longer hours, and taking home less, and you’re talking about job numbers being down. You’re out of touch, and you’re a liar. As much as I love my liberals, some of you need to be fired.
I don’t care if Trump is mean. I want a rottweiler tearing through D.C. I don’t want congeniality — I want a wrecking ball. I want to see suitcases packed and agencies closed, starting with the Eviromental Protection Agency and the Department of
History of homelessness
INVISIBLE PROPHET
This piece will introduce readers to the beginning of governments creating occurrences that cause homelessness before swooping to address the issue. Battling the epidemic of homelessness takes more than protesting and marching. An issue with “advocates” is that many lack the education on homelessness history. A proposal to end homelessness is laughed at by many individuals in government positions, especially when “chumps” are sent to verbalize a stance they know nothing about.
Let me be clear: this article is not about immigration. Please read outside the box of this opinion piece. Here’s where the history of homelessness begins.
Homelessness began as consequence of the first census in 1790, when the government decided human beings were commodities.
Castle Garden, located in Battery Park, Manhattan evolved into an open port for collecting data on human beings who had no place to go. During the 1850s and 1860s, this island expanded into an immigration processing station and with its growth the homeless populations in places like tent communities and shanty towns changed. What could have been promised to those entering the states no longer existed because of the questionable conditions upon arrival.
I hear complaints about immigrants all the time, but not the matter of immigration being a business for all governments as immigration is an import and export between countries.
Education. Too many boomers are sucking up my hard-earned tax dollars — cut it off. No more raising the debt; it’s time to feel consequences instead of propping up phony dollars. I love my customers like I love my relatives. I love them too much to let them make life-and-death decisions like getting behind the wheel. I deal with liberals, feminists, and Black activists who don’t have a clue about politics. Just stay home and sit this one out! You don’t need to be anywhere near the switch box, and I say this out of love, not malice.
I tried the diversity and representation route. I’m okay going back to the days when men ran the country. I believe this election will hinge on two critical factors: common sense versus nonsense. Yet, in a landscape where political discussion has devolved into a contest of superiority — where making the other person feel stupid is the goal — what’s the point in even debating anymore?
So, as the election approaches, let’s resist the urge to reduce each other to labels and instead engage with the complexity of our beliefs — not this either-or mentality. Let’s have conversations where common sense can thrive, and don’t look me in the eyes spouting gibberish about oppression when none of you ever had to sleep outside, live off oodles and noodles, or be forced to do odd jobs or degrading stuff to stop from starving.
Stop whining, and if Donald Trump gets elected, you may hate me now, but you’ll thank me later. America will be cleaned up, law and order will be restored, and we will go through Washington, D.C., like a fine-tooth comb, getting rid of every worthless bureaucrat we can find. Hopefully, we can shut down every agency that doesn’t bring jobs, prosperity, and happiness to the people. I wish we could have the election now to vote these sorry sons of b****** out of office.
Jeffery McNeil is an artist/vendor with Street Sense Media.
Bilateral trade is an important concept to understand to recognize how homelessness is an automatic construct. As human beings our demographics work to the benefits of governments. Each human being (migrant) can increase or decrease demand between the United States of America and foreign countries through their immigration (migration).
No matter the era of origin, homelessness thrives off profitable and contextual cycles such as government programs. Timelines for homelessness started far before arrivals entered the borders of New York City. It did not matter how each human being was processed, whether the coordinator (agent) was illiterate or an immigrant themselves; homelessness thrived.
Some human beings’ purpose of transport may have been under the false guise of a promised land in the United States. Maybe their home country had no means for growth, e.g.,crops and farms.
Can you acknowledge the difference among homelessness, slavery, and propaganda within our vulnerability for successful dignity? There is forced homelessness within communities that have withstood all of the Great Depression, migration and other contextual factors that is human gestation.
Who is at fault for homelessness?
Invisible Prophet is an artist/vendor with Street Sense Media.
One Black man’s Election Day dilemma
WENDELL WILLIAMS
any who are paying attention to this presidential campaign will realize the rhetoric rarely aligns with reality, regardless of political party or affiliation. It is not a criticism of anyone, Black or white, rich or poor, to examine the surface facts of two very wealthy people in America who have taken advantage of the capitalist system suddenly decrying the trustworthiness of the wealthy. No honest-thinking person will accept the reasonableness of these presidential candidates’ assertions.
I know Black folks who will accept anything Michelle Obama or Oprah says regardless of whether it’s factual or logical content. A friend called from Baltimore the other night to tell me, “Michelle is speaking.” Like I was about to miss a message from ‘On High.’
Unfortunately, what has happened more often than not in this country is a blind acceptance to practically anything a person says if that speaker fits the mold of their allegiance, whether race, political party, gender, etc.
Basically, the rhetoric of the tribe usurps the reality in that particular person’s mind and those who refuse to blindly accept the rhetoric are vilified as racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, transphobic, etc. Or worst yet, be a free thinker like myself and be incorrectly labeled a Trump supporter.
Let’s be clear here: I am not a Trump or Harris supporter. Although I’m not a party guy and would lean toward the message of a true independent like Dr. Cornell West, I also
ART
Homeless people
DARLESHA JAYNER Artist/Vendor
support people like Rizza Islam and Dr. Umar Johnson. And I choose not to vote for any presidential candidate in 2024.
And for those who try to use shame and guilt by saying my ancestors died so I could vote, I’d say they didn’t die so I could vote as much as they died so I can have a choice. And for me the choice of the lesser of two evils is still knowingly choosing an evil. Which I will not do.
In fact, I’ve only believed in two presidential candidates’ visions in my life: Robert F. Kennedy in ‘68 and Marianne Williamson in 2020. And she was the only one which I gave what was, to me, a large amount of money. I still believe to this day her message could’ve saved this country from what’s going on now. I’d suggest Googling her speech at the Harvard Divinity School for her solution.
But here’s the hard data since Dr. King’s death in 1968. We’ve had 11 administrations, five Democrats and six Republicans. Each party had two presidents serve two terms. And the Democrats have been in the White House for 12 of the last 16 years.
Now make a list of the worst conditions a people can suffer in America and other than Native Americans, Blacks are at the very top of those lists. Number one with a bullet.
Now make a similar list of the very best conditions a people can experience in this country and across the board Blacks are at the very bottom of those lists.
Any reasonable person won’t even attempt to argue otherwise. Sadly, the conditions of Black Americans aren’t changing enough regardless of which party of gangbangers is
Over the years I’ve had my voucher I’ve met people and allowed them to stay in my home. They’ve been some good people. They were helpful and looked forward to our conversations each day. Sometimes they just want an open ear and good heart. They also call me sis and make me a friend at the bus stop by my house. We talk briefly while I’m waiting for the bus. I bring food and water at the bus stop. At the end of the day, they are human like we are human. Please take the time out and talk to them. Make friends with them. They are kind, sweet, lovely and caring. Lookout for them please. Just think about if that was you on the other end.
in the White House. It’s like the Crips or the Bloods running your community; leadership changes but your conditions don’t.
And before you start with excuses saying it’s the lack of cooperation in the House or the Senate remember those executive orders Biden signed for Asians, Jews, and the LGBTQ in his first days in office, well, there’s still no hate bill protecting Blacks, no George Floyd or Emmitt Till bills. And we wait.
Black people are the only people who won’t vote in their own best interests. I never understood one issue voters; now I’ve become one. Well actually a two-issue voter. Sorry; not feeling a climate change bill. I want a bill that saves my kids or grandkids from being murdered by cops who have a get-outof-jail-free card and I want this country to pay what it owes my ancestors for their centuries of unpaid labor in the most brutal of conditions. (After paying its Japanese citizens after a few years of suffering for comparison.)
This presidential race will be interesting but I do believe “The FIX” is in and Kamala Harris will win.
I pray I’m out of the country on Nov. 4, inshallah, for reasons of personal safety and thinking about Jan. 6, I strongly suggest you all have a “just in case plan” in place.
Policies unfortunately have taken a back seat to the cult of personalities, and America is fully entrenched in the age of the “Idiocracy.” I hope it doesn’t happen but on that date anything could happen. May The Creator help us all.
Haiku to Professor Willie
QUEENIE FEATHERSTONE
Artist/Vendor
Professor Willie is too cool but never chilly always teaching us
knows a lot about poems education just smart thanks so much for him
Willie Schatz is cool so fresh as the morning dew teaches us with a breeze
Threads of life
SAUL PRESA
Artist/Vendor
Poetry is the bread for the romantics for the sentimental but not for everyone
Poetry is an expression of everyone’s soul for all citizens in the world
Wendell Williams is an artist/vendor with Street Sense Media.
Live to work or work to live?
MARC GRIER Artist/Vendor
I remember when i used to have to get up at 5:30 a.m. and go to work. It was very hard and I struggled with it at my young age.
I was building MCI WorldCom headquarters in Ashburn, Virginia. It was a long two hour drive to the construction site and a three hours drive home! I worked a 10 hour shift six days a week. It wasn’t that bad once I got to work because I liked what I did. It’s one thing to get paid for the work you do, it’s another to love the work you do. Now, I’m at a point where I love the work I do with Street Sense. I can go to work when I want to, I can stay home when I want to. But you have to realize, when you don’t go out, you don’t make any money. So I have to be very strategic about the days I choose to go to work. At Street Sense I have a sense of family and the people are very open and friendly.
Let it be
BRIANNA
BUTLER Artist/Vendor
A whirlwind of blessings pours out as a gift a lift of support a smile of wonder to be embraced from one another. Lift up your hands and Rejoice! Rejoice!
Twirl with dance let your body be free. Capture the joy within yourself and walk with strides of confidence knowing you are good.
Let God’s glory shine on us and be made new. Plant a seed of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness that’s full of love and happiness. Coast the shores of your destiny and find greatness in the characters in your life. It is soaring together as people that makes things happen for good.
Let us nurture each other and all our animal friends.
Appreciate our vendors
LATICIA BROCK Artist/Vendor
It takes a lot to walk up to a person and ask for their hard-earned money and when you get a “NO!” it ain’t funny
Rain, hail, sleet, or snow Street Sense papers have to go
Clean vest and badge on get ‘em while they’re hot! pick somewhere to post up and find you a hot spot
In the library
DEGNON DOVONOU Artist/Vendor
The sun was just rising
When we get there easy
The place where quiet is
What surprised me is the aspect
The place was clean and clear
I can see with my own eye
The beautiful and nice tree
That welcomed me and the team
As we all are present in the scene.
Always represent in a professional manner just asking you take the time to appreciate our vendors!
Back to school boogie
TONYA WILLIAMS Artist/Vendor
It’s time to go back to school!
Education is SOOO important. Please put it number one on your list and things will progress in your life.
Let’s not forget how we were so glad to get back to school when we were young. I enjoyed showing off my new clothing, shoes, and every new book.
I love the smell of September. I got that from my parents, who took care of all my educational and living needs, as I’m sure yours did. So let’s salute them for showing us education is SOOO important.
Stay strong!
Voices from many speakers I heard
Some speaking Americanism
Some Africanism
Europeanism, Asianism or Oceanism
I seemed to have heard all those
And it touched my heart
I know now that the world is beautiful
And words to express it are multiple
I close my eyes and I feel nature speak
I know I’m glad to be a part of this
To continue doing and promoting this
The concept was good and the idea was good
I had a dream
ROBERT WARREN
Artist/Vendor
I had a dream in which I saw all of the children of Israel lined up in rows to kiss the Blackstone.
They all came to pray and give praise to the one whose eyes see the scales that give weight to who will go through the seven gates of heaven and hell. You never can tell who the Lord’s mercy will descend on. Old children of Israel lined up in rows.
For surely, the Lord knows your heart. The best of your humanity has to appear in your creative soul. Lord bless the children of Israel lined up in rows to kiss the Blackstone.
I had a dream about the Lord molding you out of sticky black clay like nothing found on earth. I had a dream and in this dream, I saw the angels bowing down to a black man who would one day be lined up in rows to kiss the Blackstone.
Peace and good will among the children of Israel. It’s only a dream. In my dream I see the children of Israel lined up in rows to kiss the Blackstone. All dressed up in white and blessed with the pure light of righteousness.
Peace on Earth among the 12 tribes and those of the children of Israel who listen to the lies of the one who whispers.
What I saw in my dream was the children of Israel lined up in rows alongside the angels bowing down. Giving all the praise to one who told Abraham to build the first house of worship next to the Blackstone.
I had a dream when I saw the children in Israel lined up in rows to kiss the Blackstone.
Back to school
CARLOS CAROLINA Artist/Vendor
Back to school! School is back!
Go to class! Take the test!
Wish you well; And hope you pass
Reading English Science Math
Principals
Students
Teacher’s pets
Breakfast
Lunch
All of that!!
Stay focused Study Story on track
Tryin’ to make a livin
FREDRIC JOHN Artist/Vendor
These are some of my memories from 45 years ago when I lived in the Southside of Chicago.
A high-charged most animated gentleman, Narvel Easton, had navigated up from the Mississippi Delta around World War II. His all-points landing was somewhere along Cottage Grove Avenue, right in the heart of Southside Chicago.
Even as a wiry lad in the Delta, Narvel had an eye for flashy Cadillac rides. So with money scraped together from parts-shop jobs and even stock and sales jobs, Narvel Easton snagged a brash sedan, replete with fins, chrome and rocket-shaped taillights. And thus was born the legend of Cadillac Baby. He wheedled an empty store near his apartment.
Wife and business partner, Bea (a Chicacogan by birth and wellversed in beauty lore) held down the sales of beloved RnB singles, and shellac LPs. “Race” records no more, since hip young conked lounge lizards, music-hungry Irish and Jewish kids from the North side and towns like Wheaton and Juliet were buying up the clanging new sound of Electric Blues.
Caddy Baby schooled himself, in league with Eli Toscano of Cobra Records, to run the latch and churn out some Black wax. The metallic indigo label of Bea n’ Baby was born! The packaging was primitive. The audio was a little raspy, but the sound was gritty and authentic. And for some odd reason, Bea n’ Baby captured the raw live sounds of the local round-robin Blues “chivarees” more and better than the established studios like Delmark and Arhodie.
Hear the raucous intros of Cadillac as he emcees local song celebrities “A ‘Comin an’ Plungn thru the crowd…”
No better example of Bea n’ Baby’s extemporaneity would be cited than Bobby Saxton’s plaintive rant:
“Tryin’ to make a living”
I’m a standin in the corner
With a pistol and a key, Tryin’ to get some-one to Go home with me
I’m tryin’ to make a Livin’, (repeat) I’m — (2x) -Best thing I can - do.
I’m gonna Pawn my watch,
Pawn my shoes:
Pawn anything that’s never been used.
Because it’s back to school; And school is back
Class is now in session
Why
GRETA CHRISTIAN
Artist/Vendor
[Admittedly, many of the acts Loeve signed to the Bea n‘ Baby board often they played in Cadillac Baby’s Lounge lad (adjoining the house label), and at least half the recordings were studio cuts interwoven with the club banter to give off the “live appearances” vibe.]
Why do people act like they are a different person instead of being who they really are?
Why do people pretend to be someone they’re not?
Why would someone pretend to be a different person? Because they’re not happy with the person they actually are.
Why these don’t have to be traumas as serious as being molested or witnessing a death, it could be little things, such as a father being critical or a friend deceiving.
Why am I not good enough?
Why am I not deserving of kindness or love?
Why am I not important?
Why am I a mistake?
Why? People want to protect themselves from further trauma and hide their pain, so they act in ways they normally wouldn’t. It is not even intentional. They may even try to be the idea of an absolutely perfect person. They may become addicts. They may become reclusive or demonstrate OCD behaviors.
Why do some people like to control people?
Why do some people have problems?
Why we need real people.
Why we need love.
Why we need God.
Pawn my gold, Pawn my ring (Repeat Chorus) I’m tryin to.. (27+)(Hornfill) Gon pawn every (Last out) Livin’ Best Thing I can Do-oo-ooh - -The Best Thang, I- can- do! (guitar obligato, and close)
So as Cadillac Baby would exhort his stars, work, work, work!!!
The jealous and the lovable
TASHA SAVOY Artist/Vendor
Our world has two kinds of people: jealous and lovable. So, let me sum that up.
The jealous:
J for juggling around their stability.
E for eggs on which their brains are fried.
A is the apple Adam ate.
L for lying to try and hurt others.
O for over-the-top and uncalled-for situations.
U the umbrella needed to protect us.
S for safety we need to always consider.
The lovable:
L for lifting up one another.
O for the oval shape gather around together.
V for the vengeance we do not need.
A for the first three letters in “assumption.”
B for the ball you don’t know where you want to throw.
L for learning how to live.
E for ending all the evil toward one another.
Remember the jealous and the lovable before you attempt to hurt another person and think of which you truly want to be. If you do that, your heart will be filled with love for everyone.
Illustration by Frederic John
FUN & GAMES
A
Roundabout Exercise
Across
1. Partner of circumstance in Elgar’s graduation ceremonial classic
5. Hitching post?
10. These may be made or shared at a 5-across
14. Fire ___ (gem)
15. Awaken
16. Hipbones
17. “Blue” or “White” river
18. Settles, as to a lake or river bottom
19. Choosing-up word
20. Purpose for which some tiny disposable spoons are made (2 wds.) (6,8)
23. What “all there” in slang means
24. Nine-digit ID targeted by identity thieves (abbr./init.)
25. Trig function, briefly (ACT ON anagram)
28. Hip-hop
31. Door fasteners
35. Arrows’ accompaniment, to Hamlet (Shak.)
37. Gridiron official, for short 39. Tube top?
40. Not a greek philosopher who learned from Socrates, taught Aristotle, founded the Academy and penned “The Republic,” but rather a soldier in the Beetle Bailey strip (3 wds.) (5,3,7)
44. ____bnb (online marketplace for shortand long-term homestays)
45. Go for the gold?
46. Widely recognized, as a symbol
47. author Zora ___ Hurston
50. U.K. sports car make, informally
52. “There, There...”_ (2 wds.) (3,2)
53. Suitor’s species ‘hiding’ in “Apart from his crush on Ann Darrow, King Kong wasn’t much of a people-person”
55. Away from the wind
57. “One-eighties,” slangily...or a two-word description of the circled letter groupings seen above in this puzzle (5,9) OVERALLS AT REST anagram)
64. Any ____ in a storm
65. Donnybrook
66. arizona city
67. A compulsion or craving
68. Walking ___ (over the moon) (2 wds.) (2,3)
69. And others, for short (2 wds.) (2,2) (lat.) (incls. abbr.)
70. Word before and after “will be”
71. ___ and Cher
72. Something Santa might get on his white fur and beard
Down
1. Word after Beer ____ or Ping ____
2. Mayberry kid of old TV
3. Where kids can have a sit-down one-onone with Santa
4. Like those who are easy to be around and to like
5. Bad lighting?
LAST EDITION’S PUZZLE SOLUTION
6. Hang around
7. Yellowfin, e.g.
8. Says “When?” “What?” “Where?” “Why?” or “Who?”
9. Breaks
10. ___ sausages
11. Couturier Cassini of fashion
12. Patrick Mahomes currently boasts a total of 89 in his NFL career
13. “...as I ____, not as I do”
21. One of the two words related to dancing in the NATO phonetic alphabet
22. Common language suffix
25. House channel (1-4) (initialism)
26. Stan’s partner in an old slapstick comedy duo
27. Beauty pageant wear
29. Climate Pledge ____ (Seattle event site originally built for the 1962 World’s Fair)
30. Get-up-and-go
32. Some hospital procedures
33. Place for a barbecue
34. Dust amount that the white-gloved sarge inspecting your locker doesn’t “...want to see a single...” one of
36. Auto lubricant-additive product that, surprisingly, no longer sponsors a racing car or family (abbr./initialism)
38. Calendar weekday that aptly begins with a start to frivolity (abbr.)
41. Journey to Mecca
42. Less cordial
43. Gives a formal thumbs up to a proposed action or position (2 wds.) (5,3)
48. Coffee house servings whose popular name relates to the Italian word for milk
49. Clean Air Act org. found in HEPA filter (abbr./init.)
51. Caved
54. St. ___ fire
56. Apprehensive
57. Bullfight bull
58. Unrestrained revelry
59. “Biggest Little City” near Lake Tahoe
60. Brio
61. Charger, Bronco or Mustang
62. Texter’s ROFL alternative (abb./init.)
63. Ship’s crew member description that’s always preceded by “old...”
64. Stop on a crawl
This crossword puzzle is the original work of Patrick “Mac”McIntyre. It is provided to us courtesy of Real Change News, a street paper based in Seattle, Washington. Learn more about Real Change News and the International Network of Street Papers at realchangenews.org and insp.ngo.
ILLUSTRATION OF THE WEEK
COMMUNITY SERVICES
Housing/Shelter Vivienda/alojamiento Case Management Coordinación de Servicios
Academy of Hope Public Charter School
202-269-6623 // 2315 18th Pl. NE
202-373-0246 // 421 Alabama Ave. SE aohdc.org
Bread for the City 1525 7th St., NW // 202-265-2400 1700 Marion Barry Ave., SE // 202-561-8587 breadforthecity.org
Calvary Women’s Services // 202-678-2341 1217 Marion Barry Ave., SE calvaryservices.org
Catholic Charities // 202-772-4300 catholiccharitiesdc.org/gethelp
Central Union Mission // 202-745-7118 65 Massachusetts Ave., NW missiondc.org
Charlie’s Place // 202-929-0100 1830 Connecticut Ave., NW charliesplacedc.org
Christ House // 202-328-1100 1717 Columbia Rd., NW christhouse.org
Church of the Pilgrims // 202-387-6612 2201 P St., NW (1-1:30 on Sundays only) churchofthepilgrims.org/outreach
Community Family Life Services 202-347-0511 // 305 E St., NW cflsdc.org
Community of Hope // 202-232-7356 4 Atlantic St., NW communityofhopedc.org
Covenant House Washington 202-610-9600 // 2001 Mississippi Ave., SE covenanthousedc.org
D.C. Coalition for the Homeless 202-347-8870 // 1234 Massachusetts Ave., NW dccfh.org
Father McKenna Center // 202-842-1112 19 North Capitol St., NW fathermckennacenter.org
Food and Friends // 202-269-2277
(home delivery for those suffering from HIV, cancer, etc) 219 Riggs Rd., NE foodandfriends.org
Foundry Methodist Church // 202-332-4010 1500 16th St., NW foundryumc.org/idministry
Identification services
Friendship Place // 202-364-1419 4713 Wisconsin Ave., NW friendshipplace.org
Georgetown Ministry Center // 202-338-8301 1041 Wisconsin Ave., NW georgetownministrycenter.org
Jobs Have Priority // 202-544-9096 1526 Pennslyvania Ave., SE jobshavepriority.org
Loaves & Fishes // 202-232-0900 1525 Newton St., NW loavesandfishesdc.org
Martha’s Table // 202-328-6608 marthastable.org 2375 Elvans Rd, SE
2204 Martin Luther King Ave. SE
Miriam’s Kitchen // 202-452-8926 2401 Virginia Ave., NW miriamskitchen.org
My Sister’s Place // 202-529-5991 (24-hr hotline) mysistersplacedc.org
N Street Village // 202-939-2076 1333 N St., NW nstreetvillage.org
New York Avenue Shelter // 202-832-2359 1355-57 New York Ave., NE
Patricia Handy Place for Women 202-733-5378 // 810 5th St., NW
Samaritan Inns // 202-667-8831 2523 14th St., NW samaritaninns.org
Samaritan Ministry 202-722-2280 // 1516 Hamilton St., NW 202-889-7702 // 1345 U St., SE samaritanministry.org
Sasha Bruce Youthwork // 202-675-9340 741 8th St., SE sashabruce.org
So Others Might Eat (SOME) // 202-797-8806 71 O St., NW some.org
St. Luke’s Mission Center // 202-363-4900 3655 Calvert St., NW stlukesmissioncenter.org
Thrive DC // 202-737-9311 1525 Newton St., NW thrivedc.org
Unity Health Care unityhealthcare.org - Healthcare for the Homeless Health Center: 202-508-0500 - Community Health Centers: 202-469-4699
1500 Galen Street SE, 1251-B Saratoga Ave NE, 1660 Columbia Road NW, 4414 Benning Road NE, 3924 Minnesota Avenue NE, 765 Kenilworth Terrace NE, 850 Delaware Ave., SW, 3240 Stanton Road SE, 3020 14th Street NW, 425 2nd Street NW, 4713 Wisconsin Avenue NW, 2100 New York Avenue NE, 1333 N Street NW, 1355 New York Avenue NE, 1151 Bladensburg Rd., NE, 4515 Edson Pl., NE
Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless 1200 U St., NW // 202-328-5500 legalclinic.org
The Welcome Table // 202-347-2635 1317 G St., NW. epiphanydc.org/thewelcometable
Whitman-Walker Health 1525 14th St., NW // 202-745-7000 1201 Sycamore Dr., SE whitman-walker.org
Woodley House // 202-830-3508 2711 Connecticut Ave., NW
For further information and listings, visit our online service guide at StreetSenseMedia.org/service-guide
Team Member
Smoothie King // 1940 14th St. NW
Part-time
Blends delicious smoothies, greets and engages guests, preps all fruits, vegetables, frozen items, powders, and liquids, performs opening and/or closing duties.
REQUIRED: N/A.
APPLY: tinyurl.com/dcsmoothieking
Delivery Driver
Papa John’s // Georgia Avenue NW
Part-time
Ensure orders are delivered on time and accurately. Prepare the delivery vehicle before each shift and become familiar with the delivery areas. Check that orders meet quality and accuracy standards, following the correct delivery procedures. Handle order paperwork and payment transactions meticulously..
REQUIRED: Valid driver’s license.
APPLY: tinyurl.com/PJdriverdc
Busperson/Food Runner
Opaline Bar // Layfayette Square
Part-time
Offer professional, friendly and engaging service, assist servers with food delivery, clearing tables, and setting up tables, attend to buffet items, ensure overall cleanliness of the restaurant at all times, have full knowledge of beverage lists, promotions, menu items, contents, and preparation methods.
REQUIRED: Able to stand for up to two hours, and lift up to 40 pounds.
APPLY: tinyurl.com/opalinejobs
Hiring? Send your job postings to editor@StreetSenseMedia.org
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