12 13 2017

VOL. 15 ISSUE 3

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DEC. 13 - 26, 2017

Real Stories

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EVENTS

// 3

NEWS Women in public housing take the stage

BY LILAH BURKE Editorial Intern

PROMOTIONAL GRAPHIC COURTESY OF EMPOWER DC

PHOTO BY RODNEY CHOICE

National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 21 - 1 p.m. Friday, Dec. 22 Since 1990, memorial services have been coordinated across the country on or around Dec. 21 — the Winter Solstice and longest night of the year — to remember the people who have died while experiencing homelessness during the past year. To identify local services outside of the District, visit the National Coalition for the Homeless website at NationalHomeless.org. Street Sense Media will provide live coverage on Twitter and Facebook in conjunction with other U.S. street papers. You can follow along at StreetSenseMedia.org/vigil2017 THURSDAY, DEC. 21

FRIDAY, DEC. 22

Candlelight Procession

D.C. Council Walk-Around

5 p.m.

Luther Place Memorial Church 1226 Vermont Avenue NW

9 a.m.

The Wilson Building 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Speeches delivered and placards bearing the names of people known to have died while homeless given to those in attendance to be carried in a march down 14th Street.

An advocacy training will be held at Freedom Plaza after the sleepout and breakfast. Participants will then visit city councilmembers at The Wilson Building.

THURSDAY, DEC. 21

FRIDAY, DEC. 22

Overnight Vigil

Memorial Service

7 p.m. - 9 a.m. // Freedom Plaza 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

12 p.m. - 1 p.m.

1313 New York Avenue NW

Dinner, a community open mic, walks to distribute cold-weather supplies to people sleeping on the streets and a sleep-out in a heated tent.

An interfaith service will be held at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. A community meal will be provided before the service.

D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness Meetings Outreach Policy/Protocol Dec. 13, 2:30 p.m. - 4 p.m.

441 4 Street NW Shelter Conditions Work Group Dec. 14, 10:30 a.m. - 12 p.m.

Location TBD, likely 441 4 Street NW Medicaid Work Group Dec. 20, 2 p.m. - 3 p.m.

Location TBD, likely 441 4 Street NW UPDATES: ich.dc.gov/events

Keep up with community events at StreetSenseMedia.org/calendar

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The nonprofit advocacy group Empower DC has partnered with playwright Caleen Jennings, a two-time Helen Hayes Award nominee, to produce “On My Mind/ In My Heart: Voices of Women in Public Housing.” The program’s six actresses each told their stories of living in the D.C. public housing system to Jennings, who crafted the script from their experiences. The play premiered last year with two performances, but Empower DC saw an opportunity to bring the show to a wider audience.

The play touches on the women’s interactions not only with the housing system but also with their neighbors, their families and new residents.

As the program begins, music plays and the six women walk out in single file, dancing. “We’re not going anywhere!” the women say in unison.

Some of them grew up in D.C. public housing, including India Fuller, who watched crack and violence take over the city. When her mother died of cancer, the housing complex put a summons on her door, claiming her mother owed them money.

Others are mothers themselves. Linda Brown is the mother of a 23-year-old daughter who has multiple disabilities. She describes carrying her daughter in a wheelchair up the stairs when the elevator in her building is broken or stained with urine. The neighborhood kids stare at her daughter’s chair.

“We are here to bear witness,” the women say in unison.

Mold aggravates children’s lungs. Gunshots ring out in the night. One woman waits on the public-housing waiting list for 16 years.

Neighbors and community are discussed frequently.

Paulette Mathews started an unofficial children’s program at Barry Farm, but she describes how a few neighbors would yell humiliating things at her and pull up flowers the children had planted.

Another woman returns to a neighborhood she had left that has now been gentrified, full of white residents and dogs. Her neighbors regard her with suspicion. “They assume,” she says.

Empower DC director Parisa Norouzi encourages the audience to listen and learn from the stories presented.

“Public housing is our housing, and it’s a precious resource that we must cherish,” she said.

By the end of the show, the women appear drained but resilient, looking for a better life. They discuss what they love about their lives and what has challenged them. “I’m tired of poverty,” one says at the end of the performance. “It’s ugly, and it hurts.”

Showtimes and event information are available at facebook.com/EmpowerDC

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DC Council hears testimony on converting office space to affordable housing

BY LILAH BURKE Editorial Intern

The D.C. Council Committee for Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization heard public and government testimony on its bill to create an Office to Affordable Housing Task Force. The potential task force would investigate converting D.C. office space into affordable housing, providing recommendations and budgeting analysis to the D.C. Council and the Mayor.

The bill was introduced by At-Large Councilmember Robert White.

As concern grows over the District’s dearth of affordable housing, White and the six other councilmembers who have signed onto his bill are hoping to find a creative path forward in office conversions. Converting vacant office space into affordable housing could create new units and give building owners a new source of income, but some have shown concern over the amount of public money such a project would need.

White and At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds heard testimony both in favor of and against the bill’s passing. Andrew Trueblood was the only government witness at the hearing to testify. Trueblood, chief of staff for the Deputy Mayor’s Office for Planning and Economic Development, testified against the bill. His comments focused on the expense behind the task force, suggesting that the District’s money could create and preserve affordable housing in more efficient ways.

Generally, older office buildings are the best candidates for conversion, but Trueblood noted that building owners could make more money by simply renovating and fetching higher office rents. The government would need to provide a subsidy to incentivize owners to choose conversion over renovation. “The subsidy would compete with affordable housing production and preservation that is less expensive,” Trueblood said. “Likely not the most effective use of funding.” In the current print of the bill, a representative from the Deputy Mayor’s Office for Planning and Economic Development would be part of the task force, and the office would also be responsible for administrative staffing.

White pushed back against Trueblood’s testimony, noting that his bill is not exclusive to the downtown core, and that the District’s budget for affordable housing has mostly gone towards protecting and preserving housing, rather than creating it. He also said that conversions have already happened in the private sector in large cities such as New York and Minneapolis. other large cities.

Cheryl Cort, policy director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, testified in support of such conversion.

Her organization promotes walkable, transit-oriented growth and she advised that an architect would be a worthy addition to the 11-member task force. Currently, the bill outlines a series of experts who would be on the task force, including one structural engineer. Cort explained that an architect would have expertise more in line with what the council was looking for. Cort recommended architects who bewere involved in converting the abandoned EPA headquarters near the southwest waterfront into affordable housing.

Caroline Petti of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City also testified in support. Her group is a nonprofit which supports responsible land use in the District, Petti noted that office vacancy in the District is 12.3 percent, according to a report from Kushman and Wakefield. Petti also suggested that the task force put some focus on family-sized units of two or more bedrooms.

Witnesses turn out for oversight hearing to discuss homeless encampement policies

M

BY EMMA RIZK // Editorial Intern

embers of the public were invited to testify at a Nov. 15 oversight hearing of the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services.

Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray, who chairs the Committee on Health, said that he called the hearing because “many health and human service agencies are struggling to meet basic expectations of performance.”

Most of the registered witnesses spoke about recent encampment cleanups, coordinated by the deputy mayor’s office, that occurred in Foggy Bottom on E Street.

Andrew Wassenich of Miriam’s Kitchen described them as destruction of a community.

“The cleanup on Nov. 2 was pretty much a show of brute force and it may as well have been a tank and a squad of troops from the way it was handled,” he said.

King Mark, who lived in one of the encampments, said $1,000 worth of property was destroyed in the cleanups, including his friend’s birth certificate and Social Security card. Aaron Snyder, a GWU student, claimed he was punched and kicked by police officers while trying to protect a tent.

Gray questioned Snyder about the incident and asked if he had filed a report with the Office of Police Complaints. He had not, saying that he was more worried about the residents of the encampments.

Gray said it was possible to focus on both. “If folks, as you allege, are being physically abused by our law enforcement officials, and you can corroborate that, of course we would want to know that and we would want to have a complaint lodged that could be investigated,” Gray said. “But you didn’t do that.”

Synder said he would file a complaint that day. Another student, who identified herself as Andrea, said that she photographed and recorded the cleanups. She supported Snyder’s account and offered to make her work available to Gray’s office. He encouraged her to send it to him as well as to the deputy mayor. He commended all of the students for their activism.

Ethan Koczent, a GWU student, commended the sanitation workers present at the cleanup, saying the majority of them “stepped aside and said they wouldn’t be involved in throwing away people’s homes and lives,” One sanitation worker confided that they were close to sleeping on the streets themselves, despite their job, according to Andrea.

Public witnesses testified before the committee for approximately an hour and a half before representatives from the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services had the opportunity to provide their own statements before then responding to an hour of questioning from committee members. Deputy Mayor HyeSook Chung encouraged the public witnesses to review the city’s protocol for conducting homeless

encampment cleanups, which she said was methodically created over the course of eight years in collaboration with legal advocates and nonprofit partners.

Before Chung’s testimony, Gray had asked several of the public witnesses if they were familiar with the rules surrounding encampments. “I think the issue at hand is that we don’t agree with the rules in place” Koczent said. “It’s either sleep on a bench where you freeze and get hypothermia or go in a shelter where you are assaulted. I’d rather break the law and stay in a tent town where I’m safe and protected.”

Chung said the city takes “great care in notifying people in encampments about what the protocol and procedures are and what ‘cleanup’ means.”

Witnesses disagreed with the government’s claim to clear communication.

Koczent said that when he tried to call the numbers listed on the cleanup sign for more information, several did not work.

Samantha Ross, another GWU student, stated that “cleanup” was the wrong wording for the signs and that ‘eviction notice’ would be clearer for residents.

Michael Burriss, one of the encampment residents, testified that he had led the tent community to rake leaves and throw away trash in anticipation of the scheduled cleanup. Burriss said that the police told him that residents could move their tents back once the cleanup was finished.

“What’s the point? Why are we making people move everything they own?” asked Arty Lowenstein, one of the GWU students. He said that some people had to take off work to be present for the cleanup.

“If you are going to let them move back, why are we spending time to traumatize people and terrorize a community?”

The primary reason for doing a cleanup is for the safety of the residents who are vulnerable to public safety and public health risks, according to Chung. She said that the Department of Human Services and the Department of Behavioral Health outreach teams are doing individualized outreach to encampment residents on a regular basis. Gray asked for detailed outreach data, which the deputy mayor agreed to provide to his office.

According to several witnesses, the representatives from the mayor’s office that were present at the cleanup repeatedly told encampment residents to go to shelters.

“People live in encampments because tents provide shelter and privacy and because there is safety in numbers,” said Wassenich, the peer outreach specialist from Miriam’s Kitchen. “By sweeping these encampments the administration denies individuals these things. I suggest anyone who believes that a shelter is where homeless people should go should spend a night in one themselves.”

Wassenich testified that his clients have complained of a bed bugs, being assaulted

or robbed and struggling to maintain sobriety among drug users in shelters. He said that at least one third of homeless individuals prefer to stay outside even in the dead of winter.

The deputy mayor did not address shelter conditions in her testimony.

Jesse Rabinowitz, also of Miriam’s Kitchen told the committee that he has witnessed firsthand the harmful impacts of encampment cleanups on his clients.

“Encampment evictions are often traumatic and do not address the root causes of homelessness” Rabinowitz said.

According to him, encampments rarely present a public health concern and, if they do, that should be the main reason why they are cleaned up. He alleged that neighbors’ complaints motivate cleanups, though the deputy mayor’s office has denied this in Street Sense Media’s past reporting.

All of the witnesses called on the mayor’s office to respond to this issue effectively and efficiently. Many of them stressed the dire need to fund affordable housing.

Wassenich said that only six percent of this year’s homeless services budget goes to housing homeless individuals.

According to him, during 2015 the D.C. government spent $223,807 on encampment cleanups. “It’s shocking that this much money is not spent on helping homeless individuals, but on making their already difficult lives harder,” Wassenich said.

Public records obtained by Street Sense Media during that time period show that each unique encampment location generally required $1,000 - $4,000 to clean up. The outlier during the OctoberJanuary quarter that the data represented was a recurring area near the Watergate complex that took $132,334.60 to repeatedly clear out during that threemonth period, after which encampments returned sporadically.

Gray questioned Wassenich about what was included in the projected $257 million-dollar budget for city homeless services in fiscal year 2018. Wassenich responded that it includes $30 million for a new shelter, $16 million for hotel rooms for families, and significant amount for permanent supportive housing.

Rabinowitz added that this amount also includes $100 million that Mayor Bowser has committed to the housing production trust fund each year. “But regardless of the amount, it pales in comparison to the dire need for housing,” Rabinowitz said.

Burriss, one of the camp residents, echoed Wassenich’s testimony. “Why are you trying to take from someone who is less fortunate than you? If we can put together that small tent town and we can sleep together and have a small community, why can’t we do that? You want to change the nation? That’s how you change it, go to the darkest part of our community and once you see the change there everything else will follow” Burriss said.

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

// 5

DC Council votes in favor of the HSRA Amendment but withholds $8.9 million from a rapid rehousing extension

BY BETHANY TUEL // Editorial Intern

T

he D.C. Council voted 10-2 on Dec. 5 in favor of passing the Homeless Services Reform Act (HSRA) Amendment of 2017. The bill, which has changed significantly since it was introduced in May, awaits the mayor’s signature and, like all D.C. legislation, will be reviewed by Congress.

Several new amendments were introduced to the bill during the legislative meeting that preceded the vote.

Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, who chairs the Committee on Human Services, introduced an amendment that clarified language in the bill to ensure that all beds being utilized for medical respite are exempt from the appeals process for residents who are moved out of those beds. Judgment of the medical professional who oversees such beds is final. It also clarified that shelter providers are required to consult with a licensed medical professional before taking a non-medical adverse action against a client. The amendment further ensures that there will be no limitations on the types of documentation the Department of Human Services can accept as potential proof of residency for people applying for assistance, on a case-by-case basis.

Nadeau introduced a second amendment that stipulates that clients being removed from a time-limited housing program have the right to appeal their removal if they did not receive adequate case management support while in the program. Both of Nadeau’s amendments passed unanimously.

At-Large Councilmember Robert White, Jr. introduced an amendment to alter a clause that allows for the redetermination of a person’s eligibility for a program if they are absent from the program for more than four days. The amendment clarifies that only absences without good cause should trigger a redetermination of eligibility and that the administration would be called upon to provide a standard for “good cause” that would be applied to every case. The amendment passed unanimously.

Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh and Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen co-introduced an amendment providing that people who are hospitalized or involuntarily detained for psychiatric treatment for more than four days have the right to appeal any written notice of termination or transfer if their eligibility was redetermined while they were hospitalized.

The amendment proposed that the timeline for which a client may make an appeal starts from the time the client is released from the facility in which they were being treated.

Cheh and Allen introduced another amendment that eased eligibility for services such as permanent supportive housing that target “chronically homeless” individuals. The amendment removed an exclusion in the bill that prohibited people who otherwise meet the criteria for chronic homelessness but have been residing in an institution — such as jail — for 180 days or more. Both amendments passed unanimously.

Robert White also introduced an amendment to clarify language stating that a family or individual who is applying for assistance and whose name is on a lease or occupancy agreement must provide credible evidence that it is impossible to return to that housing. The amended language reflects that an individual or family in this situation would have to provide credible evidence that the housing with which their name is associated is unsafe to return to, rather than impossible. The committee deliberately removed this language from the bill during an Oct. 18 markup session, but the language was added back as an amendment introduced by Chairman Mendelson toward the end of the first vote on Nov. 7. Robert White’s amendment to again remove the language passed unanimously.

Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White, Sr. acknowledged that a number of organizations and residents had voiced opposition to the HSRA bill before re-introducing an amendment that he had put forth during the first vote on the HSRA bill. He noted that it had previously failed by one vote and many of his peers had said they could not support the amendment at that time because it lacked a fiscal impact statement, which he

Advocates at The Wilson Building hold signs opposing the HSRA amendment.

PHOTO BY BETHANY TUEL

PHOTO BY BETHANY TUEL

now provided. The amendment would extend the time limit on rent subsidies for the rapid rehousing program from 12 months to 18 months and require that recipients be assessed by the Department of Human Services before a landlord that had been receiving the DHS subsidy could evict them. “So you can’t just put them out without assessing them,” Trayon White said. The family would be assessed on three criteria: the quality of case management they had received, their ability to maintain permanent housing without further assistance, and whether they had been evaluated for other permanent housing options. If the provider concluded at the end of the assessment that the family was not prepared to exit, then the family would be offered six more months in the program.

Trayon White’s amendment was immediately opposed by Nadeau, who noted that the rapid rehousing extension would cost $8.9 million over the four-year financial plan. “8.9 million dollars could fund hundreds of units of targeted affordable and permanent supportive housing, which I think we can all agree is a much more sustainable intervention for folks experiencing homelessness,” Nadeau said. “In fact, this committee—the Human Services Committee—invested almost this much in permanent supportive housing and targeted affordable housing in the current budget. If I had another 8.9 million dollars, I’d much rather spend it on those interventions than giving people six more months in rapid rehousing when they may not be successful there.”

At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman supported the amendment and added that she would support the bill as a whole. “I know this is disappointing to some of the legal aid advocates and others. They are doing their job representing their clients, and I appreciate their vigorous advocacy. They have done a good job highlighting the pitfalls of this bill, and I do think they have made it better,” Silverman said.

“I don’t quite understand Councilmember Nadeau’s point here,” Silverman continued, “because what rapid rehousing is, is a subsidy for housing, so, if we spend it in rapid rehousing or somewhere else, we’re still going to spend the money to get them into permanent housing. I think Councilmember White’s amendment is not ideal, like the bill itself, but it acknowledges that most families exiting the shelter system through rapid rehousing need more time.”

Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray voiced support for the rapid rehousing amendment. He saw it as a relatively small investment with a plan for assessment-driven implementation.

Chairman Mendelson joined Nadeau in opposing the rapid rehousing amendment. He read the beginning of a sentence from what Trayon White had put forward. “‘...A family shall be entitled’ — so this is creating an entitlement,” Mendelson said. “The cost reflects that this is adding a burden to the homeless system.”

At-Large Councilmember David Grosso supported Trayon White’s amendment. “One of my biggest frustrations with this

debate has been this constant claim that we don’t have enough money to provide services to the people that need the services.

And this is an example where this entitlement, if that’s what we are creating, although that’s an inflammatory word, is worth it, and we should spend the money to make sure that people have the time to get to the kind of permanent housing that they need in order to make it in our city.” He added, “[We need to] recognize that we are a city that has lots and lots of money and savings, we invest in tax cuts, we invest in subsidized parking, and the fact of the matter is, at some point I think we all have to just take a deep breath and draw a line and say the money that we’re making through revitalization in the District of Columbia needs to be invested differently, and we need to invest it in the people.”

Grosso had previously criticized a large expenditure for parking, calling it a poor use of government funds. Earlier in the legislative meeting, the D.C. Council had passed an unrelated measure to give $82.4 million to developers for infrastructure improvements in the Union Market district of Northeast, $36 million of which was earmarked for parking. Silverman was the only councilmember to vote against that investment, saying that she supported the money for infrastructure but opposed such high spending on parking, an amount that several government agencies have deemed excessive.

The rapid rehousing amendment, which had a tied vote of 6-6, failed. Silverman, Robert White, Trayon White, Gray, Grosso, and McDuffie voted in favor of it. Ward 4 Councilmember Brandon Todd was absent.

Before the full HSRA bill was voted on, Grosso voiced his opposition to the bill. “I believe that we’re making a mistake here. I believe that we have an obligation as elected officials to stand up for the people that most need us to stand up for them,” Grosso said. “That means that we should be investing in homeless services to the furthest extent possible. And so, for that reason, Mr. Chairman, I cannot support this legislation.”

Robert White said he would support the bill but wanted to clarify why. He said that when the the HSRA Amendment Act of 2017 was originally introduced, it seemed as if the government’s approach to fixing the homelessness system would be simply to serve fewer people and spend less on services.

“The bill as it is today is not the bill I would have drafted,” White said, asking his colleagues to take more time to consider the proposals brought forward that day and to imagine what else might be done before the law is finalized. “I wish we could have done more on rapid rehousing and made access to shelter easier. I wish we could have had a more robust conversation about how we might get creative and do more with more. It is still clear, though, that this bill is far better than it was when it was introduced. It is better than it was when we marked it up, and it is better today than it was two weeks ago.”

The bill passed with Grosso and Trayon White voting no and Todd absent.

Many advocates and residents expressed disappointment in the bill as it was passed. “They’ve created an unworkable standard for families to get into shelter, and I think there will be consequences to that,” said Amber Harding, an attorney at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless and one of the bill’s most vocal critics. “It’s shortsighted. There were a lot of things that aren’t mutually exclusive that were presented as joined.

The idea that we could take the 8.9 million dollars in rapid rehousing and we could spend it on permanent housing instead — I don’t see them doing that. This was their opportunity to fix the program, and they didn’t.”

A homeless man who attended the vote and asked to remain anonymous added, “It’s like they’ve made this bill, fixed it up a bit, and said it’s good enough. And I think it’s a sad standard to have, that a legislation is ‘good enough,’ instead of working to improve it and waiting to vote later on it.”

6 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A / / D E C . 1 3 - 2 6 , 2017

In the face of fear and xenophobia, D.C. agencies and nonprofits reach out to homeless immigrants

BY NICK SHEDD // Editorial Intern

Even as crackdowns and harsh rhetoric at the federal level spread fear, D.C. nonprofits and government agencies are expanding services offered to immigrants. “The mayor’s line is ‘Our values didn’t change on Election Day,’” said Carter Hewgley, a senior advisor at the Department of Human Services (DHS).

The District boasts relatively generous government programs aimed at reducing the blight of homelessness in D.C., but the immigrant community continues to face particular barriers to benefits, representation in domestic violence cases, and employment. In this context, DHS is preparing for hypothermia season and encounters with Immigrations & Customs Enforcement (ICE), while the Legal Aid Society of D.C., is expanding its immigration practice and moving to hire a full-time immigration attorney, thanks to a grant from the Venable Foundation.

From fear of deportation and language barriers to racism and discrimination, immigrants experiencing homelessness face an array of obstacles in searching for a way out. Part of this difficulty in accessing services is a response to the policies and rhetoric of the current presidential administration. “Given this political climate, we’ve seen an uptick in fear in our client community,” said Eric Angel, Executive Director of Legal Aid. For some, this fear was validated earlier this year after reports of ICE agents targeting undocumented people experiencing homelessness. On Feb. 8, agents arrested several Latino men as they left a church-run hypothermia shelter in Fairfax County. In October, as part of a nationwide wave of nearly 500 arrests targeting sanctuary cities, ICE agents arrested 14 D.C. residents. The enforcement actions have reverberated throughout the D.C. homeless services community. Responding to these concerns, DHS devised a protocol and response plan for service providers if ICE agents pay them a visit.

“If they’re an ICE agent, then you have to see their badge to prove that’s who they are. You need to ask to see a copy of any warrant or any documents they have that may speak to their

reason for being there,” Hewgley said. The next step, according to Hewgley, is to call Dallas Williams, a DHS administrator, who will then coordinate with D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine to determine the best course of action.

That course of action depends on the reasons for which an ICE agent is present, according to Hewgley. By seeing the search warrant, city officials can evaluate whether ICE agents are targeting a general homeless community or fulfilling one of their “other proper functions,” such as searching for one person for a specific crime, he said. Answering that question will determine the District’s response.

Up to this point, however, the system is untested. Hewgley said that DHS is not aware of any ICE raids on Districtsponsored service providers. The response protocol has been publicized, along with multiple means of contacting Williams, but “we’ve never been contacted,” Hewgley said.

Yet the climate of fear persists, and for undocumented survivors of domestic violence in particular, “there’s more concern than in the past that simply by using the court system they may risk harm because of their immigration status,” explained Angel.

Similarly, the Latin American Youth Center (LAYC), a major service provider for low-income D.C. youth of all races, has encountered difficulties reaching out to Latinx youth as a result of fear of ICE, according to John Van Zandt, the manager of LAYC’s Safe Housing Program. At that program’s Drop-In Center, which served nearly equal numbers of Black and Latinx youth at its founding in 2015, the portion of Latinx clients has tumbled to a mere 10%, according to Van Zandt.

“The Latino youth that do trickle in here and there, either documented or not, haven’t necessarily said ‘the reason why my buddy José doesn’t come here is because of this or that,’ but we think it could be fear of walking into buildings and putting your names on forms. With the whole ICE scare maybe they are trying to stay in the shadows a little bit more,” Van Zandt said.

The possibility that people in need may be intimidated out of even reaching out to service providers has advocates in the District worried. On Oct. 25, attempting to address the feeling of insecurity, DHS published a short video online that reminded residents of their right to shelter, as well as the benefits of living in a sanctuary city. In D.C., public safety officers are not permitted to ask about immigration status or to contact ICE to initiate enforcement unless related to a criminal investigation. “Our bottom line,” Hewgley said, “is that we want to do everything in our power to make sure you feel safe to come inside, regardless of what your circumstances are.”

The exact dimensions of the new services that Legal Aid will provide in the context of these widespread concerns have yet to be determined, but “at minimum, we’ll be doing all the things we’ve been doing, but better,” Angel said. The firm plans to hire a full-time immigration lawyer, its first in at least many years, according to Angel, and use that new attorney’s expertise to guide the expansion of the practice.

In addition to reaching out to those who, like undocumented survivors of domestic violence, fear that their immigration status precludes them from accessing legal remedies, the expanded immigration practice will likely take on clients struggling to find housing, work and access to public benefits.

Many immigrants, especially those who are undocumented, fear they will be unable to access public benefits “even though they shouldn’t,” Angel said. Some benefits are tied to immigration status, and it can be difficult to determine eligibility without legal help.

Pointing in particular to language barriers, which can prevent some immigrants from fully understanding their rights and being able to advocate for themselves, Angel said that in work and housing, “someone whose immigration status is uncertain can be taken advantage of.”

Emma Rizk contributed reporting.

This website will help D.C. homeless youth connect to resources

BY BETHANY TUEL Editorial Intern

An upcoming website intended to help homeless youth in Washington, D.C., connect to available support services was presented at the United States Census Bureau on Nov. 29. “mySpot” was created under the auspices of the Opportunity Project, an interagency collaboration of the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Education, the Treasury, Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development — along with the U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

The project was led by True Colors Fund, a national nonprofit focused on addressing homelessness in the LGBTQ community and implemented by the technology firm Excella Consulting.

“Youth homelessness has become quite an issue, to the degree where it has received a lot of attention in the past few years,” said Kahlib Barton of True Colors Fund.

In order to create the website, the team from Excella recruited government agencies and “user advocates,” such as True Colors Fund, to brainstorm what they believed needed to be done to help homeless youth and how technology could play a role in that. Through

some of these organizations, the team was able to interact with youth who were currently experiencing homelessness. “This was a gamechanger for us,” said Jeff Suppes from the Excella team. The consultants quickly realized that there are a variety of different resources available to youth, but sometimes they have trouble connecting to those resources.

The project began as a basic search engine where anyone could put in their location and discover different resources. Then they let the youth they were able to connect with test it. “We thought that we had solved the problem,” Suppes said. “But as the team saw the youth interacting with the search engine, they realized there was some confusion over how the resources worked: if the youth would have to pay to stay in the different places, and other types of miscommunications.”

They went back to the drawing board, made some changes and ended up with mySpot.

After a user enters a location, which can be either their current location or a location where they know they will be in the future, they are able to see the different services, agencies or shelters available. They can then filter those results by what type of services or agencies they are looking for.

“We learned the power of working with

government agencies and working with local advocacy groups,” Suppes said. “We learned that digital solutions can help change people’s lives. But really, the most important thing we learned is that a digital product that is built by and for the users is the product that’s going to be the most powerful.”

Excella is still working with several agencies and organizations to improve the website. For now, if a user enters a location over 60 miles outside of D.C., they will receive a message that the website could not find any results.

One of the next steps will likely involve making the website mobile-friendly, according to Chris Lyon, a business consultant for Excella.

The team originally had the misconception that youth who were experiencing homelessness would not have access to cellphones. The current site is not responsive to cellphone browsers and is meant for use on a desktop.

“The way that we thought about it is, if I am a homeless youth and don’t have a cellphone, then I know I’ll have access to a public library [with computers],” Lyon said. “But nobody wants to take their friend’s phone and search for homeless resources.”

Excella is also working with DHS and True Colors Fund to note on the site which resources cater specifically to LGBTQ

individuals and to allow users to filter their results with that information.

Another effort in the works would include phone numbers on the mySpot website.

Currently, a user can click on a button in the mySpot result to go to that resource’s own website and find the phone number there. But having the information instantly available in the search directory would make it more accessible. “We’re closely working with government agencies and talking to them about what data they should make public that would be helpful for things like this,” Lyon said.

In order to advertise this new tool, Excella is working with homeless shelters, True Colors Fund, the D.C. public school system and other organizations.

During the Opportunity Project Demo Day, other endeavors were also discussed and demonstrated, such as a tool to help homeless veterans access jobs and a tool to make federal grants data more user-friendly, among others.

“The real value [of The Opportunity Project] is not just in creating the best data that a government can create across the globe, but it’s building the partnership to unleash that data to help folks nationally and locally,” said Karen Dunn Kelley, the undersecretary for economic affairs in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

VENDOR ACHIEVEMENT

// 7

AT A GLANCE

PHOTO COURTESY OF LAURA ELLENA

A demonstrator displays a blown up map at the Sept. 6 event. The graphic orginally ran in a 2015 Washington Post article about living conditions and gentrification fears in these buildings surrounding the Congress Heights Metro.

“Today my Street Sense Media vendor Sam also gave me a holiday card from him & his wife ♥”

PHOTOS BY REGINALD BLACK

Residents of Congress Heights and Brookland Manor continue to stand against displacement

F

@MissPaaj

BY REGINALD BLACK A.K.A. “DA STREET REPORTIN’ ARTIST” // Artist/Vendor

or the past three years, lowincome residents have seen new development project after new development project going up in their neighborhoods, claiming to change their communities for the better. However, on Sept. 6, residents of the Congress Heights and Brookland Manor neighborhoods held a press conference to ask Mayor Bowser and the D.C. Council to listen to their thoughts about development in the area.

“We, the tenants of Congress Heights, have gone through a lot the last five years under Sandford Capital,” said Robert Green, a Congress Heights resident. “The mayor and the D.C. City Council have been giving away property for a dollar; they give away property like mad at low prices.” The residents have been working with a staff attorney, Will Merrifield, from the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. Merrifield spoke about the residents’ resolve to combat housing instability, saying, “If it were not for the Congress Heights Tenant Association, they wouldn’t know about Sandford Capital. They went through hell going through this process.”

The now infamous Sandford Capital came under intense government scrutiny earlier this year when Washington City Paper laid bare the Bethesda-based company’s “systemic strategy” of letting properties rot in order to force tenants to leave and make way for new development.

The company had racked up more than $100,000 in housing code violations over several years before the story came out.

And many of its properties were found to be contracted by the city’s affordable housing initiatives. Mayor Muriel Bowser called for full inspection of Sandford properties and the company’s outstanding

code-violation fines quickly surpassed half a million dollars. Sanford Capital has denied many charges but faces a tangle of lawsuits from nonprofits, individuals and the attorney general, as well as court-ordered negotiations with tenants in Congress Heights. According to a Bisnow report, the company has sold off two properties and plans to “unload its entire D.C. portfolio.”

While Sandford is moving on, tenants still worry about the plan to put luxury apartments in the area currently occupied by their buildings. “There are thirteen of us left,” Green said. “We refuse to move.

They cannot do [anything] with us living there.” He described himself as a poor senior on a fixed income seeking only a decent place to live.

Eugene Puryear, president of the advocacy group Justice First, praised the past efforts of the tenants. “What you have done is miraculous,” he said.“You failed to be intimidated, you failed to be bullied.

This is a grassroots movement of people.”

In a March performance oversight hearing for the D.C. Housing Authority, officials asked about various issues involving Sandford Capital. “How many times have we terminated contracts with landlords because of code-enforcement issues?” questioned At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman. Then-director Adrianne Todman replied, “Multiple times.”

Also at the hearing, At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds said that she was concerned that 65 percent of units inspected by the D.C. Housing Authority had failed inspection. “I want to know just what housing providers are giving us,” she said. “We, as a government, need to consider across the board how our residents are being treated. There are plenty of units that are substandard across the city.”

Councilmember Bonds recently introduced the Housing Code Enforcement

Integrity Amendment Act of 2017 to limit the time landlords may take to address housing code violations. Currently, once the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs issues a buildingcode infraction, the property owner may take years to correct unlawful conditions without incurring additional penalties.

“No one wants to admit they are kicking people out of their homes,” Puryear said of developers and local government at the Sept. 6 press conference. “[Mayor Bowser] could stop this cycle in its tracks by working with the Tenants Association of Congress Heights. They can do something transformative here. We are not going to give up until the right thing happens here at Congress Heights.”

Resident Ivan Johnson spoke on his neighborhood’s behalf. “We have always stood for equality, What we have to do is show them that our vote counts. We gotta let them know we’re not going to take this anymore.”

Merrifield, the Legal Clinic attorney, said that when he got involved with the Tenants Association yeas ago, building conditions were, and still are, poor. He believes a building that D.C. government owns at 3200 Alabama Avenue SE, amid the other developer-owned complexes, is the key to neighborhood’s future. The building could be converted to 200 units of affordable housing by Merrifield’s assessment. Puryear doubted that would be its use, however, reminding attendees that, in addition to being right next to the Metro station, 3200 Alabama Avenue SE sits next to the $65 million Washington Wizards practice stadium development.

For more about this story, watch the video at StreetSenseMedia.org

PHOTO COURTESY OF KUSHAAN SHAH

“The best gift this morning: A Christmas card from a Street Sense Media vendor. Some of the most heartwarming people you’ll meet!” @KushaanShah

BIRTHDAYS Aida Peery Dec. 6 ARTIST/VENDOR

David Denny Dec. 15 ARTIST/VENDOR

Sybil Taylor Dec. 25 ARTIST/VENDOR

ACCOMPLISHMENTS Sybil Taylor

MOVED INTO HOUSING!

Eric Thompson-Bey

STARTED A NEW JOB!

8 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A / / D E C . 1 3 - 2 6 , 2017

ART

Discounts are Subject to Income Eligibility Requirements

- Apply for Discounted Rates on Natural Gas

Residential Essential Service (RES) Program

Potential savings up to $276 during the winter heating season.

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Apply for Discounts on Your Utility Bills

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Telephone

Lifeline Program (Economy II)

Annual discount on one land line service per household.

For more info call 311 or visit doee.dc.gov/udp

To apply for the telephone Lifeline Service (Economy II), call 800-253-0846.

These programs are for DC residents only.

ILLUSTRATION BY LEVESTER GREEN

S

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

Holiday thanks

Christmas memories

Holidays together

I want to thank everyone in Tenleytown for their kindness and generosity.

You've given me your time.

You've helped me in many ways. You've given me food.

Thank you, thank you!

I'm still waiting to hear about my housing.

I've been very patient, but I'm getting annoyed at the delays and run-arounds.

Each time something seems to be going my way, another thing stops it from happening.

But I'm still hanging on. I'm also helping my mother with her sicknesses. That takes up lots of my time and uses lots of my energy.

But I'm not giving up.

So, one more time: Thank you, Tenleytowners, for helping homeless people work.

Christmas memories are something to cherish. Reflecting on the gifts, food, friends and family members makes it an unforgettable time.

Mom is always cooking some five-to-seven course meal: turkey or Cornish hen or ham (or all); chitterlings; potato salad; collard greens (sometimes REALLY spicy); cornbread; stuffing; and that awesome pumpkin pie finale. I'm hungry just writing this!

The family's playing music, making noise and trying to out-talk each other. Dancing, singing and laughter everywhere. And the gifts: Oh, my! Then going outside to see all the new bikes, red wagons, footballs, basketballs and even pets up and down the block. A rainbow of lights flash, blink and smile.

Oh yeah, and that guy in the red suit, good ol' what's-his-name. All these people and events make this holiday memorable.

The Holy Family — Mother Mary, Father Joseph, and Jesus Christ—is the reason for the season, where one and all are welcomed to celebrate the nativity scene, the birth of Christ.

Whether a person is homeless, was displaced by a hurricane or wildfire, cannot afford to visit their relatives or has grown too old to decorate a Christmas tree, we should all strive to share cheer this time of year and help everyone to be able to celebrate our holidays: Happy Chanukah! Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year!

A little Christmas refrain: Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel; born is the King of Israel.

BY JOE JACKSON // Artist/Vendor

BY RITA SAULS // Artist/Vendor

// 9

BY MILDRED HALL // Artist/Vendor

ILLUSTRATION BY MILDRED HALL

Christmas acts of kindness

BY WENDELL WILLIAMS // Artist/Vendor

It was December 1980, about two weeks before Christmas, when I was contacted by a group of broadcasters in Washington, D.C., who were considering purchasing a well-established radio station in D.C. and turning it into the nation's first African-American talk-radio station. And they wanted me to be a part of it. At the time, I was working at one of the top rock stations in the country, in Dayton, Ohio.

They requested that I come down Christmas Eve to close the deal, so I drove to Washington on the 23rd and was up early and fresh for the interview on Christmas Eve morning. After I concluded the interview and accepted the job, I visited with friends and took care of some things for my upcoming move. As the day progressed, I began to worry because there was a forecast of snow for D.C., Pennsylvania and Ohio — my route home. As it turns out, I stayed in D.C. longer than I should have.

I did not set out to go back to Ohio until later that afternoon, on I-70 toward Frederick.

The weather had started to get cold, and snow flurries had begun to fall. As I crossed the Pennsylvania line and climbed higher, the snowfall got heavier. I battled my way to Breezewood for entry onto the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Several inches of snow were on the ground, and an announcement on the radio had warned people not to use the turnpike.

I topped off the gas and decided to get on the turnpike anyway because I really wanted to be home for Christmas. It would have been my first and last Christmas with my girlfriend in our "new house" before the move for my new job.

So, I took off on the turnpike. It was crowded and the snow was so deep that the traffic was down to one lane and crawling at about 30 miles an hour. The snow just kept falling as we went through the mountains of Pennsylvania.

One by one, cars pulled into the rest stops or pulled to the side of the road to wait the storm out. You could see people on the outside of the cars digging to keep their exhaust pipes clear so that they could run the heat while they sat on the side of the road.

But I and several others, including tractortrailers, continued on the turnpike. As we neared

Ohio, the snow continued to get heavier and heavier, and I noticed that none of the toll plazas were open. Neither were any of the gas stations.

I had not been paying attention to my car and realized I was almost on "empty."

A few more miles and the engine started to stumble. A few miles later, it started sputtering.

All I could do was to keep stepping on the gas and gunning the accelerator to keep it from cutting off.

Then, like the star the wise men supposedly followed years ago, I saw a light.

Way off in the distance, an Exxon sign stood tall. I hit the exit and followed that star/sign.

After I went around a few curves and bends, the snow gave way suddenly to the station, like in an episode of The Twilight Zone. I coaxed my car to the pump, where it died after a sigh of relief.

"Boy, I dodged the bullet. I've made it," I said to myself. In actuality, the Christmas miracle of 1980 had just begun.

After filling up, I jumped back in the car to continue my journey home. I fastened my seatbelt and turned the key in the ignition. Nothing.

I turned and turned, but it would not start. I cranked the engine until I wore out the battery. The temperature had really dropped, and the snow was still coming down hard. I began to panic.

I walked to the window and asked the attendant whether he had any jumper cables. No. When I walked back to my car, the scariest yet prettiest thing I had ever seen pulled up. It was a red, loud, jacked-up Ford F-150 pickup with a Confederate flag in the

back window. I was never so glad to see the stars and bars.

Three men jumped out, all red as a beet in the face and wearing little more than flannel shirts.

They were trashed. But one of them asked, "Hey, man, you need some help?"

And, like Santa's elves, they went to work.

The men retrieved jumper cables and a tool box from the Ford. But the jump would not work, and they put their heads together to come up with all kind of ideas as to why the car was not starting. One of them thought the engine was frozen. They knocked on the window of the attendant's booth, and it just so happened that the guy on duty was friends with the men. He got out of the booth and unlocked the garage bays so that they could push my car onto the lift. They began to empty the oil out of my car. It was as close to freezing as oil can get, thick and unable to lubricate anything.

Someone came up with the idea of pouring the oil in a bucket and placing it on a hot plate that was discovered inside of the garage. By now it was 2 to 3 a.m., and they had been working on my car for at least an hour. Once the oil warmed up, they very carefully poured it back into my engine and we tried again to jumpstart the car.

After another half-hour of trying to jump it, one of the elves said, "Hey, buddy, we've got to get home, but we don't want to abandon you here." They came up with the idea to take the F-150 and push me all the way back down County Road until we got to the on-ramp for the Ohio Turnpike. Then PHOTO COURTESY OF WENDELL WILLIAMS they would push

me as fast as they could go, and I would try to kickstart my car in third or fourth gear.

The snow was really deep, and there was barely a lane open to drive in as they begin to push me down the ramp. Slowly but surely they got me up to 30 miles an hour, and I tried to pop it in second gear. No go.

They caught back up beside me and told me to stop, then tried it again. This time they pushed me faster, 40 or maybe 50 miles per hour. I tried to pop the clutch but it still would not catch or start. One of the guys then said "Hey, man, it's Christmas Eve. I'm going to give it one last push. We're going to get you as fast as we can get you, and we want you to try and pop it straight into fourth gear."

They began to push me again. Faster, faster, faster still. I looked at my speedometer, and we were going close to 65 miles per hour in the snow when they finally blew the horn and I popped the clutch. My car rolled for another 50 yards, still not responding. Then, all of a sudden, it sputtered! The elves pulled up beside me and shouted, "Don't let it cut off!"

The car sputtered and sputtered. But I did not let it cut off, and it started running, albeit rough.

The elves pulled up beside me again in the red F-150 with the Confederate decal. These were the kind of guys that today I might figure for voting for the current president. The kind of guys that I might cross the street to avoid, out of fear and prejudice. As it turned out, these were the kind of guys that would blow their horn and yell, "Merry Christmas, get home safe!" after helping a complete stranger for a couple hours.

The story doesn't end there. I had another almost 200 miles to go to get home.

I continued to fight through the snow.

I could only slow down as needed, never stopping, in order to keep the engine alive.

Finally, I saw the sign for Dayton. I took the exit ramp and sputtered all the way home. The car cut off as I parked in front of the garage.

It never started again.

I can't recall any of their names, but those "rednecks" saved my behind in one of the worst snowstorms I've seen and got me home for Christmas.

1 0 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A / / D E C . 1 3 - 2 6 , 2017

OPINION

PERCEPTION OR REALITY:

You can’t take it with you

Moving Up:

Looking ahead to 2018

BY ARTHUR JOHNSON

As we head into a new year, it is time to start setting goals and looking to make 2018 a great year — especially important if 2017 was not a good year for you. It is very important to look at where you want to end the year in the major areas of your life to determine what goals you want to accomplish.

Obviously, if you are unemployed or homeless or both, fixing that will be your top priority.

For others, it may be getting out of debt, or getting a better job with more hours and maybe more money.

The first thing to do after making your list of goals is to break those goals down into shorter time frames.

In other words, instead of just making a goal to get a better job by the end of next year, make monthly goals and then break them down further, into weekly goals. By doing this, you will be much more likely to accomplish the goals you set for yourself because you are taking action on them, rather than just setting a vague goal and then forgetting about it until next December.

Another thing to do after you determine the goals you will aim for is to determine what resources you need to help you accomplish your goals. For example, if you need help getting out of debt, you will want to look into visiting one of the many nonprofit credit counseling agencies in the District.

If you need to further your education, then you need to contact the admissions departments and financial-aid offices of the schools you wish to attend. If you

need a job, there are many agencies that can help you find employment opportunities. There are also many agencies that focus on breaking down the barriers that may be holding you back from gaining employment, such as a criminal record. Using resources that are available to you is a critical part of accomplishing your goals. That is one reason many successful people always seem to accomplish so much: They are not afraid to research and utilize any resource they have to give them an advantage and get ahead.

If you don’t know where to begin with making a list of goals, the best thing to do is write down what you are unhappy with in your life and what different outcome you prefer for each item you list. If you feel overwhelmed or feel you have too many areas to fix, please try to find someone you trust who can sit down with you for an hour or two and help you put together a list.

When many things are going wrong in your life, the first thing to do is dedicate yourself to finding a different path to where you want your life to be.

It will take some time, but focusing on your goals and trying to take some action every day or every other day, even if it is a small step, will get you closer to the goals you are aiming for.

Peace, Love and Blessings to my faithful readers and followers of my column. I am out here on location, on the streets of Washington, D.C., collecting data, observing, and actually living the life and experiencing things as do people without housing. And it's real! It's not fake or pretentious. Right or wrong, it is what it is — all about the Benjamins, that mighty, mighty dollar.

Funny, though, because you can't take it with you when you die. I don't think, at least. I’ve never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul. I have a passion to love and help all, and it's challenging as well as dangerous sometimes.

Am I my brother's keeper? Early in the morning, in the middle of the day, or even late at night, things remain stressful and challenging for those with unstable housing, the homeless.

Where to find rest, where to eat, where to find a restroom so you can take care of normal bodily functions: All of these are constant struggles, and they deeply sadden my heart.

Compassion is something we seem to have very little of for our fellow human beings who live with the daily struggle of homelessness.

I watch now, even as I write, a human being seeking refuge from the cold and wind. I gaze

BY GWYNETTE SMITH

After World War II split Korea in half, South Korea was backed by the United States, while North Korea allied with the Soviet Union. Since that time, both Japan and South Korea have alleged acts of aggression by North Korea. The United Nations says the country is guilty of many human rights abuses. Visitors have been detained for alleged spying, and the North Koreans themselves have killed some of their leaders. Following their most recent nuclear test, we know they may have the capability of sending an intercontinental missile to the United States.

What should our response to this country be? No country should have the right to determine whether another country can protect its people. But if the country acts irresponsibly, then action could and should be taken.

out of the window as they wander aimlessly, in need of assistance. Yes, I observe almost every restaurant has doggy bags and treats for stray dogs. As a lover of animals, I am grateful for that kind of compassion, but equally astonished and dismayed that a forgotten and ignored segment of the people is disallowed the opportunity of food, clothing and shelter as well as the use of public facilities.

I find such a common practice to be deeply disturbing. How would you feel if it were happening to you or your loved ones? It is especially disturbing to this United States Marine Corps veteran — that this happens to veterans and that we are such an alarmingly high percentage of the homeless population. The problems of the world are systemic.

Come on, people! Taxpayers, productive members of society, concerned citizens — where are you? Do you care? Do you really think you are exempt, are totally oblivious to the fact of how easily you, too, could be catapulted into the ever-increasing ranks of the homeless?

WAKE UP! Robert Williams is a volunteer contributor

Count your blessings

BY BETTY EVERETT, a.k.a. “THE BEAUTIFUL ONE” // Artist/Vendor

Arthur Johnson is a volunteer columnist focusing on finance and economic issues in his column Moving Up. Any questions or comments can be emailed to ajohnson@ streetsense.org.

How Should We Handle North Korea?

Gwynette Smith is a Street Sense Media vendor.

BY ROBERT WILLIAMS, USMC

ILLUSTRATION BY DWIGHT HARRIS

Don't forget to count your blessings when you have a home and your health, because many of us don't. I am noticing more and more homeless people sleeping in cars, alleyways and parks.

I always look forward to the holidays, which are my favorite time of the year. It reminds me of when I was growing up in the country. It could be you in this position one day.

Please pray that things will be okay in the future for all of us.

Please have sympathy for people experiencing homelessness, and don't look down on or be disgusted by people you pass until you've walked in their shoes. Not everyone who is homeless has a mental illness or physical problem. It's a matter of affordable housing and wages below guidelines that prevent people from having housing.

Be good and stay out of trouble (if you can).

Betty Everett is a Street Sense Media vendor.

Join the conversation, share your views - Have an opinion about how homelessness is being addressed in our community?

- Want to share firsthand experience?

- Interested in responding to what someone else has written?

Street Sense Media has maintained an open submission policy since our founding. We aim to elevate voices from across the housing spectrum and foster healthy debate.

Please send submissions to opinion@streetsensemedia.org.

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// 11

Peace for the holidays

BY AIDA PEERY // Artis/Vendor

R AT IO IL LU S T

Dear Santa,

N BY C HON

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BY PATRICIA JEFFERSON // Artist/Vendor

I wrote a letter to you some years ago about wanting to be employed. And my wish was granted! I got a job as an office manager for a nonprofit organization, Capital Area Asset Builders.

But I don’t have to tell you the last to be hired is the first to be laid off when the money runs out.

I gained a plethora of skills on that last job. I learned a lot more about managing the phones and computers. I made sure that office supplies were always handy when anyone needed them and always stayed in budget. I always called on maintenance whenever it was needed and led conference calls to explain CAAB program to new potential clients. I greeted guests, and when a new hire came onboard, I set up his or her office before they arrived for their first day.

So, Santa, I am looking for another office manager job or similar work. I drew on more than 30 years of “Office Assistant” experience when I became an Office Manager and learned even more skills at Capital Area Assets Builder.

After CAAB, I was able to find a steady part-time job for a company called Fruitcycle until it merged with another organization called Together We Bake, a training program that gives women a second chance to learn commercial food handling and sanitation in the kitchen. I stayed employed through the merger and was able to participate in the Together We Bake training program. I passed my Sanitation License test on the first attempt last year. My hours began to dip eventually and could no longer support me, so I've been looking for work in the food industry as well.

Santa, I am aware that many people are going through hard times as our society keeps changing so rapidly. I hope you can help me and others who are trying so hard to find work this holiday season.

Home is a place of healing, safety, and peace when we are sick or injured.

Where do you go when you are homeless?

Christ House the only residential medical facility dedicated to healing the lives of sick and homeless men in Washington, D.C.

Your support provides healing and hope to our homeless patients!

UW #8385 CFC #34256 www.ChristHouse.org

A cup of coffee can take you into a blissful state of ideas and down the road to meaningful conversations with someone to form a lasting friendship. It is a way to "break the ice" with a friend or mend fences with family members, or sort out and discard insignificant differences during this holiday season and start anew for the coming year.

There are numerous coffee shops in this city to have moments of solidarity and private conversations and also enjoy pumpkin lattes and caramel macchiatos to warm your body and your hands from the cold.

Coffee has been a commodity for centuries. It was used to entertain guests then and that practice still remains today. It is also a stimulant that boosts your body's energy level.

It can be a real challenge to choose from the many shops that this city offers. "It's all in the bean," is what most connoisseurs say about coffee. I find the smaller coffee shops have the congeniality and ambiance for private meetings, business meetings and the like. But because they serve coffees that are from so many different regions, Starbucks is usually my favorite place to go for coffee.

Make peace for the holidays and throughout the years with a friend and enjoy a good cup of coffee.

Merry Christmas!

BY CHARLES DAVIS // Artist/Vendor

Christmas Day

BY TAMMY MICHELE RICE // Volunteer

Christmas Day, Christmas Day, Christmas Day May everything go your way, On Christmas Day. Hear the Christmas bells ringing, Hear the choir singing, See the snowflakes in the air, No one has a care.

Santa says ho ho ho, This is the way to go!

Christmas Day, Christmas Day, Christmas Day May everything go your way, On Christmas Day! Illustration by Jeanette Richardson // Artist/Vendor

The monkey & the magic box

BY MICHAEL CRAIG // Artist/Vendor

The Monkey was living in a shelter and couldn’t seem to catch a break.

This was supposed to be a special time of year.

Everyone it talked to was preparing to spend time with their loved ones. And everyone it saw hustled and bustled from shop to shop, buying all sorts of bobbles and contraptions, from Apples to Canons.

The Monkey felt left out of it all. It hurt to be alone.

Then, one day, the Monkey found a beautifully wrapped box sitting atop its bunk. There was no note or card, just cheerful paper and curly, bouncing ribbons.

Anything could be be inside. The Monkey’s mind raced with excitement at all the mystery material gifts that might lay within. It tore into the paper, pulled loose the ribbon and flung open the box flaps.

But there was nothing inside. The Monkey looked closer, examining each corner and crevice, before turning the box upside down and shaking it all around. Still nothing.

The Monkey slumped back and hung its head in dismay. What a cruel trick. Who would do such a thing?

But as the Monkey pondered this, it remembered how exciting it was to find that box. Someone had thought of the Monkey and wrapped up a box with care just for it.

This magic little box was stuffed full of love.

After that, the Monkey was unstoppable. It stood tall and proud, with its shoulders back and chest jutting out, carrying that box everywhere for a week. With its budding confidence and sense of community, the Monkey soon found a way to get out of the shelter and get a new lease on life.

On Christmas Eve, as the Monkey prepared to move to its new home, it went out and got some new wrapping paper and shiny ribbons. And the Monkey wrapped up that box that it cherished so much and placed it at the foot of another Monkey’s bunk, to be found on Christmas morning.

I want to say Merry Christmas to my family. My parents tried so very hard to keep us together as one.

I thank them very much for that. I hope and pray the next generation continues that journey.

My journey is what my father did. I carry his wisdom, which means a lot to me even though I have done bad things that led me into the streets. My father always kept his faith in God, as did my mother, despite the pain and suffering she experienced before she passed away. I still keep the faith they left for me to share with others.

May my other siblings rest in peace; I will always love them and keep them in my prayers. Our mother's love for her 10 children is eternal and her strength will always live in me. My prayers will always go out for my friends have passed away too, may they rest in peace.

My prayers also go to a very special friend who I hope and pray will have a Merry Christmas as she continues with her job and her education.

Merry Christmas to all. Amen!

Love and memories

BY SYBIL TAYLOR // Artist/Vendor

PHOTOS COURTESY OFSYBIL TAYLOR

This Thanksgiving was very sad and upsetting. Tears of joy, sadness, happiness, memories of the holiday with my father and family, began to well up.

Dear Lord, thank you for taking good care of my father and making him feel special.

Everyone misses you, Dad. I know you are enjoying your football game in Heaven, with the biggest TV and watching the Macy’s parade.

Mom, my two sisters, brother, sister-in-law and niece and I gathered at the dinner table with Thanksgiving and honor in your memory and your picture is on the table. Sadness filled our hearts but the early carols from the Macy parade reminded us of Christmases spent with you, Dad, as well as celebrating my Christmas birthday. I remember how you and Mom played Mr. and Mrs. Claus, how it gave me, my sisters and brothers the best Christmas of 1977.

One day we will all be together again, as one. You are in spirit now, smiling down on us and telling us not to worry. Always and forever, Love you, Dad.

1 2 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A / / D E C . 1 3 - 2 6 , 2017

ART A musical experience, pt 3

BY CONRAD CHEEK JR. // Author/Vendor

Previously, I wrote about seeing Isaac Hayes in concert after acquiring his album “Hot Buttered Soul” and the profound impact this innovative music had on me as a young man.

I would like to share with you my first encounter with the experience of stereo.

In 1961, at 7 years old, I heard a stereo demonstration LP on my dad’s system. The most memorable segment was “The Train,” which sticks with me to this day. It starts with a faint whistle way off to the right and gets louder as the train approaches. Soon I was hearing the rumbling sound of the locomotive quickly approaching and passing right in front of me, followed by the cars and caboose.

He played it loud enough that if I was blindfolded, I could have sworn that I was standing in front of the train track when it passed by. I not only heard it, I felt it! And to this day, I believe that it was so loud that a deaf person would have also felt the vibration. Then I heard the faint sound of the train and whistle as it diminished to the far left.

Dad had a subscription to Stereo Review magazine and he shared with me the proper way to listen to, and demonstrate the properties of, stereo. For those of you who own a stereophonic system with stand-alone or detachable speakers, the following diagram shows the proper positioning for a true stereophonic experience:

Original proper stereo configuration diagram.

ILLUSTRATION BY CONRAD CHEEK JR.

I’m sure that most of you are familiar with this configuration, but to this day I have friends who don’t utilize it properly.

I shared the experience of “The Train” with a neighbor of mine, who was my age, back in the early ’70s. He was extremely impressed. Later in our lives, he upgraded to quadraphonic, 4-way, speakers with the subwoofers, extra lowlevel bass speakers, for his stereo component system. Wow, that sure sounded good!

When I brought home the Pink Floyd “Dark Side of the Moon” LP, my dad said that it was recommended by his trusted Stereo Review magazine as a good way to test a stereophonic system. When I was moving out of the house, he said he would have to get his own Pink Floyd LP. In the future, I will share with you the properties of that album that earned this recommendation. (to be continued) You can read “A musical experience” parts 1 and 2 online at StreetSenseMedia.org

Our leader

D.C. benches are disappearing

To be a good follower, you've got to have a good leader. “Street Sense” has been around since 2003. But we have come a long way since then. I look at the organization like one big ship, and Brian Carome is our captain.

Brian Carome has taken Street Sense Media to a new level. His ideas and now new format have done really well for the homeless and have made us the best street news in the country. I and a lot of other people want to thank Brian Carome for leading us in the right direction. Good followers follow good leaders.

So many of the old cast-iron benches are gone. There's one, at 14th Street NW. There is no place to sit anymore. We homeless people have to get off of the streets and go inside more now. I feel that we are being either run inside or run out of the city, if we do not go inside somewhere to sleep. I feel that we are being run off the streets slowly but surely.

BY PHILLIP BLACK, a.k.a. “THE CAT IN THE HAT” // Artist/Vendor

BY DEBBIE BRANTLEY Artist/Vendor

ILLUSTRATION BY LEVESTER GREEN

The diary of a globalist

BY JEFFERY MCNEIL // Artist/Vendor

Our hero, porbably a villain to more people than he’d like to admit, is Carmine Machismo. He is an international hedge fund trader and a globalist. His words move world markets, whether he is trading stocks, buying debt or stripping assets from poor farmers in undeveloped countries.

Right now Carmine is relaxing on his personal island, sitting on his patio in a silk robe and slippers, sipping a piña colada.

He’s done well for himself. But things haven’t always been this way. It seems like just yesterday when the Machismo family emigrated from Cuba. Carmine’s father was a political refugee, escaping the brutal regime of Fidel Castro while his friends and family were either jailed or executed. Because of his Uncle Pato, the Machismos migrated to Paterson, New Jersey Paterson in the early ’80s was like a smaller, run-down version of the Bronx. It had once produced enough textiles to earn the name “Silk City.” And a century before that Paterson was home to Alexander Hamilton, the father of U.S. finance.

By the early 2000s, however, the city had been torn apart by racial tensions and resembled a war zone. Homes were abandoned and factories shut down. Women resorted to using their bodies to feed their families.

Paterson was the streets at their basest level. If you were not strong, you would be someone's prey. There were no do-overs or second chances on the streets. An argument could escalate to a shooting. Talent alone wasn't a guarantee for escape. In Paterson there were many stars that shined brighter than Carmine Machismo. Yet he succeeded where others failed because he had role models in his life.

Carmine did not seek the a life of finance; he was seduced by it. When the young Machismo was a teenager, he began playing poker at Johnny's Pizzeria in Passaic, New Jersey. He was not a novice for long and soon became a card shark. He learned the odds, angles and percentages. He began hustling people from pool to chess. At 21 years old, he made more money in one year of hustling the tables than his father did struggling at a factory. But his father, Catholic and traditional, cared more about the youth’s values than his income. He threatened to put Carmine out of the house if he didn’t stop gambling.

Everything changed when a man suggested that Carmine abandon gambling and try playing the stock market. He was a natural born trader and began raking in money from stocks, bonds and derivatives. Even when markets caved, such as in 2008, Carmine seemed to be on the right side of every trade.

Eventually, people asked him to manage their money and Carmine Machismo became a hedge fund trader.

As Carmine approaches middle age with every human comfort and no financial limits, he has begun to reflect on the impact of the system that has afforded him such luxury. His capital has assassinated dictators, financed wars and starved many third-world countries. Global finance is winner-takeall: mega profits for some and a deteriorating quality of life for everyone else. The whole system runs on materialism, rather than compassion for humanity.

Carmine’s parents passed on their Catholic faith to him.

He believes in God and wants to get to heaven. But as he sips his piña colada and stares into the waves, Carmine Machismo is haunted by Jesus’s words from the New Testament: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”

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BY FRANKLIN STERLING Artist/Vendor

PHOTO COURTESY OF MAX PIXEL

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

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Groovin' with Bonnie's Grooming!

BY MARCUS GREEN Artist/Vendor

I've been looking and praying for a better life, and there she was.

Bonnie's mission is perfection for her feline and canine clients. She wants them to enjoy and appreciate every bit of their grooming process.

Ms. Bonnie's wealth of knowledge about breeds and their likes and dislikes is always captivating. I’ve been grooming humans for decades. But everything changes when your client will bite you when they don’t like what you’re doing.

She makes sure her employees know their stuff, too. I had to study a 300-page book, draw a dog and answer 20 questions to get this job! I also watch the other groomers, who are always willing to help when they can. Sometimes, I have to pinch myself because the blessin' in the lesson keeps me totally engaged.

Thanks to Ms. Bonnie — and special thanks to Mika — for giving me a chance at a new life. I am humbled by God to be working for you. God bless!

Forever

BY ROBERT WARREN // Artist/Vendor

I know what forever is, it's pounded into my Faith The sight of my heart aches Into the darkness when it's all gone And forever more into that day A promise date since The day I was born for Forever is just a day That I found forever with you In my heart The tears a man cries Marks the spot That forever is my Lord's Love All praise be to my Lord, Forever.

And the Angel's will forever, Forever, forever more For the love of light does not die And when you find forever, Pray on your knees and believe it can be forever.

As far as my eyes see, Forever.

The thought of me praising His Holy name Forever more I know what forever is It is found in my faith So, I love you forever, forever and a day It has been forever, forever My Lord's day forever, is a universe That will bear witness one day To my faith.

Don’t Define Me By Where I Sleep

BY JACQUELYN PORTEE // Artist/Vendor

This summer, a young man approached me while I was selling Street Sense and asked, “Are you homeless?” I told him, “I prefer not to discuss personal matters.”

I had spent the night in front of a commercial building that I thought was public property. I called the police on a security guard after he demanded I remove my tent immediately, even though it was pouring rain. The officer came and showed me which side of the street was commercial property and which was public property. When the rain stopped, I picked up my tent and my other belongings and moved them onto the public street side.

Then I went back into my tent and called it a night.

The Music Man

BY MARCELLUS PHILLIPS // Artist/Vendor

For years, my friends have urged me to perform at a Busboys and Poets Open Mic Night. A few months ago, I finally took the chance.

I love music; listening to it and writing it are forms of therapy in my life. Music has changed my life, both positively and negatively. It gives me the strength and the power to wake up and be aware of what's happening in the world around me.

It also keeps my mind occupied during the day. But focusing on music instead of other things in my life may have prevented me from achieving other goals.

I wish I could write that I blew the crowd away at the Open Mic Night. I didn't.

My performance was a mess because of my fears of the stage. I left without completing the show. But, rather than moping and feeling sorry for myself, I practiced for my performance at the Street Sense Media annual celebration.

That was a roaring success.

And in October I returned to the stage at Busboys and Poets and conquered my fears. Stay tuned for the results!

At Work

BY GERALD ANDERSON // Artist/Vendor

I just want to relate what happened to me at my work spot last week. A guy was stopped by the police where I work. When they went to search him, they found drugs and K2 on him.

He knew he was about to go to jail, so he asked me if I would get his bag for him and give it to his girlfriend. I told him no because I had to wait for the cops to search the bag. I'm glad I did. BAM! What do you think came out of that bag? A .357 revolver. After that the cop told me he was glad I didn't grab that bag. I'm still thinking to myself — why would he tell me to grab that bag when he knew he had a gun in it? Thank God I didn't touch his bag.

Marcus Green grooming a dog at Bonnie’s Dog & Cat Gooming in Southeast Washington. PHOTO BY BONNIE PEREGOY

I'm sorry, God

BY RON DUDLEY, a.k.a. "POOKANU" // Artist/Vendor

I was a liar, I was a thief I had a soul that was cold underneath I am a sinner, I was born with a sin God I need an answer, why the devil my kin?

I was a thief, I was a liar I seen hell and been through hell’s fire When I was a boy, when I was a kid, My grandma put her Bible right inside of my crib When I was a boy, I became a man My grandma put her Bible right inside of my hand She told me to pray, ’cause that's all I need When I started prayin', Grandmomma got on her knees 'Cause I was a liar, I was a thief I had a soul that was cold underneath Lord forgive me for all the sins I commit Forgive me, God, if I forget to repent God, I love you, yes I do, All the things the devil put me through All the lies that you forgave me for Let me praise you, Lord, so I don't sin no more I've been up and down, I've been all around You was my life jacket, when I almost drowned You gave me water to drink, gave me a brain to think You gave food to eat, you show me love and peace You showed me joy and pain, gave me the sun and the rain You showed me life and death, you gave me life with breath You gave me knowledge and wisdom, you gave me beautiful children You gave me the water, the trees, gave me the birds and the bees Gave the flower the seed, gave me the fish in the sea Gave me a family prayer, that I keep as a spare Gave me the planets, the Earth, God gave me family first Gave me my site and vision, God gave ears to listen (I'M SORRY) “I’m Sorry God” is one of 15 tracks on Pookanu’s “Father’s Day” album, released earlier this year and available at pookanu.com.

1 4 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A / / D E C . 1 3 - 2 6 , 2017

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Author Gene Weingarten is a college dropout and a nationally syndicated humor columnist for The Washington Post. Author Dan Weingarten is a former college dropout and a current college student majoring in information technology. Many thanks to Gene Weingarten and The Washington Post Writers Group for allowing Street Sense to run Barney & Clyde.

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

COMMUNITY SERVICES

SHELTER HOTLINE Línea directa de alojamiento

(202) 399-7093

YOUTH HOTLINE Línea de juventud

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE Línea directa de violencia doméstica

(202) 547-7777

(202) 749-8000

Housing/Shelter Vivienda/alojamiento

Education Educación

Health Care Seguro

Clothing Ropa

Legal Assistance Assistencia Legal

Case Management Coordinación de Servicios

Food Comida

Employment Assistance Assitencia con Empleo

Transportation Transportación

Showers Duchas

All services listed are referral-free Academy of Hope Public Charter School 202-269-6623 // 2315 18th Place NE aohdc.org

Bread for the City 202-265-2400 (NW) // 561-8587 (SE) 1525 7th St., NW // 1640 Good Hope Rd., SE breadforthecity.org

Calvary Women’s Services // 202-678-2341 1217 Good Hope Rd., 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 // 202-232-3066 1830 Connecticut Ave., NW charliesplacedc.org

Christ House // 202-328-1100 1717 Columbia Rd., NW christhouse.org

Father McKenna Center // 202-842-1112 19 Eye St., NW fathermckennacenter.org

Food and Friends // 202-269-2277 219 Riggs Rd., NE foodandfriends.org (home delivery for those suffering from HIV, cancer, etc)

Foundry Methodist Church // 202-332-4010 1500 16th St., NW ID (Friday 9am–12pm only) foundryumc.org/ministry-opportunities

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 // 202-544-9128 425 2nd St., NW jobshavepriority.org

Loaves & Fishes // 202-232-0900 1525 Newton St., NW loavesandfishesdc.org

Church of the Pilgrims // 202-387-6612 2201 P St., NW food (1-1:30 on Sundays only) churchofthepilgrims.org/outreach

Martha’s Table // 202-328-6608 2114 14th St., NW marthastable.org

Community Family Life Services 202-347-0511 // 305 E St., NW cflsdc.org

Miriam’s Kitchen // 202-452-8926 2401 Virginia Ave., NW miriamskitchen.org

Community of Hope // 202-232-7356 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

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 // 202-333-4949 3655 Calvert St., NW stlukesmissioncenter.org

Thrive DC // 202-737-9311 1525 Newton St., NW thrivedc.org

Unity Health Care // 202-745-4300 3020 14th St., NW unityhealthcare.org

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

My Sister’s Place // 202-529-5991 (24-hr hotline) mysistersplacedc.org

N Street Village // 202-939-2060 1333 N St., NW nstreetvillage.org

New York Avenue Shelter // 202-832-2359 1355-57 New York Ave., NE

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH HOTLINE Línea de salud del comportamiento

1-888-793-4357

Laundry Lavandería

Patricia Handy Place for Women 202-733-5378 // 810 5th St., NW

Whitman-Walker Health 1701 14th St., NW // 202-745-7000 2301 MLK Jr. Ave., SE // 202-797-3567 whitman-walker.org

For further information and listings, visit our online service guide at StreetSenseMedia.org/service-guide

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JOB BOARD Awake Overnight House Monitor Wanda Alston Foundation // Washington, D.C.

Full-time, Part-time // $13.80 /hour The Housing Monitor works to ensure that all LGBTQ youth who are residents of the Wanda Alston House are safe, supported, monitored and cared for respectfully. REQUIRED: High school diploma or GED, experience in group home living or shelter facility prefered APPLY: tinyurl.com/WandaAlstonMonitor

Awake Overnight House Monitor St John’s Community Service // D.C.

Full-time, Part-time // $13.80 /hour Provides support to individuals with disabilities in developing and/or maintaining skills that will enhance the quality of their lives in the community; assists with personal care, household tasks and daily routines; performs other job related duties as assigned.

REQUIRED: High school diploma or GED, valid state-issued driver’s license with clean driving record. 1+ years experience working with people with disabilities preferred.

APPLY: tinyurl.com/StJohnResidential

Residential Aide Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless

Part-time // Multiple locations The Residential Aide is responsible for direct services to residents of the Safe Haven Program, ensuring that daily scheduled activities are carried out, and assists in meeting the basis needs of the residents. Will transport clients to appointments when necessary.

REQUIRED: High school diploma or GED, 1 year related experience, current driver’s license with acceptable driving record, CPR and basic first aid experience.

APPLY: tinyurl.com/MCCHresidential

Peer Support Specialist

People Encouraging People // PG County Full-time, some nights/weekends on-call Provide outreach services to clients in the community and coordinate health services between the Agency, community and home settings REQUIRED: Personal life experiences with mental illness, addictions or homelessness, that professional training cannot replicate. A valid drivers license, clean driving record and reliable transportation.

APPLY: tinyurl.com/PG-peer

Veteran Service Assistant

U.S. Vets // Washington, D.C. Full-time, hourly, full benefits Assists in the delivery of basic services (such as shelter, food, hygiene, etc.) to veterans served at the facility. Ensures harmonious atmosphere at the facility by maintaining communication with clinical staff and maintaining a therapeutic community environment and de-escalating altercations.

REQUIRED: Basic computer literacy. Must have a valid drivers license and clean traffic record. APPLY: tinyurl.com/US-vet-assist For more opportunity listings visit StreetSenseMedia.org/jobs

DEC. 13 - 26, 2017 VOL. 15 ISSUE 3

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