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INTERESTED IN BEING A VENDOR? New vendor training: every Tuesday and Thursday // 2 p.m. // 1317 G St., NW
Originally founded as a street newspaper in 2003, Street Sense Media has evolved into a multimedia center using a range of creative platforms to spotlight solutions to homelessness and empower people in need. The men and women who work with us do much more than sell this paper: They use film, photography, theatre, illustration, and more to share their stories with our community.
Our media channels elevate voices, our newspaper vendor and digital marketing programs provide economic independence. And our in-house case-management services move people forward along the path toward permanent supportive housing.
At Street Sense Media, we define ourselves through our work, talents, and character, not through our housing situation.
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Doris Warrell
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Darick Brown
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Thomas Ratliff
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The very first edition of Street Sense, published in November 2003, features a story that details life in and around McPherson Square. Titled “Home base for the homeless,” it spotlights the work of various homeless services nonprofits who have continued to help connect people to the services they need. Throughout the years, we have re-visited McPherson Square and countless other places in the surrounding community to produce solutions-oriented stories about homelessness. When the National Park Service permanently closes the encampment at McPherson square on Wednesday, Feb. 14, we will continue to do what we have always done. Our team will be on site, reporting and elevating the voices of people experiencing homelessness. Follow our reporters on Twitter for updates.
Annemarie Cuccia @annemariecuccia
Accountability reporter @streetsensedc & @ dclinenews. Reach out! annemarie@ streetsensemedia.org
The Street Sense Media 20th Anniversary
HIGHEST SELLERS OF THE WEEK
Athiyah Azeem @AthiyahTAProduction Editor @streetsensedc. 2022-2023 Poynter-Koch Journalism Fellow. Reach out to me at athiyah@streetsensemedia. org!
• The office will be closed Mon, Feb. 20, for President’s Day.
• Receive extra newspapers for referring someone you know to new vendor orientation. Every Tue and Thur at 2 p.m.
• The next vendor meeting will be Friday., Feb. 24, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.
• The 20th Anniversary Vendor Sell-aThon has started. Sell papers to win prizes!
• The office follows the government for severe weather delays and closures. Search online for “opm.gov/status” or call the main office line.
• Vendors continue to receive free papers for proof of vaccination.
Doris Robinson
Feb. 18
The Sell-a-Thon challenges vendors to sell as many Street Sense newspapers they can in one month. The highest and most improved sellers are awarded $50 at the end of February. We will update this leader board for each category every week. You can boost your favorite vendor’s numbers by giving them a “customer kudos” — ask a vendor to learn more!
ANNEMARIE CUCCIA
D.C.’s beleaguered housing agency is taking steps toward overhauling its contracting policy, following a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) review published last fall that revealed many “systemic problems” with the agency’s administration.
At a Feb. 8 meeting, the recently established board that oversees the D.C. Housing Authority (DCHA) voted to approve a draft version of a procurement policy that aims to provide greater oversight of the agency’s contracting process.
The policy will be published in the D.C. Register by Feb. 17. The public can comment for 30 days by emailing publicationcomments@dchousing.org.
“We look forward to continued conversation in the next few months to ensure we restore the reputation of DCHA and use the board oversight authority to hold the agency accountable for correcting the many deficiencies found in the HUD review,” Raymond Skinner, chair of the board, said in a press release. The D.C. Council established DCHA’s current board late last year, replacing a past body many saw as dysfunctional.
In its inspection, HUD found the housing agency was not using any board-approved guidelines when contracting with outside companies. The lack of clear procedures led to inconsistencies and violations of federal contracting rules, according to the report. Moreover, an internal DCHA
audit found the agency spent $1 million on contracts illegally awarded without a bidding process in 2019, and was overcharged $2 million on another contract due to insufficient oversight.
The contracting policy approved last week at the board’s second meeting is similar to an unofficial one DCHA has used since 2017, with certain changes to ensure it follows federal and local law. Aspects that haven’t changed include requirements that DCHA must use a fair and competitive process when awarding contracts and that the board must approve any contracts over $250,000.
The draft policy also includes a new section encouraging DCHA to contract when feasible with businesses owned by public housing residents — a practice residents have long asked the agency to prioritize.
While the board passed the policy with little debate, some members were skeptical any official guidelines will fix the enforcement issues outlined in the internal audit.
“It is not clear to me that this procurement policy would have prevented those problems,” board member Christopher Murphy said at the meeting.
Several DCHA residents addressed other concerns with the housing authority during a public comment period, calling on the agency to address emergency repairs in a timely manner and to dismiss employees who are disrespectful to residents. Kenneth Council asked the board to focus on the well-being of residents and not to act as a rubber stamp, a fear many residents have expressed.
“The agency is in 30 years of mismanagement because of DCHA staff, and they do not care,” said Council, who made similar comments when he was an elected representative of DCHA residents on the agency’s past board.
DCHA Executive Director Brenda Donald also updated the board on the agency’s progress in resolving two other deficiencies HUD found; a significant percentage of its housing units are vacant and in disrepair.
Last month, 225 people from the public housing waitlist attended DCHA’s second mass leasing event to fill vacant units, Donald said. The agency is now offering public housing units to people who originally applied in 2012, she added. Closed to new applicants since 2013, the list was 24,000 people long as of last June and stretched back to 2004.
DCHA is also beginning its second maintenance surge in as many years. The agency has inspected units at two properties thus far and plans to examine every unit by May.
At last week’s meeting, the board also approved contracts for a project management system and audit services. Members also formally accepted a HUD Choice Neighborhoods Planning Grant for $500,000, which the agency plans to use to develop a revitalization plan for the Lincoln Heights and Richardson Dwellings area of Ward 7’s Deanwood neighborhood.
DCHA’s board will meet next on March 8 at 1 p.m. This article was co-published with The DC LIne.
“It is not clear to me that this procurement policy would have prevented [DCHA’s] problems.”
~ DCHA board member Christopher Murphy
Domestic violence is a big driver of homelessness for women, numerous studies cited by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services show. However, single women in particular are an undercounted segment of the population experiencing homelessness, and that can translate into a dearth of funding and services they need to regain housing and stability.
In D.C. and many other jurisdictions, homelessness is measured by counting shelter users and people who are visibly homeless, like those living in tents along Rock Creek or sleeping around Union Station. This approach tends to undercount women, who often view shelters and encampments as dangerous. Women experiencing homelessness are more likely to couch surf with family and friends, or when other options fail, to trade sex for shelter.
Helping this subset of the population experiencing homelessness requires an intersectional approach. Kris Thompson, CEO of Calvary Women’s Services, believes homeless survivors need assistance finding homes and building up the emotional strength and independence necessary to stay away from their abusers. Trauma-informed service, which emphasizes a holistic and compassionate approach to supporting survivors, is the best way to meet both objectives, Thompson said.
Domestic violence and homelessness are connected. Indeed, domestic violence is the top cause of homelessness for women. To understand why, it’s important to understand the dynamics of abuse.
Abusers usually have some form of power over their victims. Women in abusive relationships often depend on their abusers for housing or other basic necessities. They may also be emotionally dependent on their abusers, especially if they are intimate partners or family members. Abusive relationships don’t always start out violent, but once they get to that point, the violence “usually escalate[s] in frequency and severity,” according to the United Nations.
Women who leave abusive relationships are at heightened risk for homelessness. Abusers often alienate their victims from friends and family, so they can’t rely on traditional support networks for help. And, high housing costs in cities like D.C. make finding a new place hard to do.
The pandemic exacerbated these challenges. The quarantine phase of the pandemic was associated with increased depression, alcohol abuse, stress, and post-traumatic stress disorder. These conditions created a “catastrophic milieu” for domestic violence to occur, according to the American Journal of Emergency Medicine.
At the same time, leaving became harder. Many people were afraid to open extra bedrooms even for family and friends, and finding a new place was off the table for the millions who lost their jobs. Social distancing rules also made it difficult for shelters to use their space at full capacity. And, once restrictions were lifted, many service providers faced an intake backlog.
Annual point-in-time count of people experiencing homelessness, conducted by U.S. officials and volunteers. U.S.
D.C. has a coordinated entry system for residents experiencing homelessness. Services are provided in three categories: families, individuals, and youth. Female victims of domestic abuse can be found in all three categories, but Calvary focuses on individuals. Thompson and other local experts said D.C. has tended to focus its resources on family and youth services, leaving a critical service gap for single women. Indeed, Calvary’s average client is a Black woman in her fifties.
Calvary uses a trauma-informed approach, according to Thompson, which starts with meeting women where they are. She said many clients do not initially see themselves as victims of domestic violence, but if you ask if someone in their last home hit or otherwise abused them, they will often say yes. Thompson said new arrivals “often don’t have the language to describe themselves as domestic violence survivors. You can only really vocalize it once you are safe.”
With this recognition front and center, Calvary starts by offering a safe place where women can exhale before they work on next steps. In Anacostia, the organization operates a housing program with beds for up to 40 women. It also runs programs at smaller sites for women who need extra protections to keep their abusers from tracking them down. Among other measures, residents do not receive mail or schedule Uber pickups at these locations.
Each woman is assigned a case manager who helps her prepare for independent living. They help women replace lost IDs, establish credit, and apply for disability, while on-site nurses and therapists offer classes and art workshops. Calvary also helps clients find stable permanent housing. In D.C., this usually means getting women a voucher through the city’s housing choice voucher program.
Miss Cynthia (for safety reasons we are not using her last name) spent ten months in Calvary’s Anacostia program. She worked as a laundry manager at a hotel for six years and retired in 2019. During the pandemic, her husband started abusing her. To cope, she said she began using drugs and spent time with people who weren’t good for her. When she came to Calvary
last January, she had only been clean for five days and wasn’t sure they would let her in. When they did, “I cried tears of joy,” she told me.
While she was at Calvary, Miss Cynthia took advantage of all the programming she could. Her two favorite classes were ‘Negotiation Works’ and ‘Change Purse.’ In Negotiation, women used role play to learn how to navigate difficult situations; in Change Purse, they learned how to create budgets. Her time wasn’t without bumps in the road — she changed rooms several times because of disputes with other residents, and briefly relapsed. In order to remain, she had to agree to a curfew and other restrictions, so she buckled down.
“I took therapy,” she told me. “It’s a good place to learn about yourself, to relearn who you are, to never be ashamed of who you are.”
Today, Miss Cynthia lives in a new apartment building near Audi Field, and her rent is covered through a housing choice voucher. She likes to keep busy. She volunteers for Bread for the City, and has applied to help her former Negotiation teacher as an ambassador for the program.
The donor wall at Calvary Women's Service. Image by Calvary Women’s Services used with permission.
Calvary’s services are now at the vanguard of D.C.’s ongoing effort to rethink its homeless services. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s 2015-2020 Homeward DC plan to slash homelessness and improve services was upended by the pandemic, but in 2021 she updated it and made some important shifts. Two are relevant to Calvary’s work.
First, she pledged to put more resources into services for single residents experiencing homelessness — a category critics claim received short shrift amidst the city’s “often singleminded focus on reducing family homelessness,” according to DCist/WAMU reporting. Bowser also acknowledged that D.C.’s single adult population experiencing homelessness is aging. Like Calvary’s average client, they will need wraparound services, such as health care and legal help.
Advocates say the best way to serve the District’s residents experiencing homelessnesis to ensure that there are various types of services to meet their specific needs — and to add more money in the budget to do so.
The number of home purchase mortgages bought by Black households east of the Anacostia River has dropped by
18%
between 2007 and 2021
Average price of a home in D.C. in 2019:
$621,000
Average price of a home east of the Anacostia River in 2019:
$292,734
Wards 7 and 8 east of the Anacostia River have long been majority Black communities, but the percentage of Black homeowners is decreasing, according to a new report from the Urban Institute. Meanwhile, researchers found that mortgages taken out by non-Black residents are increasing, particularly in rapidly gentrifying areas near the Anacostia River and Anacostia Freeway.
The report found that the proportion of home purchase mortgages sold to Black households is declining, while those sold to non-Black households have increased.
In 2007, 92% of home purchase mortgages in communities east of the river went to Black households, according to researchers’ analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data, compared to 75% in 2021 — a drop of about 18%. Despite the significant increase in non-Black buyers in recent years, the overall racial composition of homeowners is changing more slowly, in part because only around 7.5% of all homes in the area are sold each year. (One caveat to these numbers is that the overall percentage of Black residents across the city has also steadily shrunk in recent decades. What was once a majority-Black city is now 45% Black.) But the trend is clear: Between 2005 and 2009, 94% of homeowners east of the river described themselves as Black, compared to 87% between 2017 and 2021.
What’s behind the decline? “Gentrification,” says Brett Theodos, the lead researcher on the report and a senior fellow and director of the Community Economic Development Hub at the Urban Institute. “Home prices have really increased east of the Anacostia River and homes are a lot less affordable.” Skyrocketing home prices across the city also have had an impact, he says, drawing more people to buy east of the river, where prices are still lower than in
Researchers found that the average home east of the river sold for $292,734 in 2019, excluding renovation costs, but the average renter can only afford an estimated $185,000. But the price of a home east of the river is still significantly less than the average home in other parts of the city. The median price for a D.C. home reached $621,000 in June 2019, according to Urban Turf, a 63% increase compared to July 2009 or a 37% increase when adjusted for inflation. As of December 2022, the median sale price was $626,650, according
Theodos says while homes located east of the river are still among the most affordable citywide, prices have gone up considerably due to demand for homes. That means residents in these communities, many of whom are native Washingtonians, risk displacement. However, he does not anticipate Ward 7 and 8 communities to experience the kind of displacement and gentrification that neighborhoods like Shaw and U Street Corridor did, in part because D.C.’s population growth has slowed. But certain communities east of the river are seeing higher shares of non-Black homeowners — like historic Anacostia, Deanwood, and Hillcrest — due to their proximity to transit, among other factors, so change will vary
“For people who are new first time homeowners or people who are looking to trade up to a bigger home, if their family is growing, it’s harder and harder to stay in communities east of the Anacostia River,” says Theodos. “It’s really important that the city do all that it can to support homeownership because home prices are out of reach for a lot of people. And this study illustrates that that’s happening even in the communities that have historically been the
This data would not surprise residents in Wards 7 and 8 east of the river who have noticed their communities changing. People have varying opinions because gentrification can be a
squishy, misunderstood word.
“I don’t want to see my community still look like it did 20 years ago. How can I grow from that? You change managers, you change presidents, you change. You have to evolve around that,” Anacostia resident Bruce Holmes told DCist/WAMU.
Another resident who’s lived east of the river his entire life, Kyle Williams, had a different take. “Rundown neighborhoods are getting turned into million dollar neighborhoods overnight and in the last six to 10 years, things have definitely changed. They’re definitely capitalizing off the land that we’ve been on for years.”
The findings of the report come amid an ambitious goal set by Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration: 20,000 new Black homeowners by 2030. Just 34% of Black residents own their home, according to the mayor’s office, a 26% decrease from 2005. A panel of housing experts the mayor convened recommended several ways to increase Black homeownership, including some policies Urban Institute researchers support.
The report calls for a combination of building more homes and supporting homeowners financially. Recommendations include increased funding for subsidy homeownership programs to assist with down payments and closing costs, dedicating more Housing Production Trust Fund dollars to homeownership, and investing in more subsidies for housing cooperatives and community land trusts. (Disclosure: Theodos is on the board of the Douglass Community Land Trust, which is land acquired by a nonprofit in order to keep housing built there affordable.) Theodos says 14.5% of land east of the river is undeveloped — and D.C. owns a significant portion of that land, one in seven acres. He says that means the D.C. government can encourage new housing construction on vacant or underused land.
The Bowser administration had set a goal of creating 36,000 new housing units by 2025, 12,000 of which would be affordable. But much of that housing stock is rental units. Theodos says D.C. needs to strike an appropriate balance between renter and owner-occupied buildings given the importance of homeownership as a primary source of wealth building.
“Certainly, we will need new rental units east of the river. But in terms of proportion or share, it’s really the ownership units that are further behind east of the Anacostia River,” says Theodos. “Some of that is not just about housing stock. There are single family homes that are being rented as well. So it’s about housing stock, but it’s also about who lives in the housing.”
Theodos says it’s not the sole responsibility of the D.C. government to change the troubling downward trend, but also federal government policies and affordable housing developers. And he cites the resistance new housing developments often face in the community. “Most fundamentally, not opposing increase to density is also an important step,” says Theodos. “We’ve had a real growth and homes are just so unaffordable in many of the west of the river communities that people looking to buy a home are increasingly looking east of the Anacostia River. And so it’s just part of a broader trend that has been happening over the past several years of home prices successively getting higher.”
This story was originally published by WAMU/DCist
Sitting around a large conference table at an Elevated Title office in South Denver, Ellie Adelman and Jaser Alsharhan are ready to finalize their purchase of a house. It’s the first time either has bought property, and they’re visibly excited, each poised with a pen to begin signing documents.
The two have been roommates since 2018, first in a big house with six other people, and then renting a threebedroom apartment together for the last two years. Both work in nonprofits, and they were paying $2,500 (plus $75 each for parking) a month to rent. At 2,800 square feet, with five-and-a-half bedrooms and four full bathrooms, the house they’re purchasing together has a mortgage just slightly higher than their previous rent. As long as they can rent out at least one of the rooms, if not two, their living costs will be less than renting.
Adelman and Alsharhan are part of a growing co-buying trend, where two or more unrelated, unmarried people are increasingly purchasing property together. Nationally, co-buying increased by an estimated 771% between 2014 and 2021, gauged roughly by co-owners with different last names, according to the Wall Street Journal. Companies such as Pairadime, Live Work Denver, CoBuy in Seattle, and GoCo in Toronto have emerged over the past few years to facilitate co-buying.
Working with realtor Bri Erger, one of the three agents at Live Work Denver, along with founder Laura Cowperthwaite and Sarah Wells, Adelman and Alsharhan were able to purchase a single family home at market rate in an area known for unaffordability. Denver is the ninth most expensive metro area in the nation, according to an analysis by mortgage and home equity research firm HSH. To afford a traditional mortgage, a person needs to make at least $148,000 a year, if they have 20% down. If they only have 10%, the necessary salary jumps to about $173,000.
“The single-family home dominated landscape of today’s cities represents an outdated and implicitly racist housing model that caters pretty exclusively to a nuclear heteronormative family,” says Jonathan Cappelli, executive director of Neighborhood Development Coalition (NDC), a group of affordable housing nonprofits across the DenverMetro region. That model doesn’t correspond to the many ways people choose to live with one another, he says.
“As a strategy, co-buying represents the decommodification of housing — radically increasing access to housing and encouraging communal forms of living. It lifts up an alternate vision of the role of homeownership rooted in collectivism and collective wealth-building.”
The co-buying model promoted by Live Work Denver and others isn’t house hacking — a way to generate passive income by renting out part of a property to cover the mortgage and make a profit. Co-buying, instead, provides an opportunity for some to escape the rental market and access the wealth generation of real estate investments. While most people who co-buy are drawn to it initially by the affordability aspect of it, Erger says, they soon realize the benefits of communal and community living.
“Traditionally speaking, people think I need my own space and my own property and my own thing. But if you’re trying to counter the capitalistic norms regarding ownership, I think this is a really good option,” Alsharhan says. “Personally, I know I live better with people around. I feel like I’m a part of something bigger than myself and also
it feels good to feel supported.”
Independently, both Alsharhan and Adelman say they may have been able to buy their own condos in Denver if they had wanted. “But because we’d been around so many great examples of co-buyer power, we realized if we pooled our resources that we could afford something bigger,” Adelman says.
In its quarterly Cobuy Curious Class, the team at Live Work Denver says co-buying allows people to buy “more house with less money.”
Take two different houses on the same street. One is two bedrooms and one bath, 1,050 square feet and listed for $615,000. The other is double the square footage with four bedrooms and two bathrooms, listed for $749,000. With two buyers on the larger property, both the down payment and monthly mortgage cost are roughly a third per individual compared to that same individual buying the first option. Essentially, purchasing together saves each buyer $24,000 in down payment and $1,186 monthly.
Wells’ first clients, five years ago, were three unrelated adults. One was a single artist who had enough for the down payment from an inheritance. The other two, both single mothers, had the stable income to pay the monthly mortgage. While none of them could afford a house on their own, pooling their resources allowed them to purchase a single family home in Lakewood, a Denver suburb.
Since 2019, the three agents at Live Work Denver have helped more than 100 people purchase equity in more than three dozen homes. In 2021 alone, they closed on 16 properties. Some co-buyers are a mixture of couples and
friends, others are intergenerational families and there’s a particular niche for polyamorous groups.
“For a person without dependents, I should make more than enough to afford living in Denver,” says Shira Weiner, who purchased a home in Denver’s Park Hill neighborhood with Erger and her then-partner Niko Kirby in 2021. But in late 2020, after her landlords sold the building, she was at risk of losing her affordable rental. She started looking to buy as an individual, but quickly got cold feet, daunted by the process, responsibility and her options of small onebedroom condos.
The house they purchased gave her an entry point into the housing market, an opportunity to equity, and perhaps most importantly, the chance to live in a place she’s excited about.
“It just makes so many more things feasible that wouldn’t be possible otherwise,” Weiner says.
Their investment isn’t equal, however. Weiner paid for an en suite bathroom, something that doesn’t benefit the other two co-owners. But it also increases her equity in the property if it is to sell. There’s also the benefit of shared maintenance costs should something go wrong. The plumbing went out soon after they moved in, and splitting the $9,000 repair costs was much less of a burden individually than it would have been for a single owner or couple.
All three are on the house title and loan as tenants in common: Each individual owns a percentage and responsibility in the property to varying degrees and their share can go to whomever they chose in the case of their death. (This is distinct from when partners and married couples buy under joint tenancy.)
“It’s our role and responsibility to help people understand that there is a way to home ownership in this wildly expensive market,” says Matt Hanson, a mortgage planner
who works with Live Work Denver, presenting at their workshops and lending to their co-buying clients, including Weiner and friends. Currently, about a quarter of his business is lending to co-buyers.
The process from Hanson’s perspective differs slightly from working with a married couple. With co-buying, Hanson takes a separate loan application from each buyer, then assesses what they can purchase together. He combines the total income and the total debts, then considers the lowest credit score, before determining what the group can afford.
“The biggest difference is in the discussion is about exit strategies,” Hanson says. It’s a conversation he doesn’t typically have with married partners or couples. “I’m not opposed to people co-buying at all, even if one’s got money and the other one doesn’t, as long as they’ve got the exit plan in place.”
Earlier this year, the online platform Pairadime, which seeks to make the co-buying process accessible and scalable, surveyed 1,000 millennials. Only 4% say they want to wait until they are married to purchase a home and 36% say they would buy with someone if it allowed them to qualify for a bigger mortgage. When it comes to help from their parents, 51% of the respondents said they’d rather see that in the form of a co-investment in a property rather than an outright gift. But the traditional real estate process doesn’t often support unmarried co-buyers, says Pairadime co-founder, Joe Hoppis.
“And then when one of them wants out or there’s an exit, it’s catastrophic for everybody – for the agents, for the lenders, for the market,” he says. “Everybody suffers because we didn’t help them do it right from the beginning.”
Currently, Pairadime has about 100 agents working in cities across the U.S. and Canada — from Boston to Miami, Calgary, Toronto and some in Texas, California, Oregon and Washington. There have also been co-ownership purchases in less expensive markets, like Tennessee and Kansas, Hoppis says.
Since April, the company has helped facilitate about 80 transactions, matching co-buyers through its online survey, calculating what they can afford, connecting them with an agent and lender in their area, and helping them draft a 26-page legal agreement that protects each person’s investment and provides clear boundaries, including how expenses and equity are divided, as well as what happens if someone decides to move.
The last part — the agreement builder — is the only cost in the process, around $95, Hoppis says. The contract is viable in all 50 states and Canada, but the company still recommends a legal review.
“We believe that agreements and clarity around agreements is the best and most loving thing you can do to protect relationships,” Hoppis says.
Caitlin Alexander and Kayla Hoggatt met in yoga teacher training in 2017 and by July of that year they had bought a house together in Denver.
“We both knew that wasn’t something that either of us could do as individuals, but if we were to combine our finances, that it would be a possibility,” Hoggatt says.
With the help of a willing real estate agent and lender, the two were able to qualify for a Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loan in addition to a grant that helped cover the down payment. They also contracted with a lawyer to help review their co-buying agreement.
The pair sold the house in 2020 due to a variety of life circumstances, referring back to their agreement in the
process to help determine how to divvy up the equity. Even though the co-buying experience was brief, both Alexander and Hoggatt are glad they did it. They were able to make about $60,000 of equity over the time they owned, and they became best friends in the process. Alexander was even Hoggatt’s maid of honor in her wedding at the end of 2020.
In the case of Weiner, Erger and Kirby, the agreements protected everyone when Erger and Kirby split up; the shared goal of community and building equity remained intact.
“[The breakup] was probably the very easiest because of the structures,” Kirby says. “Not a lot was renegotiated or unclear because we had the contingencies.”
While encouraged by the realtors at Live Work Denver, lenders like Hanson and Pairadime, there’s nothing regulatory that requires co-buyers to use an agreement. And in the end, not every client signs one.
Alsharhan and Adelman moved into their new house at the end of November and have yet to sign theirs. But they are in discussion over its contents and plan to have a legal review soon. It covers everything from splitting up their equity shares relative to the square footage they occupy in the house, to a monthly contribution in a shared bank account for emergency repairs and a commitment to co-own for at least five years.
Agreements can help mitigate a lot of the issues co-buying can present — everything from how finances are split, to responsibilities around the house to clear exit strategies. It can also help surface issues, like disconnection over preferences with noise and privacy, kids or pets.
But the team at Live Work Denver has also faced other challenges as they help clients looking to co-buy.
There is still cultural skepticism around co-buying and the idea of financially investing with friends and even family, and some shame and grief that comes with the realization individual home ownership may not be accessible to everyone.
“The reality is the system does not set people up for that,” Wells says. “And so we have to grieve this version of
the American dream and figure out what is accessible and available. Cobuying is one way to do that.”
Aligning people on the same timeline, when the process can take longer than traditional real estate transactions, can also be a problem. And finding the right property suitable for co-ownership can be a challenge, as can local zoning and occupancy laws. And although the Live Work Denver team often sees perfect houses for co-buying, they frequently sell before a group is ready to make an offer.
To help mitigate these challenges, Live Work Denver is in the process of setting up a rotating loan fund, with a $400,000 investment from Colorado’s Gary Community Ventures. With a mission to help families decrease expenses and build equity, the House First program will allow Live Work Denver to acquire and renovate houses well-suited to co-ownership first, and then sell them to co-buyers at cost. Any profit will go back into the fund to purchase more property.
It will be an opportunity, Wells says, for people to negotiate co-buying loans and agreements without the added pressure of the competitive real estate market timeline. The hope is historically marginalized communities will have easier access to the wealth generation investment of real estate.
So far, Live Work Denver’s clients have been primarily white queer-identifying females, the network and social circles of the brokers. But in response to Live Work Denver’s co-buying classes, the team has been asked to present within other community groups in Denver like Globeville, Elyria-Swansia Coalition and East Colfax Community Collective, local anti-gentrification organizations seeking to prevent displacement of predominantly people of color and low-income community members. They’re also working with The Center for Community Wealth Building to offer classes in Spanish in early 2023.
Hoppis, too, hopes co-buying and Pairadime can help achieve more equity in the real estate market. But Pairadime is still too new and it’s still too early to quantify demographic data of co-buyers to really understand who is taking advantage of the model.
“If we can increase marginalized populations to believe that they can and equip them with a way to do it, we’ve done it. We did something to be a disruptor in this game,” he says.
Co-buying is by no means a panacea to the affordability crisis most cities across the country are facing. The housing market does not, in many ways, reflect the true price most people can afford, as the cost of single family homes have reached an all time high. Resistance to density, a lack of inventory and jobs that pay below-living wages all contribute to the need for policies and initiatives that drastically increase affordable housing. But co-buying does provide an opportunity for some to purchase property for the first time.
“Fundamentally, local, state, and federal governments need to coordinate policy to ensure that a sufficient number of homes are built, sold, and subsidized at affordability levels that open the American dream of homeownership to a wider array of buyers,” says Cappelli, who heads the Neighborhood Development Collaborative in Denver. But the co-buying model presents a reasonable option for many individuals and households, he says, and ought to be fostered as an alternative. “This strategy belongs as one of a host of tactics needed to bring homeownership into reach for more people.”
“Personally, I know I live better with people around. I feel like I’m a part of something bigger than myself.”
~ Jaser Alsharhan, a co-buyer.
The winter of 2017 Portland, Oregon was hit with an unusually long ice storm. It would be deadly for people experiencing homelessness. Four people would tragically die of exposure. An older woman would walk into a downtown parking garage and die an agonizing death alone in the unforgiving storm. Another victim froze to death at a bus stop, only blocks away from a family member's home. The third and fourth victims died alone in the doorway of a local business and in a densely wooded area of the city.
If that wasn’t enough, another homeless woman gave birth to a stillborn child in the freezing rain that dreadful week. After giving birth, presumably alone, the woman was found by police completely distraught and cradling her deceased child. She was homeless and experiencing a mental health collapse. It was more than devastating.
A local reporter was interviewing me about the deaths. Did I know any of the victims that died? Has Portland ever seen anything like this? What was it really going to take to prevent these kinds of deaths on the streets in our community? Did I have thoughts…?
My mind went blank. I didn’t have any answers. “Israel, are you there,” the reporter asked.
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Are you OK?”
“Can I call you back?”
“Absolutely, but I’m on deadline.”
It’s hard to describe what homelessness does to the people experiencing it, their family, their friends and the people working on the front lines of poverty.
The trauma of homelessness is more than overwhelming. Reality is distorted. Logic is rare. Life is primal. There is nothing remotely rational about the circumstances of homelessness in, the United States, one of the richest countries in the world. Every time I wrote a story about someone who passed away on the streets, I would tell myself that the more stories like these are read, the more the public and/or government might want to take action to support housing justice in our community. Most days though, I wasn’t so sure.
I had spent the better part of that week working on a story, including doing interviews with the family of one of the victims who had frozen to death on the streets. I was hoping to provide a snapshot of the harsh reality the families of people experiencing homelessness face when a loved one on the streets passes away and why we should be prioritizing more affordable housing in our community. Unfortunately, it was a story I had written before.
At the last minute, the family decided they didn’t want the story of their father and husband to be told through the lens of a human being freezing to death homeless on the streets. While I was disappointed with the family’s decision to not talk to me on the record, I certainly couldn’t blame them.
If I was honest with myself, I’m not sure I would have wanted a reporter presenting the legacy of my father or son through this lens either, regardless of how thoughtful the writer might have been. What a painful experience.
Having worked on the streets for the previous two decades, the amount of trauma and death I had witnessed and reported on over the years had shaken me to the core. I had spent many sleepless nights at the bedsides of people on the streets that found themselves on the edge of death. Pneumonia. Heart attacks. Drug overdoses. Burn victims. Attempted deaths by suicide. Sometimes people pulled through; sometimes they
didn’t. The experiences almost always left me completely wrecked and lacking any kind of normalcy. My world felt upside down.
I thought about the first person I had ever written about who died on the streets: about a young woman who had taken her own life, and her mother, who had visited me afterwards. I kept a worn out copy of a poem I wrote about her tucked away in my desk drawer. Sometimes after talking to a family member who had died on the streets, or writing a story about homeless deaths, I would read it to myself and think about that girl and all the people who had died during my tenure of working on the front lines.
For years my executive editor, Joanne Zuhl, and I had been writing about the stories of people that had died on the streets. Our collective work contributed to efforts by local governments in the region to create a methodology and system to track and report the number and causes of homeless deaths in the region. Their stories were almost always heartbreaking.
Holding back tears, Krista Campbell, a mother whose son had passed away on the streets talked to me about her son’s experience. At 42 years old, James Michael Bostick had lived a hard life. Her son had been battling addiction and homelessness for more than 13 years.
“Some people might see him as just another homeless junkie that died, but he was an incredible man,” said Krista. “He had an incredible heart. He was my precious baby. I suppose in the back of my mind I had been expecting the call for years. I prayed for him every single day. When the call came, nothing I’ve been through in my life prepared me for what had happened. We’ve both lived a hard life. Still, I’ve lost my son. My dear son.”
James left behind a mother, a brother and three daughters. There’s nothing that can prepare someone for that kind of conversation. All you can do is listen and provide support. As I held back tears of my own, not having any real answers, we talked for nearly an hour. I listened to Krista laugh and cry, telling me countless stories about James, sometimes pausing to tell me she couldn’t believe he was gone. She told me about his bright blue eyes and beautiful smile. She told me that he was a kind and comforting man that loved Jesus.
Like many people, Krista said she didn’t understand the mental health issues her son faced. “Demons grabbed hold of my son years ago, and I felt helpless,” Krista would say. “I didn’t know anything about depression. I didn’t know he was bipolar, then eventually paranoid schizophrenic. I found out about other mental disorders James was facing after I Googled all the medication found in his backpack after his death. There were voices in his head that wouldn’t leave him alone. Mental health and addiction took hold of his life and held him until his very last breath. Then, it was God that took him home.”
“The average person doesn’t always know how to deal with addiction and mental disorders,” said Krista. “We feel stricken with fear for our suffering family members. We feel disgust in ourselves for not doing something more to help him.”
It’s something I would hear over and over from the families of people who have passed away on the streets. Not only are people dealing with the trauma of losing a child, individuals or families are often grieving alone. The loss of a child or a death in the family is never easy. It can be even harder when the family member is homeless. The feeling of judgment from peers and the stigmas attached to having a family member die on the streets can be isolating and torturous.
The average age of homeless deaths in many communities across the country hovers between 40 and 50-years old. One
would have to go back decades, possibly centuries, to find another demographic of people that were dying that young in America. The leading causes of death for people on the streets are accidental drug overdoses, natural causes and death by suicide.
“People experiencing homelessness die young, and from often preventable causes,” said Paul Lewis, a former health officer for Multnomah County. “You can’t help but conclude that the lack of housing has contributed to these realities.”
Research has long shown living on the streets exacerbates existing health problems and causes new ones. Chronic diseases are difficult to manage under stressful circumstances. Acute problems such as infections, injuries, and pneumonia are difficult to heal when there is no place to call home.
It’s not uncommon in America for many people experiencing homelessness that are dealing with life threatening ailments to be released straight from the emergency room right back to the streets, or into a crowded shelter.
“Everyone’s family has a story, and this is part of our story,” Mary, the sister of a man who died on the streets of Portland once told me. “It’s a devastating story. We could have helped him, absolutely. I’m not holding anybody responsible, but as a society we let him down.”
Research shows that at least 20 people in America die homeless every single day. The numbers are absolutely staggering. It’s unconscionable.
Needless to say, I never did get back to that reporter. I’m still not sure what I would have said. After more than 20 years of working on the front lines of homelessness it’s hard to find any kind of logic in a land where housing remains a commodity and human beings on the streets hold no actual value in the eyes of the federal government. A land where thousands of people experiencing homelessness are left to die every year, alone and forgotten. Their stories untold. Ghosts left to haunt our streets with no safe place to call home. A real American tragedy.
We have such a long way to go.
Artist/Vendor
Blue, red, pink and green. The color green. Empathy of the planet earth strongest base in the world.
Life, rain, the wind, the stars, everything that’s supposed to be scary isn’t. It’s God’s will, and only Her will that gets us through the teacher’s power — to know, to understand, and to redirect our children.
To the well known as green, we all grow.
We know that he or she has done the best they can. We know that God loves the teacher.
Children, one child in this world, I know and understand the blessing; I get that it’s hard for them.
I understand the growth of the child.
When we were there, I am proud that my parents taught me love, compassion, and respect. A teacher’s love, we need to acknowledge where they are now. They are all strong, God-fearing children. We love them, they don’t give up from morning to night; they always do their job.
We need to always be at their side, to know a teacher is to know a saint.
Love yourself and understand love of others’ work.
The color blue:
open, living, being, purity.
The color red: represents to me when Jesus died, all of our sins were washed clean.
The color pink: powerful, passion, beauty — still soft.
Our teachers are all these colors. They need perfection, love, and honesty, to educate us, show us love. A teacher: green, blue, red, pink.
(Also, black.)
This is the question so many people ask. My girlfriend and I were at the YWCA a couple of years ago and pondered this very question. She told me her boyfriend asked her to come over to his house for a date. Another couple was there, and he paid special attention to her. Of course, everyone has their own opinion about this eternal question.
There are so many people all over the world who are homeless. In Maryland, Washington and Virginia. In Maryland there are homeless people, in Washington there are homeless people and in Virginia there are homeless people. In Maryland, they live outside with their tent, their clothes, their food and they have children and some have a dog with them. In Washington, they are outside in the rain. They stay in an empty house, they sleep in an alley, they ask for food and money. They eat outside, they go to shelters and when it gets cold outside, they freeze from the weather. They die from the weather. All the more reason why you should volunteer at a local shelter.
JEANETTE
Artist/Vendor
RICHARDSON
I left D.C. in 1974. I went to a place that kept children until they found foster parents. I was just 9 years old. Then they moved us to my new foster parents. It started out okay. Me and my brother and other sisters all together — it was five of us. But as the years went on, we all were abused spiritually, physically and mentally. What they were doing to us is still a mystery, cause we do not see each other or communicate with one another. One Sunday afternoon, after church, we went home to my foster mother and we had a disagreement. She grabbed me and started to choke me very hard until she stopped oxygen from reaching my brain. All I wanted was to go back home to Washington, D.C. But when I came back home all kinds of changes in the city had taken hold over the community. Now, there were drugs, children smoking and drinking, people having babies too young.
BRIANNA
Artist/Vendor
BUTLERA sweet circle of kindness goes around in a special way.
I was walking to my neighborhood McDonald’s one day and I unexpectedly came across a person in need. This person was down on her luck and she had a sweetness of the heart. I noticed it in the way she carried herself. She asked me if I could provide her with something to eat. And that I did. I also gave her something to drink.
She was so happy and excited she even clapped her hands and thanked me. Little did I know, this blessing would return to me in a circle of kindness, three to four months later. It would be returned to me when my pockets were low. I could not pay for all my groceries one day. But on that special day, a lady that was in front of me overheard me talking to the cashier.
She stepped in with a smile and said all of us are a little short of money sometimes. It is an experience she said she had been through before. “I am going to pay for the rest of your groceries today,” she said.
I was very happy and thanked this lady for doing this good deed. I also told her how helpful it was for her to do this act of kindness. I said a special prayer for her so she could receive a blessing in return for her good deed. More people should enter this circle and make it never end.
Try to establish, historically, how the 23-character naming system for thoroughbred horses came about, well good luck. Best shot: a leathery stable hand once wisecracked, “Horse names? I think it was King Richard III. Y’know, ‘a horse, a horse my kingdom for a… You get it, buddy? Haw-haw…”
In any event, it’s a long tradition. And the steed’s real handle is seldom as exotic or exciting as “GETDOCAGEM.” The actual name is more like “Dunk” or “Geef.” I was a novice, hangin’ around the paddocks at Bowie, or Timonium. My girlfriend at the time, who favored fake-fur vests, headbands ‘round her spikey ‘do, and an occasional cigar — she fancied numerous mispronunciations.
Instead of “Doc-a-Gem,” Más would bleat out “CAGEM, CAGEM.” I liked that plenty. More playful reconfiguration. Of course some titles were hyphenated: especially Tribal or Indigenous. “TOM-KA-WHA-MA-NI.” That sounded vaguely Faulknerian.
Now, putting two horses weirdly ‘clept’ wasn’t only entertaining; ‘twas oft financially rewarding when the exacta (First and second finishers in a given race) came in, for instance,
Artist/Vendor
I knew Son Seals, His band played rough. Blues, Unedited, raw, True.
Know I now, how his pain must feel, Diabetes, wearing away your body
But not your soul.
BB suffered too, by that time
His wealth buffered ‘Gainst numbness, and with his right foot ‘B’ tapped out rhyme.
Son stayed struggling — His sandpaper life — the scratchy side For him, no suicide
A bullet to the face, Lower extremity amputation
Yet he maintained syncopation Right to the last of his playin’ on–Beautiful blue songs!
as it did in the frigid opening week at Bowie in January 1983, when WEGONE DAGGONE nipped GYPSY O’SHAY at the nose, as the two longshots skidded across the icy finish line. Back up at Aqueduct in New York, “The Dream Track,” a few meets down the road, I celebrated my 33rd birthday, hitting the 8-9 feature exacta. “VOLT,” over “LIGHT MY POCKET.” 20-1 odds over 50-1! Sparks flew for what some (perhaps even Andy Beyer the noted handicapper) enthused over this combo price: $889 fresh claims. They called it the Electric Exacta, and NoteL the IRS caught up to me the following spring, for a hefty chunk of “gamblings winnings tax.”
In a future missive, I might ruminate over “EIRE CANAL” with “PROPELTER,” “PETES’ PRESENT” over “LITTLE RED ROMEO,” (Más extolled my skill in netting the trifecta as well that Sunday at Bowie - don’t recall the third finisher in that one, but Alberto Delgado was up). Can’t recall who came in behind FORTUNATE FABLE up at Belmont, but the Irish turfer drew off at 68-1 and held on. That was around 1982, and from then on I oft hummed the Statler Bros. “Don’t Wait On ME,” when my ‘ringer’ stayed out front!
I have many best moments
But this one is special
It was my American tournament
Years ago, I went back to school
I started my bachelor’s in business administration
At American Intercontinental University
Things were great
I progressed
My grades were top and good
I put all my efforts into my studies that they called “intellipaths”
And received top marks with a 4.0 GPA
Things went well until I dropped off Because of a situation that forced me to experience homelessness
I believe I will return back soon
When the sun rises and the light comes over the moon
Every day, I still remember These beautiful moments
From my American tournament
Pain and hurt go hand in hand
Thoughtfulness and dreams are the same
Wishing and hoping are alike
Weeping and crying are alike
Depression and sadness all go together
Humans don’t think that There are things we feel in the winter style
Nevertheless when you have lost loved ones
Or they are ill,
It’s hard to be joyful this time of year
Take the time to ask for help
Pray, talk, let it out
So you can survive this time of year
Touched by a soul of the new to come of a day — will it work on the stand?
At Seton High School, no one had ever completed an “Early Admission” Program after 11th grade, which allowed you to skip the 12th grade. During those years, my mother decided to save her $700 a year in my tuition by having me attend college a year early. So, I attended night school at the Baltimore City Community College in Liberty Heights four nights a week after being in school all day at Seton. It was a difficult schedule; being a young person with mostly adults, I was in class from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday to Thursday. Needless to say, I was a highly driven, ambitious young person, a self starter and highly motivated..
To complete the program, I had to have an 85% average along with all the credits needed to be a high school graduate. The principal did not want me to leave. She scratched her head and spoke with me over an hour. Finally, she said “We are not going to let you walk across the stage with your class in 1979, and you can pick up your diploma in my office next year.”
After that, two other students followed me to Morgan State after I shared the requirements for leaving. I was very popular serving as a representative for the student government, being one a few African American students with an all Caucasian staff. I had a very rough start in the 9th grade dealing with some racism.
SASHA WILLIAMS Artist/Vendor
I have to push through 2023, I’ve been dealing with a lot. It’s been emotional for me. But I am just pushing to get my life in order. I am grieving but I am still thankful for the writer's workshop and the theater group at Street Sense Media. I am thankful for Street Sense. I am writing more and using more of my time to organize my thoughts and receive feedback on my work.
How can we stop mass shootings? I think people need more jobs and school programs so they can stay busy and not spend a lot of time on the streets. I don’t know how a person can kill someone, maybe because of mental health issues or Covid-19, or they are just crazy. It may have something to do with politics or maybe they just don’t care about the law — some people don’t.
They need to change gun laws. And if a person kills someone, they should get life without parole. Maybe that will stop people from shooting others. Or maybe ask the military to step in. You should be sentenced to death if you get caught, but that's my opinion. Or maybe there needs to be a spokesperson to speak out about guns. Guns are made for sport, not to kill people. Some people get guns because they either selling drugs or they just want to hurt somebody. Someone needs to take guns off the street.
The community needs to stand up against violence.
Ugly? Not so, just as cute as a mouse
Exhasuted, but elated when I trapped it! So my readers, it wasn’t one, it was two. I’m glad they both are out of my house.
This Monday marks what is known as President’s Day, which was established as a holiday in 1855 in recognition of President George Washington. It’s a day to celebrate. We need to celebrate all the presidents, both past and present. Attention, everybody! Street Sense will be closed for President’s Day.
Your brain is your map to the future, waiting for something outside of you to feel something inside. Stop living as the victim, blaming everything on everybody else. Try to chase and create a new life for yourself. Get rid of negative thoughts and grab ahold of new ones. Think your way into a new way of living. Seventy-five percent of your thinking can give up a surge of energy. I suggest changing people, places, and things in your life. Make sure that you take time out for time with your thoughts, but don't get all in your head. A moment of peace can do us well. Today, I would like for you to say something that you're grateful for. And, positive affirmations don't hurt. A positive affirmation is something that you find within yourself or about yourself that makes you feel good about yourself. Thinking negatively only hurts us. I learned I am beautiful, worthy and kind-hearted. Only you can change yourself. How many people know that when people talk about us it is none of our business because it has nothing to do with who I really am. Always listen to learn and learn to listen. This path is mine and mine only. I practice to become great, then I keep practicing to stay great. I'm trying today to get to know myself all over again. Love yourself today. I'm not used to making good decisions on my own. If I was to put the energy that I put into drinking how I was into living right, I would have already beat my addiction.
1. Hayes of smooth soul, or Newton of physics
6. Some hair salon supplies
10. They’re non-electives in coll. (abbr./acron.)
14. Avian resting site aptly found in “sandpiper chair”?
15. Formally surrender, as territory
16. Word that may mean sad or off-color
17. Either Umberto Eco or Italo Calvino (3 wds.) (2,7,6)
20. Golf or baseball batting lesson topic
21. Punjabi princess
22. Uneaten morsel
23. Teenager’s sarcastic reaction to virtually any activity proposed by a parent (2 wds.) (2,3)
25. Chekhov’s “Uncle ___”
27. Knuckleheads
30. Voting group
32. Doctors’ org. (abbr./acron.)
33. Sleep aid for a snorer’s partner, perhaps (PALE RUG anagram)
36. What “To boldly go where no one has gone before!” is called by grammarians (2 wds.) (5,10)
42. Jock
43. Big screen Wonder Woman portrayer Gadot
44. How someone who said “Lot’s wife is really becoming...” may have finished their sentence
45. Some popular fitness-tracking bands
49. Partner of blood, toil and tears in an oft-cited Winston Churchill quote
52. One who puts you in your place?
53. Movies or photos, informally
54. Rich soil
57. Trippin’ in the 60’s, quite possibly (2 wds.) (2,4)
61. An apt description of this crossword, given its
8 circled letter pairs?
64. Team that had a Bench on its bench for his
entire career
65. Fund-raising grps. often associated with book fairs (abbr./acron.)
66. Run again, in TV- or podcast-speak (2-3)
67. Looked at
68. “Oh, for heaven’s ____!”
69. Bygone financial giant associated with Ken Lay’s downfall
1. Hoppy brewpub orders, for short (abbr./acron.)
2. Faxed, Fed-Exed or forwarded via First Class Mail
3. Diva’s delivery, perhaps
4. Ad words often followed by “This deal won’t last!” (3,3)
5. Fonzie’s “Happy Days” cousin played by Scott Baio
6. Early seventh-century year (Rom. Num.)
7. Long (for)
8. Author Ferber or poet ___ St. Vincent Millay
9. Like many a seam
10. One of the 2,247 logged by Edgar Martinez (abbr./acron.)
11. John who wrote a song of tribute to Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana
12. A sentence of inquiry
13. Perfect Sleeper® mattress maker
18. Took a powder, in old gangster flick lingo
19. Napoleon victory site that sounds like the name of a sunrise bugle call
24. Online newsgroup system
26. ____ above (better than) (2 wds.) (1,3)
27. “Illmatic” rapper
28. Mischief-maker
29. Western Samoa monetary unit
30. Legal documents or underwear option
31. I.C.U. worker (abbr./acron.)
34. Back on board
35. Leslie Caron’s title role in 1959’s Best Picturewinner
37. Start of a birth announcement (2 wds.) (3,1)
38. “____ Be The Day!” (massive 1957 Buddy Holly hit)
39. Word before “will” or “considered”
40. Big commercial tub
41. Chicago transports
46. National chain eatery known by its abbr./ acron., which features pancake sundaes
47. College professor’s prize accomplishment, maybe
48. Descriptor often heard in reference to hussies (ZEN BAR anagram)
49. Bowling alley pickup
50. Archaic cousin of “missus” once used to refer to a female spouse
51. Radiate, as confidence
52. Eskimo boat
55. Familiar word in a klutz’s vocabulary
56. Mennen post-shave soother
58. Russia’s Winter Palace resident
59. Of the hipbone (prefix)
60. Bruce or Laura of Hollywood
62. Hallucinogenic substance referred to in the answer to 57-Across (abbr./acron.)
63. Initials of the poet who inspired “Cats”
*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, Wa. Learn more about Real Change News and the International Network of Street Papers at realchangenews.org and insp.ngo.
Academy of Hope Public Charter School 202-269-6623 // 2315 18th Place NE aohdc.org
Bread for the City - 1525 7th St., NW // 202-265-2400 - 1640 Good Hope Rd., SE // 202-561-8587 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
Church of the Pilgrims // 202-387-6612 2201 P St., NW food (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 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 Eye 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 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
Martha’s Table // 202-328-6608 marthastable.org 2375 Elvans Road 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 // 202-939-2060 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 // 202-333-4949 3655 Calvert St., NW stlukesmissioncenter.org
Thrive DC // 202-737-9311 1525 Newton St., NW thrivedc.org
Unity Health Care 3020 14th St., NW // unityhealthcare.org
- Healthcare for the Homeless Health Center: 202-508-0500
- Community Health Centers: 202-469-4699
1500 Galen Street SE, 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, 555 L Street SE, 3240 Stanton Road SE, 3020 14th Street NW, 2700 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, 1717 Columbia Road NW, 1313 New York Avenue, NW BSMT Suite, 425 2nd Street NW, 4713 Wisconsin Avenue NW, 2100 New York Avenue NE, 2100 New York Avenue NE, 1333 N Street NW, 1355 New York Avenue NE, 828 Evarts Place, NE, 810 5th Street NW
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 1701 14th St., NW // 202-745-7000 2301 MLK Jr. Ave., SE // 202-797-3567 whitman-walker.org
Crew Team Member
McDonald’s // 1944 14th St NW
Full-time / Part-time
Take orders, prepare food, ensure restaurant cleanliness.
REQUIRED: N/A
APPLY: tinyurl.com/mcd-member
Dishwasher
Bartaco // 1025 5th St NW
Full-time / Part-time
Responsible for maintaining cleanliness and sanitation of all cutlery, glassware and food machines
REQUIRED: must be able to lift up to 10 pounds and move objects up to 25 pounds.
APPLY: tinyurl.com/btaco-dishwasher
House Cleaner
Please Assist Me
Part-time
Perform deep cleaning duties with attention to detail and care to maintain private residences and carry out essential household chores.
REQUIRED: N/A
APPLY: tinyurl.com/assistme-cleaner
For further information and listings, visit our online service guide at StreetSenseMedia.org/service-guide
Hiring? Send your job postings to editor@StreetSenseMedia.org
