01.04.2023

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ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE

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.

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A new model for social housing in DC

NEAL FRANKLIN Editorial Intern

The D.C. Council is set to reintroduce a bill this coming session that could make the District a leader in social housing.

Seven councilmembers including Janeese Lewis George, Anita Bonds, Brianne Nadeau and Robert White supported the bill in its initial introduction last council session.

The Green New Deal for Housing Amendment Act of 2022 received a public hearing on Nov. 22 where 150 speakers registered. Most spoke in support of the bill. The legislation would create a new city office to oversee the development of mixed-income housing.

Residents earning below the median family income, which in D.C. is about $129,000 for a family of four each year, according to the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, would reside in these new housing developments.

One third of the housing units created by this bill would be set aside for people with incomes at half that level. Another third would be set aside for people making 30% of the area median income or about $28,000 each year.

The remaining housing developments would be sold at market rates. Public hearing attendees spoke in favor of using the social housing model in the District while referencing similar initiatives in places as far away as Austria and in neighboring jurisdictions such as Montgomery County.

In Vienna, Austria, municipal housing has existed in some form since 1920. In 2015, it began building more units because of popular demand.

The municipal housing model requires no deposit, equity, commission or contractual fee, which drives down the cost, according to the Vienna website. Currently, about 500,000 people live in affordable housing units in Vienna.

Michael Starnes attended the meeting with a Zoom background that featured an image of a housing project in Vienna. He was representing D.C. YIMBY, (short for: “Yes in my backyard) a local chapter of YIMBY Action that advocates for affordable housing. He supported the legislation but said that housing development plans could still be improved.

“Austria’s social housing is dense, often with up to 10 stories with limited setbacks in parking,” Starnes said. “In comparison, over 60% of land in Washington, D.C., is reserved for exclusively single-family zoning. If we want to build housing at scale, we simply must alter exclusionary zoning, which de facto bans working class people from most parts of the city.”

Thousands of miles away from Vienna, another locality has also begun implementing a similar housing policy. Montgomery County has just started to embrace a social housing model of its own.

Montgomery County implemented a public-private housing model after approving a proposal in March 2021. It approved $50 million in bonds to the Housing Opportunities Commission to develop mixed-income housing. Hans Riemer, a former Montgomery County councilmember, helped to bring the proposal forward.

“As the Washington region mobilizes to meet our future housing targets, this plan will be a strong contribution from Montgomery County,” Riemer said in a March 2021 press release. “I am confident this remarkable public-private partnership will become a national model.”

Montgomery County, however, has a population of about 2,000 people per square mile, while Washington has a population of about 11,000 people per square mile, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Developing social housing in Washington where people are more densely populated, could

SSM FAMILY UPDATES

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present a different type of challenge.

District residents who spoke at the hearing said that there could also be other personal benefits to the kind of mixedincome housing that would be brought forth with the Green New Deal. Laura Griffin, a resident of Ward 5, spoke in favor of it.

“I moved to D.C. about a year and a half ago, and I love the city, but I also worry that by moving here I am displacing lower-income residents,” Griffin said. “This matters to me because I myself grew up housing insecure.”

The hearing brought out the voices of people in support of the Green New Deal, however the bill still faces legislative hurdles.

Now that this legislative session has ended, councilmembers would need to reintroduce it. The legislation can be reintroduced in the new council session which started on Jan. 3. Alterations to the bill, like those suggested during the hearing, could be made before that time.

Lewis George signaled that she would consider reintroducing it when asking incoming councilmember Zachary Parker, who testified in his capacity as a representative of the D.C. Board of Education, if he would consider co-sponsoring the bill in the new session.

Several speakers at the event were also invited to continue providing input as the legislation progresses, including Gianpaolo Baiocchi, a sociology professor at New York University.

“There’s lots of conversation about this national problem, and someone’s going to take the lead and get us a very powerful example that inspires people,” Baiocchi said. “And I’m happy to be talking to the people that I think are going to get to it.”

The Romani: History’s forgotten slaves

For more than five hundred years, both the church and the nobility kept slaves right in the heart of Europe. Strong forces have kept working to this day to make sure that the history of Romani slavery remains untold, but the number of people that want to talk about it is increasing steadily. Among them are the academics Solvor Mjøberg Lauritzen and Maria Dumitru.

EVEN SKYRUD International Network of Street Papers

Today, most people are aware that it was European nations that enabled, and profited from, the trans-Atlantic slave trade. History books, fiction and films have showed us the trade’s inhumane brutality and the extreme hardships of life on the cotton plantations of the American South and in the sugar fields of the Caribbean. But when the conversation turns to slavery in our part of the world (Europe), one tends to think of past millennia – of the men and women enslaved by the Romans or the Vikings, for instance.

In fact, slavery on European soil is just as close to us in time as the slave trade in North America. This means humans being born into slavery; people who could be bought and sold as assets. And just as on the other side of the Atlantic, the legacy of slavery in Europe has shaped the lives of its descendants for generations. Nevertheless, this chapter of our recent history is nearly absent from the schoolbooks and the collective European consciousness.

A dark legacy

Solvor Mjøberg Lauritzen works as a researcher at Södertörn University in Stockholm and MF Scientific University in Oslo where, in September, she became a colleague of Maria Dumitru. Dumitru is from Romania, and she has many years’ experience in the Romani rights movement. The two academics have decided to cooperate on a new research project on what they call “Romani slavery.”

“We are investigating both the legacy of slavery and its repercussions in our own time,” Lauritzen explains. “Hardly anybody knows that Romani people used to be kept as slaves. I believe that by bringing this history to light, we will create a new understanding of their current situation.”

In Romania, Romani were called tsigani– a derogatory term for “gypsies” that was later used as a synonym for “slave”. The linguistic root of the term “gypsy” is thought to be the Greek word atsingani, which means “the untouchables” or “the godless.” The image of Romani as enemies of God was used as a reason for their persecution throughout Europe. But the cradle of Romani history in Europe is the very area that many associate with the people to this day.

Post-slave syndrome

It is not entirely known how and why the Romani ended up in what is now Romania. Most researchers agree that they emigrated from the north-Indian Punjab region around 1000 A.D. Possible reasons are bad weather, natural disasters or the fact that, as hired soldiers and crafts people, they had to

seek work further afield. In any case, the rulers of duchies such as Walachia, Moldavia and Transylvania, who were in great need of new laborers, quickly enslaved many of them. Historians argue that the bondage of the Romani, which was to last for more than five hundred years, had severe and persistent consequences for them.

“We use the term post-slavery syndrome to describe effects on a psychological level,” Lauritzen says. “When families are held in bondage for five centuries, a certain mentality will be passed on between the generations. Many Romani, for example, feel that they are worth less than others.”

Dumitru explains that slavery also had a strong influence on the ethnic majority in Romania, where non-Romani people inherited a slave-owner mentality. “The racism Romani are facing today has its roots in the slavery era,” she tells me. “Even today, we Roma are viewed as ‘parasites’ while the Romanian ethnic majority is seen as ‘the good ones’. The unfair distribution of resources persists as well. Most Romani in Romania live in poverty on the margins of society and do not have equal access to resources like health care and education.”

The price of three buffaloes

Mihail Kogalniceanu, a 19th century Romanian politician, described the situation of the slaves in the village where he grew up. “They were chained by their hands and feet, some had iron bands around their foreheads and others around their necks,” he wrote. “In addition to flogging, punishments included being hung over a fire by the legs, having to stand naked in the snow or an ice-cold river, and starvation.”

Kogalniceanu played an important role in the abolition of slavery in the country. He is one of only a few Romanian sources to describe these conditions. Most eyewitness reports on the Romani slaves’ plight were shocked letters written by travellers who described the state of affairs for this particular group. Official documents are also rather silent on the hardships the Romani had to endure, but they nevertheless teach us about the mentality of those in both the Orthodox Church and the nobility. Slave market purchase contracts show that an ablebodied Roma slave was worth as much as a horse in 1600 A.D., and that in 1760, three Roma cost the equivalent of a house. In 1814, the same year that Norway became a free nation, a Romani slave was sold for the same price as three buffaloes by a Romanian monastery.

The silence of the priests

It is altogether difficult to talk about the enslavement of the Roma people without mentioning today’s monasteries and churches. In fact, the first written evidence of a Romani

presence in the region is a document that confirms the prince of Wallachia’s donation of forty Roma families to a local monastery. The Orthodox Church eventually became one of the continent’s largest slave owners. This is something the institution still has to come to terms with, according to Dumitru.

“They think that talking about the church’s dark past will tarnish their reputation,” she says. “They refuse to research the topic of slavery, and church leaders ban priests from addressing the subject. If they talk about it at all, they say that the Romani benefited from being slaves, and thus try to downplay the atrocities. Many have asked for an apology from the church, but they refuse to say sorry for their slave-holding history.”

Lauritzen points out that the church’s attitudes do not only manifest themselves in its lack of factual knowledge. “Our informants tell us that the church in Romania continues to treat the Romani very badly,” she says. “In Transylvania, a Romani settlement was bulldozed to make space for a new church. The residents were moved to a toxic landfill site on the outskirts of town. We also found examples of priests denying Romani access, or of not allowing them to speak their mother tongue to this day. We see this as part of the legacy of slavery.”

The same fight

In addition to the bondage and the dehumanization of the Roma slaves, their treatment was so brutal that we need to look at the transatlantic slave trade to find parallels. Lauritzen thinks the comparison is instructive.

“There is a long tradition of comparing the Romani to the African American population. When Martin Luther King visited Stockholm after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1966, he met with Swedish Roma activist Katarina Taikon,” Lauritzen tells me. “At their meeting, he acknowledged that they were both fighting the same battle. He pointed to the many parallels between African Americans in the US and the Romani in Europe. But the strong American civil rights movement that Dr. King represented never saw the light of day in Europe. The reasons why slavery was addressed in such different ways on the two continents are complex. The American Civil War, the US Constitution and the birth of social protest movements in the 1960s gave Americans a political context that the Romanians did not have.

“Racism and discrimination continue to pervade Romanian society,” Lauritzen continues. “It is a common belief that Romania has tried everything for their Roma population but that nothing has worked. Instead of perceiving the discrimination as a violation of their rights, people will say, ‘They just don’t want to work,’ or ‘They don’t want to go to school.’”

Dumitru says that this is why it is so important that we learn about slavery.

“We do not get to hear about slavery, about the persecution the slaves had to endure, the raping of Romani women, or the Romani slaves’ enormous contribution to what is today Romania,” she says. “Learning about slavery may be a first step in the fight against racism and towards compensation for the injustices of the past.”

Accepted racism

Slavery was abolished in Romania in 1856. The monasteries were last to give up the practice. Around 250,000 slaves found themselves no longer somebody else’s property, but they received no compensation, land or other forms of support to start their new lives. On the contrary, it was the former slave owners who received compensation from the government for lost labour. As in the American South, the racist image the slave

owners had created of the people they used to own survived long after the chains were gone. It became folk wisdom that Romani were not to be trusted, that they were notorious criminals with a low intelligence and that the women had an animal sexuality.

“We constantly encounter such perceptions about Roma,” Lauritzen affirms. “Especially the prejudice about them being liars is so widespread that you hardly think of it as racist. Many believe that antiziganism [fear and hatred of Roma minorities] is the most accepted form of racism, also here in the West. You only have to look at the comments when writing about

poverty migration and begging. It is full of double standards. On the one hand, people say that the Roma are lying about being poor. On the other hand, they say the Roma are exploited by sinister entities in the background. If people actually believe

that, it is amazing that they show no willingness to help the victims of what they think is modern day slavery. The only thing many people care about is removing them from their field of vision.”

Our own shame

There are countless laws that paved the way for the deportation and persecution of Roma in Scandinavia. In Sweden, for example, the killing of Roma was made legal in 1637. The Norwegian Aliens Act of 1927 stated: “Gypsies and other vagrants who cannot prove that they have Norwegian citizenship shall be refused entry to the kingdom.” This so-called “gypsy clause” was only repealed in 1956. When 68 Roma, most of them Norwegian citizens, were refused entry to Norway in 1934, Ragnvald Konstad, head of the central passport office, said: “It gives me real pleasure to deny them entry.” Paal Berg said, of the legal basis for refusal of entry, that “this law is new, but needs no further justification.” 66 Norwegian Roma were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, only four of whom survived World War Two. The exact number of Roma killed during the war is uncertain, but 500,000 is often used as a reference point.

“That fact that the Holocaust also affected Roma is probably better known than the Romani history of slavery,” Lauritzen says. “But it took a long time before the Roma Holocaust was recognized for what it was: a genocide. And it was only from 1963 that those affected could apply for compensation from the Federal Republic of Germany. Although it is almost 170 years since the Roma slaves were freed, we are nowhere near a similar reckoning with this part of our history.”

The fight has begun

Despite the fact that she constantly encounters prejudice and ignorance in her work, Solvor Mjøberg Lauritzen is an optimist. She is sure that a new generation of Roma is about to stand up against the silence surrounding Romania’s slave past and demand change.

In recent years, more and more Roma have begun to demand that this story be told. Roma activists, academics and artists are working to reveal the truth and to secure compensation.

Norwegian Roma received an apology from Prime Minister Erna Solberg in 2015, as well as funding for a long-awaited cultural centre as compensation for the injustice they suffered during the Second World War. It is remarkable that something similar has not happened in Romania. Maria Dumitru and other Roma academics and activists have clear ideas about what should happen in Romania.

“The Orthodox Church and the descendants of the nobility must recognize, and do penance for, the fact that slavery existed,” Dumitru says. “When the Roma were released, they received nothing: no financial compensation to start a life as free people. Now their descendants should be paid for the work their ancestors put in. The racism that was established during slavery is deep-rooted and widespread. Now we need tools, guidelines and laws to combat racism.”

Fact-checked by Jan Selling, Senior Lecturer in critical Roma studies and lecturer in history at Södertörn University.

Translated from Norwegian by Veronica Koehn

Courtesy of =Oslo / =Norge / International Network of Street Papers

Picture by Dieudonné Lancelot. Courtesy of the International Network of Street Papers.

Big Issue Korea vendor Lee Bora: ‘I feel a sense of responsibility if I can’t sell’

AN DEOK-HEE Big Issue Korea

Big Issue Korea:

Lee Bora: I’m not doing too well, to be honest. I was born in 1952, so I’ll be turning 71 this year. My health isn’t great, but I make sure I have all my meals, and I cook them myself. When it comes to eating, I sure do eat well! For lunchtime The Big Issue provides us with a lunchbox, which gets delivered in the mornings on weekdays. It’s been like that for the past three months or so. They’ll even send an ice pack along with it in the summer which is really nice. (smiles)

teetotal, but there’s lots of people in the dorms who get drunk and cause a racket. It’s like that with most dormitories, really. I guess things are different when you can afford to pay a bit more.

How long have you been living in this dormitory?

23 months, to be exact. Come next month I will have been living there for 2 years. It may be a simple life but moving out isn’t all that easy.

It’s uncomfortable. The room being narrow or the living space being terrible aren’t necessarily what make it difficult, it’s just that there’s too many noisy people around here. I’m

It takes 20 minutes to get there by train. Even if I walk it takes about 30 minutes, so it is close by. It’s great that the pitch is nearby, but I still would like to move into social housing.

you put in a request to move into social housing?

For some social housing, it takes a month after applying until you find out whether you have been successful or not, but for the one I am going to apply for tomorrow, the results won’t be out until 23rd December. My greatest wish right now is to get into social housing; I’ve had enough of the dormitory. The one I am applying to tomorrow only offers single rooms, but they have good facilities. For me, a single room is enough, I don’t need a big room or anything. I really hope it works out.

I really want to invite everyone close to me over and treat them to a home-cooked meal. I’m actually a really good cook. I love cooking delicious meals and enjoying them with others. I can’t do that in a dormitory but if I move into social

How are you holding up these days? Have you been eating well?

I’ve heard that you live in a small dormitory. What is it like living there?

Is your pitch close to the dormitory you’re living in now?

Have

If you end up moving, what’s one thing you’re looking forward to doing?

Photo by Kim Hwakyeong

housing, then I’d be able to share meals with people. That’s my greatest wish right now. If I end up moving, I’ll invite people over often.

How do you like selling The Big Issue?

I think it suits me. I’ve been doing it for a while already – I started back in March 2015, so that makes it 7 years and 6 months by now. I started off at Yeongdeungpo-gu Office Station, and now I am at Exit 5 of Yeouido Station, also in Seoul.

Most of my customers are office workers. I don’t ask them what they do though, so I have no way of knowing. When they buy a copy, I just thank them and wish them well as they go on their way. I’ve been selling at this spot for over three years now.

Do you have a lot of regular customers?

I do. There are a lot of customers who I’ve sold to for a long time. We’re friendly with each other now. It’s really important to build that connection with the customer. And it’s important to keep everything clean and tidy, even the plastic covers on the magazines. Today I bought another 100 plastic covers – since sales are slow, I decided to try to make my stand look more appealing. There’s a saying that ‘what looks good tastes good’. I’m trying my best!

I feel a sense of responsibility if I can’t sell. I feel sorry for the people in The Big Issue office. They give us a ₩350,000 housing allowance a month. Since they have helped me so much, I feel bad if I don’t sell anything. Three months ago, I got ₩200,000 but I didn’t feel that bad. It’s just now that I’m not selling that I’ve started to feel bad. Of course, the amount they give us isn’t dependent on sales, but that’s just how I feel.

How did you start selling The Big Issue?

I was introduced to it by a fellow churchgoer who works at a travel agency. Since they knew I didn’t have a steady job, they asked me what I thought about selling The Big Issue and took me to their offices. After I’d seen the offices and the magazine, I decided I’d try it out. Things were going well before the pandemic broke out, but sales have dropped off a lot. I guess everything is going to pot these days. (smiles) Sometimes when I can’t sell, it even makes me want to cry. Some days I manage to sell a single copy, although there aren’t many days like that. But there are times when I don’t sell anything. I’m at my stand from 3pm to 8pm, and one time I sold just one magazine at exactly five past seven. It felt great to at least have sold something. Even though it was only one copy it still felt great.

You must be grateful to your

customers.

A couple of days ago a customer gave me a handwritten thank you note for treating them so well. I was really happy. It made me want to do even better. There are other people who come over to the stand for a look but don’t end up buying the magazine. I never swear at them or tell them off. In fact, I’m even nicer to them than normal, and I tell them to come back for the magazine next time. That’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?

What’s the hardest part of being a Big Issue vendor?

Sometimes people come by looking to start something. Or they kick my stand and mess up my display. There was a man who must have been in his sixties who kept coming by, kicking the stand and trying to start a fight. One time a street stand vendor nearby called the police to report him. As soon as they came the guy ran off. After that he never messed up my things again and he stays away from my stand. This all happened in September last year, so over a year ago now. I still don’t know why he did it.

You said a nearby street stall vendor reported him to the police? Are you on good terms with the people in your community?

I’m on good terms with the street stall vendors in my area. We’re neighbours. I’m also friendly with the people selling lottery tickets, the people in the rice cake shop, the fried chicken shop, and at the cigarette kiosk. We get along well, and we never argue. We talk a lot about how business is going. Around once a week, the chicken shop owner brings me over some food for me. It’s not about the food, it’s about the gesture. I’m really grateful to them. Sometimes the people at the cafe bring me some coffee. Those things really lift my spirits.

What did you do before you became homeless?

I used to work for an estate agent. I was in charge of registrations and lending, those types of tasks. I worked there for a long time, around the Cheongnyangni-dong area, and before that I lived for a long time in the Jeonnong-dong district, also in Seoul. I was born in 1952, so right in the middle of the Korean War. When the war started, my parents fled down south to Busan to escape the fighting, but afterwards they came back to Seoul. So, although I was born in Busan, I’ve always felt that Jeonnong-dong was my hometown.

Can you tell us a bit about your youth?

I had a tough time in the military. When I think of my youth, what I remember the most is getting beaten up in the army. I was beaten up a lot, and the food was terrible. I still have nightmares about my time in the army, even though it was so long ago.

It sounds like you went through some tough times.

Everything was fine until high school. Before I die, I really want to meet up with my high school friend again. We were in the same class for the last two years of school, and we were really close. He became a civil servant in Seoul. About a decade after graduating, we got back in contact, but then we fell out of touch again. I really miss him. I’d love to get back together and reminisce about our school days.

Translated from Korean via Translators without Borders

Courtesy of The Big Issue Korea / International Network of Street Papers

What kinds of people do you sell to? There must be a lot of office workers around Yeouido.

It must be hard when business is slow.

Photo by Kim Hwakyeong

At least 77 people died without a home last year in D.C.

How can those deaths be prevented?

ANNEMARIE CUCCIA Staff Reporter

For the tenth year in a row, dozens of people gathered on the longest night of the year to remember District residents who died without a home, and often without fanfare or memorial services.

The Homeless Memorial Vigil, held in freezing weather on Dec. 20 and 21, honored the at least 77 individuals in D.C. who died while experiencing homelessness in 2022. Organized by the People for Fairness Coalition (PFFC), a group of Washingtonians with experience with homelessness, this year’s 24-hour remembrance featured a memorial service, march and overnight sleep-in in a large white tent in Freedom Plaza.

“The event symbolizes our efforts to promote housing for unhoused people,” said Andrew Anderson, outreach director for PFFC. “This tent we’re under represents tents unhoused people use to stay warm under.”

As they do each year, organizers called for the D.C. government to quickly improve its homeless services system and prevent the deaths of people without homes. Calls for change focused largely on the voucher system — over half of the people who died this year were in the process of obtaining housing through a voucher, according to PFFC numbers. Though D.C. has funded nearly new 3,000 vouchers in the last two years, only 723 people have moved into housing,

according to D.C.’s Department of Human Services.

For people who died of hypothermia or targeted violence, their homelessness may have led to their death. For others, living outside or in temporary shelter could have contributed to existing health issues, advocates said.

“Most of the deaths are preventable, and would not have happened in a safe, decent, affordable home,” said Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless. “It is in their memory, and in the memories of many of the thousands of others across the country, that we must use this as a reason to change the conditions of this country — and we must do it today. We must bring America home now.”

Honoring those who died unhoused

At the vigil, representatives from the National Coalition for the Homeless read the initials of 70 people the community submitted to remember.

“If any other group this large died, they would shut the city down,” said Micheal Coleman, a member of PFFC and the D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

It’s almost certain that more than the 77 people identified by the District’s medical examiner died in 2022, as this preliminary count only includes deaths through September. When PFFC held its first vigil in 2013, it read 26 names, most likely an undercount given that the city had fewer ways at the time to track people in the homeless services system. The

number of reported deaths rose every year after that, reaching 180 in 2020, until it dropped to 124 last year. At last year’s vigil, 66 names were read.

Across the country, the National Coalition for the Homeless estimates that 13,000 people die each year without housing.

The oldest person experiencing homelessness to die last year in D.C. was 79, just two years older than the U.S. life expectancy of 77. The average age of those who died was 54. Among those remembered at the vigil, 84% were Black, according to Miriam’s Kitchen advocacy director Jesse Rabinowitz, who helped compile the names.

Most of the causes of death were ruled “accidental” by the medical examiner, including 45 due to intoxication and three from hypothermia. For people who died by “natural” causes, such as cardiovascular disease, homelessness can be a contributing factor, advocates argue. People without a permanent home are less likely to have access to health care, routinely exposed to extreme weather, and vulnerable to violence. Four people without a home were murdered in 2022, including a man fatally shot at Thomas Circle in May.

PFFC and other outreach groups strive to make conditions less dangerous by distributing sleeping bags, blankets, and hand warmers; providing food and water; and conducting wellness checks. But the only way to fully prevent people from dying unhoused, Anderson said, is to provide housing.

Micheal Coleman leads a chant calling for housing for all as vigil participants near the Church of the Epiphany. Photo by Annemarie Cuccia

PFFC’s end goal is for the city to implement a universal right to housing.

Over half who died were matched to a voucher

At least 60% of people who died without a home in the last year were matched to a Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) voucher, according to Rabinowitz. To qualify for a PSH voucher, individuals must have a chronic disabling condition that could be made worse by living outside or in a temporary shelter.

“We recognized that they were sick — sick enough to need a Permanent Supportive Housing voucher,” Rabinowitz said of the city’s culpability. “But we could not move with the urgency needed to end their homelessness.”

Over the last two years, D.C. funded enough PSH vouchers to end homelessness for all chronically homeless individuals, advocates say. But only 728 people have moved in with those vouchers so far due to a variety of factors, including lengthy applications and insufficient staffing. About 2,000 people who sleep outside or in shelters have a voucher waiting for them, including 42 people who died this year.

On the morning of Dec. 21, Rabinowitz led a discussion with PFFC members about what they’d like to see in the city’s budget next year. Almost all the answers called for a faster voucher system.

“That the process of housing people will not take two, three, four years,” said Queenie Featherstone, a Street Sense Media vendor.

People eligible for a voucher have to go through a complicated process before they move into housing, including being matched to a case manager, officially applying with the D.C. Housing Authority and finding an apartment. Currently, nonprofits that administer vouchers say they’re struggling to hire enough case managers, so hundreds of potential clients are

stuck at the first step in the process. Encampment residents are waiting months once they’ve been told they’re eligible for a voucher to meet with a case manager. If residents have to move during that time, outreach providers may lose touch with them.

Proposed solutions

Even once voucher applicants have a case manager, the

process can take up to nine months as people contend with bureaucracy, housing discrimination and a lack of affordable units in D.C.

PFFC members asked for the city to make the process easier by reducing application requirements and incentivizing landlords to accept vouchers. They also suggested giving voucher holders the choice of taking on more responsibility in the application process as a way to unburden case managers. Those who have a PSH voucher but no longer need the intensive services that come with it could also be shifted to another type of voucher, freeing up their case managers. Most people in PSH could qualify for these, but there’s currently a decades-long waiting list that federal and local funds cannot cover.

Many people live outside in encampments while waiting for housing. Several outreach groups and people with lived experience have asked D.C. and the federal government not to remove encampments, arguing that closures can lead to issues such as people losing medicine and protection from inclement weather. In mid-December, the National Park Service closed an encampment at Scott Circle during a hypothermia alert.

Last month’s vigil also honored the 172 people who were once homeless who died this year, some soon after they moved into housing. Anderson said while housing can mitigate health concerns, many people struggle with the adjustment, or don’t have the support needed to get proper health care. He knew one woman who entered a diabetic coma after being housed and abandoned by her case manager.

“Most people who move in are bringing a lot of issues with them,” Anderson said.

Nearly every person who spoke at the vigil ended their speech with the hope that those who died this year would be the last.

“They were fathers, they were sons, they were daughters, and they were mothers. They were schoolteachers, they were firemen, and they were doctors,” Whitehead said. “They were a failure of the richest country in the world to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves.”

Anyone wishing to donate to PFFC can do so via the organization’s website, pffcdc.org.

This article was co-published with The DC Line.

Andrew Anderson, People for Fairness Coalition outreach director , poses outside the tent in Freedom Plaza. Photo by Annemarie Cuccia

People for Fairness Coalition members carry an empty coffin, representing all people who died without a home. Photo by Annemarie Cuccia

INTERNATIONAL

Pandoravirus: the melting Arctic is releasing ancient germs – how worried should we be?

PAUL HUNTER The Conversation

Scientists have recently revived several large viruses that had been buried in the frozen Siberian ground (permafrost) for tens of thousands of years.

The youngest virus to be revived was a sprightly 27,000 years old. And the oldest –a Pandoravirus – was around 48,500 years old. This is the oldest virus ever to have been revived.

As the world continues to warm, the thawing permafrost is releasing organic matter that has been frozen for millennia, including bacteria and viruses – some that can still reproduce.

This latest work was by a group of scientists from France, Germany and Russia; they managed to reanimate 13 viruses – with such exotic names as Pandoravirus and Pacmanvirus –drawn from seven samples of Siberian permafrost.

Assuming that the samples were not contaminated during extraction (always difficult to guarantee) these would indeed represent viable viruses that had previously only replicated tens of thousands of years ago.

This is not the first time that a viable virus has been detected in permafrost samples. Earlier studies have reported the detection of a Pithovirus and a Mollivirus.

In their preprint (a study that is yet to be reviewed by other scientists), the authors state that it is “legitimate to ponder the risk of ancient viral particles remaining infectious and getting back into circulation by the thawing of ancient permafrost layers”. So what do we know so far about the risk of these so-called “zombie viruses”?

All the viruses cultured so far from such samples are giant DNA viruses that only affect amoebae. They are far from viruses that affect mammals, let alone, humans and would be very unlikely to pose a danger to humans.

However, one such large amoebae-infecting virus, called Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus, has been linked to

pneumonia in humans. But this association is still far from proven. So it does not appear that the viruses cultured from permafrost samples pose a threat to public health.

A more relevant area of concern is that as the permafrost thaws it could release the bodies of long-dead people who might have died of an infectious disease and so release that infection back into the world.

The only human infection that has been eradicated globally is smallpox and the reintroduction of smallpox, especially in hard-to-reach locations, could be a global disaster. Evidence of smallpox infection has been detected in bodies from permafrost burials but “only partial gene sequences” so broken bits of virus that could not infect anyone. The smallpox virus does, however, survive well when frozen at -20°C, but still only for a few decades and not centuries.

In the last couple of decades, scientists have exhumed the bodies of people who died from the Spanish flu and were buried in permafrost-affected ground in Alaska and Svalbard, Norway. The influenza virus was able to be sequenced but not cultured from the tissues of these deceased people. Influenza viruses can survive frozen for at least a year when frozen but probably not several decades.

Bacteria could be more of a problem

Other types of pathogen, such as bacteria, could be a problem, though. Over the years, there have been several outbreaks of anthrax (a bacterial disease that affects livestock and humans) affecting reindeer in Siberia.

There was a particularly large outbreak in 2016 that led to the deaths of 2,350 reindeer. This outbreak coincided with a particularly warm summer, which led to the suggestion that anthrax released from thawing permafrost may have triggered

the outbreak.

Identified outbreaks of anthrax affecting reindeer in Siberia date back to 1848. In these outbreaks, humans were also often affected from eating the dead reindeer. But others have highlighted alternative theories for these outbreaks that do not necessarily rely on thawing permafrost, such as stopping anthrax vaccination and overpopulation by reindeer.

Even if permafrost thawing was triggering anthrax outbreaks that had serious effects on the local population, anthrax infection of herbivores is widespread globally, and such local outbreaks are unlikely to trigger a pandemic.

Another concern is whether antimicrobial-resistant organisms could be released into the environment from thawing permafrost. There is good evidence from multiple studies that antimicrobial resistance genes can be detected in samples of permafrost. Resistance genes are the genetic material that enable bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics and can be spread from one bacterium to another. This should not be surprising as many antimicrobial resistance genes have evolved from soil organisms that predate the antimicrobial era.

However, the environment, especially rivers, is already heavily contaminated with antimicrobial-resistant organisms and resistance genes. So it is doubtful that antimicrobial resistance bacteria thawing from the permafrost would contribute greatly to the already great abundance of antimicrobial resistance genes already in our environment.

Paul Hunter is professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia.

Courtesy of The Conversation / International Network of Street Papers

Photo courtesy of The Conversation

Sharing a space with my sister

AMINA WASHINGTON Artist/Vendor

I don’t live with people but I had my sister crash over my place once. She was homeless, so I decided to let her stay for awhile, not realizing how much help she needed. She was also disabled, so I had to take care of her, which took the focus off me. I cleaned after her and washed all her clothes and all the linens in the house.

She also had a low income, so I did most of the shopping for both of us. After a while, it became difficult. I told her I needed to let her go back to her shelter. It was hard, and we both cried, so I let her stay longer until the housing people complained. They said she had to leave because her visitation time was up. She was a little uncomfortable and wanted to live with me but accepted it and went on with her life.

Holding on

QUEENIE FEATHERSTONE Artist/Vendor

I held onto my faith. I would often ask Christ, what about my fate? I would always see a difference in my friend Tate. He would repeat over and over again to me, “Please Queenie, be patient and wait.” However, in my mind’s eye, I would often proclaim, “Christ, how much more of this homeless lifestyle must I take?” Thank you, my good friend Tate, for believing in me.

I said I felt like my space is important to me, so I was relieved. It was hard allowing others to live with me and I’m hoping I don’t have to do it again. I love my sister but I can’t live with her. I started taking time to focus on myself and my needs. I also took some time to relax, shop for myself, and pay my bills. I no longer could handle it when she was there. I live rent-free, so I did not charge my sister for staying with me. We usually take care of each other — me and my sister —we still see each other every now and again. She alsofinally got her own housing recently. She even found a boyfriend. Now I live alone and free. I love my freedom and independence.

I am my brother’s keeper

I consider myself a homeless advocate. My heart goes out to my brothers and sisters that sleep in the cold weather in tents and even in cardboard boxes every night, unhoused. We are all of our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. Remember, it could happen to you. You must have tough skin to be homeless. Homeless people are survivors. Just imagine the pain and depression and a weary body doing its best to hold onto its sanity. Imagine there were no homeless people in the world. Sing a John Lennon song. Imagine to yourself. Spread love.

A travel story

JACQUELINE TURNER Artist/Vendor

MemoriesI could feel the closeness of the air when my mom would wake me up in the morning to a bath. She held me close to the stone so I could feel the heat. I was small, they say, and everyone wanted to make sure I was safe.

In a noble home, intimacy is part of life. Our space was cluttered. People felt love for one another.. I remember feeling the largeness of the day, awakening in the tight space of our trailer home.

My pursuit of happiness

NIKILA SMITH Artist/Vendor

I had to leave my family to start my new life somewhere different. It was not hard at all; I just left. It is different being in a new place with new people. I remember going to the train station and just picking Washington, D.C. When I got here, I thought people were rude, but I also knew there were some beautiful people, inside and out. God always sends someone to help me when I need it. As long as I do the right thing, good things will always come my way. (I call it walking in the path of the light).

Recently, I have been a little sad because I’m used to being with family. I’m leaving out the

DANIEL BALL Artist/Vendor

One day I was traveling along a path when I met a man named Daniel P. Ball. He was a gentle man. I saw a woman walking with him too. She gave him a good kiss, and said “I want to marry you, Daniel Ball.” And he said, “Yes baby, let's get really married today, and forever.”

fact that I walked out on the man I have been with for 21 years. I have no feelings about that man. The pursuit of happiness is what I’m on, and it is a lot. Maybe I can get a new husband out of all of this. I know not to look. God will send someone my way. I do have children, six that I love more than anything. I raised them to be good people and to do beautiful things. It’s up to them to remember. My girls are my queens. I will do everything to make sure they are okay. I’m sitting here writing in class, trying to figure out – no, not figure out – but how much to say or give of my life.

Home to less

GIGI DOVONOU Artist/Vendor

Endless questions in my mind everyday: Five (5) years of expectations, Two (2) years of sufferances, One (1) month of collapse, From Home to the Less, Because of East Side Justice.

I don’t know how many people are in the same situation as me;

I can’t figure it out: how the system can look down on me in this way.

Can I try police officers again?

Can I believe the justice officers to gain?

I don’t think so.

When they come asking for my video With their sneakiest ass as rodeo

I was confident to help the Law – enforcing, But it was my downfall – down forcing.

Police will stimulate you

To accumulate you

I went to meet the prosecutor, She promised me she’d be a great interlocutor

From protection I’ve gone to neglection Trusting the police system?

Holidays

RONALD SMOOT Artist/Vendor

I met my sweetheart for the first time in February. It was Valentine’s Day. At the time, I was in school. That Valentine’s Day was one of the best holidays of my life because it was when I met my girlfriend, and she was so beautiful. She would always come over to my house, and we would always kiss.

Her name was Pat, and she lived around the corner from us, and I went to her place all the time. Then I started to live with her. Later, I met my son’s mother, Yolanda, and we were together for a year, before I went away for 30 years.

Another holiday I used to like was Easter. When I was young, we all would go down to my grandfather’s house for Easter egg hunts.. I loved to dress up and look so nice for that day. Then, we would have an Easter dinner that was very nice.

Another holiday I liked was Father’s Day because I am a father. It felt good to be a father. I would tell my own father “Happy Father’s Day” and he would be so happy because he was my stepfather. We would go out for dinner, and I would always drink a beer with him.

Another holiday for me is July 11, 1966 because that is my birthday when I was born. That is the best day of the year for me.

What next

It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking 13. “Someone should fix that,” the man thought, “The gears must be worn. They need to be reworked or replaced.” Old clocks, neglected parts, no longer keeping time, skipping, adding extra beats like an arrhythmic heartbeat. Reminiscent of the city center it called for attention. Pedestrians tripping over sidewalk edges bulging upward with roots underneath, struggling to grow again. Out of sync traffic competing in a discordant cacophony of horns and brakes, wheels squealing and engines revving, men’s voices intersecting in the confrontation of disorder. A city out of time, out of order. Old. whatever was new about it was built on broken or worn parts. A glossy sheen on an exhausted old man underneath, dressed up like a gentleman in black tie, struggling for his next breath. The surface versus the truth.

The clock struck 13. Its final ring reverberated in a seemingly endless tone. The man took a big breath,

Pray for me

IBN HIPPS

Artist/Vendor

Some are blessed, then forget with neglect, and turn their backs on those who have helped them. Good comes from one source. Negative energy comes from oneself .

(So please pray for me)

Willpower: we are born with it and carry it with us to later stages in life. Will is used in two ways. It is either positive or negative. (So please pray for me)

We all use energy in good and bad ways. For some, it takes their financial and spiritual lives. People lose everything they have worked for all their life. Some are innocent when caught in the crossfire (So please pray for me)

I’ve been misled since I can remember, on the hows and whens of this negative energy. Free will isn't really free, it comes with a hell of a price. (So please pray for me)

As you pray for me, my journey begins in an environment

of will. Its users are positive or negative. How would I survive this miseducated, mentally abused, unaware child? (So please pray for me)

Into this world, in search of light in the pure darkness of an abyss comes both the positive and negative use of will. It absorbs both, confusing the neglected virgin minds and hearts of children. (So please pray for me)

I see and I absorb what I need first to survive. Then after survival, life takes what was shown me through time. What I've learned, I’ve used to build a lane of my own and an understanding of will. Will is two-faced. (So please pray for me)

In this positive and negative world of will, users set things in place. In your lane you built just to decrease your pace, how will you use your will to overcome obstacles that others set in

your way intentionally? A feeling arrives and knowing of this negative and positive use of will can influence its outcome.

With a vision of a new road, one can come upon a different view, where the only way on to gois through it. My premonition is foolproof. No one is neglected. It is a road built on positivity. I now can see the light at the beginning and end of my road but the journey doesn’t end. (So please pray for me)

As an immature child, I used my will in negative ways, Bars and chains were my obstacles. They stood in my way creating my own downfall, my own demise. I have cried more tears than I did as a newborn child yearning for his mother’s breast. (So please pray for me)

Two things I’m most concerned about

ABEL PUTU Artist/Vendor

The whole Earth is changing with global warming. We need to come together and try to improve the world.

We also need to get the Washington Wizards involved in Street Sense. When they play games, they should wear jackets with the Street Sense logo on it to spread the word. I think this will help more people buy the paper.

Discipline and action

ERICA DOWNING Artist/Vendor

There is something to be learned from the Spartan culture, especially in America. Americans are known globally for their vanity and overindulgence. They are the global leaders in obesity and the consumption of goods. Spartan culture is almost the opposite. It emphasizes stoicism. Advertising and entertainment encourage spontaneity and carelessness. Parents should instill discipline and consistency in their children. Simplicity and strict self discipline reflect the attributes of a more efficient and productive nation of people with a strong economy.

I smile

KYM PARKER Artist/Vendor

When I look at the world, I see me, you, the universe. I smile when I look up to the sky and see God's creation; I see the sun, the clouds, and the stars.

I smile when I sing, when I pray, when I love. I smile when I remember how blessed I am, how strong and brave I am.

I smile now when I see everything my mom did for me; I miss her, but I smile when I think of her.

I am blessed and thrilled!

Unite

CARLTON JOHNSON Artist/Vendor

Fill yourself with joy and walk in unity

Hold the hand of creator Plant yourself in life and watch as time moves

Rehab!

JAMES DAVIS Artist/Vendor

What happens when a thought, Good or bad, inhabits your mind?

And it plays like a drum Constantly giving you a migraine

Are you going to act on it?

On impulse? Will you feel a sensation?

Maybe it’s time for some rehabilitation

Showtime : ____ :: Home Box Office : HBO

What a good press agent puts on bad publicity... or a hint to the circled letter grps. in 19-, 24-, 35- and 43-Across (3 wds/) (1.9.4)

Place where the Titanic and Lusitania both started at?

Peter of “Lawrence of Arabia”

Head or belly preceder

Ceramic stewpot used in Mexican cooking

Patches parts of a scraggly lawn, perhaps

Sailor’s “Yes, cap’n”

Hawaiian hoedown sound sources, briefly 65. Dog of literature, or a a lot of folks’ grans Down 1. ____ stone (final and irrevocable: firmly fixed) (2 wds.) (3,2) 2. Raincoats for diamonds, in a way 3. Hit records, many Hifis and the first color TVs (abbr./acron) 4. “Drat!” or “Ah, Shucks!” alternative (2,4)

5. Data 6. Legal rights org. with the motto “Vote Your Values Fight for Your Rights” (abbr./acron.) 7. Picasso’s muse Dora ____ 8. Many a blonde, truth be told (ENTER TUB anagram) 9. Frees (2 wds.) (4,5) (SO-SO STEEL anagram) 10. Away from the wind, at sea 11. Punk subculture icon Vicious of the Sex Pistols 12. Houston shortstop Jeremy who is the first rookie to have won a Gold Glove 13. Hairy Himalayans 18. Me neither (2 wds.) (3,1) 20. “Oh, shut yer big ___!” 24. State of provocation 25. “____.; Be not afraid” (John 6:20) [Jesus to the frightened disciples as he approaches their boat walking on the water] (3 wds.) (2,2,1) 26. ___ Tin Tin (German Shepherd of early TV) 27. Matterhorn, e.g. 28. Sgts. and cpls. (abbr./acron.) 29. Bus and railroad stops (abbr.) 30. Ramadan observance 31. Hebrew unit of dry measure roughly equivalent to a bushel (HEAP anagram)

32. Goddess of love and beauty and daughter of Zeus (ATROPHIED anagram) 36. Finale song in Disney’s animated hit “Encanto” (3 wds.) (3,2,3) 37. Seattle-based camping gear retailer (abbr./acron.) 38. Easy mark 39. Any one of the eight logged by 12-Down in the 2022 postseason (abbr./acron.) 44. Go for ___ (take a swim) (2 wds.) (1,3) 45. Divisional home of the 2022 MLB World Series losers (abbr./acron.) 46. Mexican mister 47. Litter baby that will soon need a litter box 50. “Hey Diddle Diddle” cast member who ran away with a real dish 51. Broom ___ (funny papers/comics witch) 52. Snake eyes 53. Sailor’s “Hey, how’s it goin’?”, maybe 54. Actor Peter of old TV’s “Columbo” 55. Perry’s creator ____ Stanley Gardner 56. Old food label figs. (abbr.) 57. Longtime Chicago Cub Slugger Sammy of MLB legend 58. Place for (and found within) luxurious pampering

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.

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