02 07 2018

VOL. 15 ISSUE 7

FEB. 7 - 20, 2018

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ore about Interna m n r tional Lea ! #Vendo rWeek on pg 7

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2 // ST REET SENS E ME DI A / / FE B . 7 - 2 1 , 2 0 18

BUSINESS MODEL

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VENDOR CODE OF CONDUCT

VENDORS Shuhratjon Ahamadjonov, Wanda Alexander, Ollie Alston, Gerald Anderson, Charles Armstrong, Katrina Arninge, Lawrence Autry, Charlton Battle, Lester Benjamin, Phillip Black, Reginald Black, Melanie Black, Phillip Black Jr., Clarence Branch, Debora Brantley, Andre Brinson, Laticia Brock, Kanon Brown, Donald Brown, Lawrence Brown, Elizabeth Bryant, Matthew Burn, Brianna Butler, Dwayne Butler, Melody Byrd, Anthony Carney, Conrad Cheek, Aaron Colbert, Michael Craig, Anthony Crawford, Kwayera Dakari, Louise Davenport, James Davis, Charles Davis, David Denny, Reginald Denny, Ricardo Dickerson, Dennis Diggs, Alvin Dixon-El, Ron Dudley, Joshua El, Joel Empleo, Betty Everett, Jemel Fleming, Johnnie Ford, Cornell Ford, Duane Foster, Samuel Fullwood, Chon Gotti, Latishia Graham, Marcus Green, Levester Green, Barron Hall, Tyrone Hall, Denise Hall, Mildred Hall, Tawanda Hall, Dwight Harris, Danell Harris, Lorrie Hayes, Patricia Henry, Derian Hickman, Vennie Hill, Donald Hopkinson, James Hughes, Leonard Hyater, Gedion Iyasu, Joseph Jackson, Chad Jackson, David James, Morgan Jones, Darlesha Joyner, Larry Kelley, Juliene Kengnie, Jewell Lean, John Littlejohn, Scott Lovell, Michael Lyons, William Mack, Ken Martin, Kina Mathis, Jermale McKnight, Jennifer McLaughlin, Jeffery McNeil, Ricardo Meriedy, Amy Modica, L Morrow, Collins Mukasa, Evelyn Nnam, Moyo Onibuje, Earl Parker, Aida Peery, Marcellus Phillips, Barbara Pollard, Jacquelyn Portee, Angela Pounds, Jeanette Richardson, Angela Richardson, Henrieese Roberts, Doris Robinson, Raquel Rodriquez, Rita Sauls, Melania Scott, Chris Shaw, Patty Smith, Gwynette Smith, David Snyder, Franklin Sterling, Warren Stevens, James Stewart, Beverly Sutton, Sybil Taylor, Archie Thomas, Shernell Thomas, Stephen Thomas, Eric ThompsonBey, Harold Tisdale, Carl Turner, Jacqueline Turner, Ronald Turner, Martin Walker, Joseph Walker, Michael Warner, Robert Warren, Glenn Washington, Sheila White, Angie Whitehurst, William Whitsett, Anneka Wickham, Wendell Williams, Sasha Williams, Robert Williams, Clarence Williams, Valarie Williams, Edward Williams, Ivory Wilson, Christine Wong, Charles Woods BOARD OF DIRECTORS

As self-employed contractors, our vendors follow a code of conduct.

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INTERESTED IN BEING A VENDOR? New vendor training: every Tuesday and Thursday // 2 p.m. // 1317 G St., NW

Jeremy Bratt, Margaret Jenny, Jennifer Park, Reed Sandridge, Dan Schwartz, Jeremy Scott, John Senn, Kate Sheppard, Aaron Stetter, Annika Toenniessen, Martin Totaro, Daniel Webber, Shari Wilson

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Brian Carome

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Eric Falquero

COMMUNICATIONS & SALES MANAGER Jeff Gray

VENDOR MANAGER Muhammad Ilyas

EVENTS & ADMINISTRATION MANAGER Dani Gilmour

CASE MANAGER Colleen Cosgriff

WRITERS GROUP ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE Willie Schatz

OPINION EDITORS (VOLUNTEER)

Rachel Brody, Arthur Delaney, Britt Peterson

The Cover The Street Sense Media illustration workshop visualizes the work and skills of our vendors.

ILLUSTRATIONS

BY PHILLIP BLACK, EVESTER

GREEN, DWIGHT HARRIS, MICHELE MODICA

The Street Sense Story, #MoreThanANewspaper 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 casemanagement 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.

ADVISORY BOARD John McGlasson

EDITORIAL INTERNS

Annie Albright, Colleen Grablick, Jake Maher, Olivia Richter

EDITORIAL VOLUNTEERS

Ryan Bacic, Jason Lee Bakke, Grace Doherty, Miriam Egu, Roberta Haber, Hunter Lionetti, Laura Osuri, Mark Rose, Andrew Siddons, Sarah Tascone, Jackie Thompson, Marian Wiseman

OFFICE SALES VOLUNTEERS

Miya Abdul, Bill Butz, Jane Cave, Emma Cronenwethe, Pete Clark, Orion Donovan-Smith, Maria Esposito, Roberta Haber, Ann Herzog, Bill Magrath, Alec Merkle, Nick Nowlan, Sarah O’Connell, Leonie Peterkin, Eugene Versluysen, Natalia Warburton

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EVENTS

// 3

NEWS IN BRIEF D.C. ACLU sues U.S. Marshals for degrading eviction The American Civil Liberties Union D.C. filed a lawsuit on Jan. 30 against the U.S. Marshals Service alleging “abusive, degrading conduct” during the eviction of D.C. resident Donya Williams in June 2015, according to an ACLU press release.

Federal marshals entered Williams’ house with their weapons drawn and evicted Williams and her 12-year-old daughter before Williams had time to dress herself appropriately. Several thousand dollars’ worth of property went missing during the eviction, and two bags of Williams’ clothing were ruined with bleach. “I have never seen my daughter as frightened as she was that day, and the terror is still with her,” Williams said. “When those marshals charged in, we all thought they could shoot us at any moment.” ACLU-DC is suing the Marshals Service for violations of the Fourth Amendment and the Federal Tort Claims Act.

—jake.maher@streetsensemedia.org

Resource fair reaches 400 veterans

International street paper #VendorWeek www.streetsensemedia.org // @streetsensedc // #VendorWeek Every year, members of the International Network of Street Papers take a week to celebrate the hard work of the people who sell and contribute to our papers. The vendors are the heart of each of our organizations. The street paper is a tool to help people help themselves and connect with you. This is their job. Their stories matter. → Read more on page 7 and check out our vendors’ work on pages 8 -14!

THURSDAY, FEB. 15

UPDATES ONLINE AT ICH.DC.GOV

SATURDAY, FEB. 17

Town Hall: Wage Theft in DC

D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness meetings

Author Talk: Chocolate City

7 - 8:30 p.m.

Florida Avenue Baptist Church 623 Florida Ave. NW

D.C. Jobs With Justice and Howard University Resist will hold a community discussion about how wage theft is affecting District residents and what avenues victims have to address the problem. The venue is walking distance from Shaw/Howard Metro and U Street/Cardozo Metro and is directly on the 90 bus line.

Housing Placement Work Group Feb. 7, 1 pm // 441 4th Street NW Shelter Conditions Work Group Feb. 8, 10:30 am // TBD Executive Committee Feb. 13, 12:30 pm // TBD Street Outreach Work Group Feb. 14, 2:30 pm // TBD Landlord Work Group Feb. 16, 10 am // TBD

4 - 6 p.m.

The Potter’s House 1658 Columbia Rd. NW

Local authors Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove discuss the four-century story of race and democracy in our nation’s capital and highlight the city’s rich history of local activism as Washingtonians of all races have struggled to make their voices heard in an undemocratic city.

Keep up with community events at StreetSenseMedia.org/calendar

AUDIENCE EXCHANGE Jesse Neilson @JesseNeilson

The Kojo Nnamdi Show @kojoshow

@SenatorBooker sat down with a vendor from @StreetRoots sister paper @streetsensedc. He includes a shout out to Seattle’s @PlymouthHousing, which has demonstrated that cities will actually save money by investing in supportive housing.

“Thank God I had Street Sense in my support corner,” says Sasha Williams, a @streetsensedc vendor who made a documentary of her time at DC General Family Homeless Shelter.

7:53 PM - 25 JAN 2018

12:47 PM - 30 JAN 2018

The lobby of the VA Medical Center was converted into a one-stop shop for veterans on Jan. 27, offering resources ranging from health care to employment counseling. More than 400 participants registered for the annual Winterhaven Homeless Veterans Stand Down in advance. Some found out about the event during medical appointments at the VA or through advertisements in shelters. Others have been attending for years. Waiting for a bus outside the event, one veteran swept off his hat to show off the new haircut he had received inside. Live music was provided by the Bill Hairston Project, an all-veteran band. Raymond Terrell, who was also waiting for his ride, said the event came at the right time because his near-daily treatment at the VA causes him to lose weight and he was able to get clothes that fit. John Davis, another VA Medical Center patient who has come to Winterhaven for the past few years, said that in order to benefit fully from Winterhaven, participants have to be ready to engage with the services they connect with at the fair. “They’ll call you, but it’s up to you to follow up,” he said. “If you follow up, the VA usually comes through.”

—annie.albright@streetsensemedia.org

Mayors and CEOs call for federal investment in housing D.C.’s Muriel Bowser and other U.S. mayors announced the launch of the Mayors & CEOs for U.S. Housing Investment on Jan. 25. The coalition is a partnership between public and private leaders to call on the federal government to invest more in affordable housing and services for those experiencing homelessness, according to reports

by Afro and Housing Wire. “We recognize that by investing in affordable housing, we are investing in safer, stronger communities and building new pathways to the middle class for our most vulnerable residents,” Bowser said in a statement.

The coalition is affiliated with the National League of Cities and consists of the mayors of 14 major cities, as well as CEOs of companies including Airbnb, Sutter Health and GHC Housing.

—jake.maher@streetsensemedia.org

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NEWS

NoMa tent communities cleared ahead of art-project construction

PHOTO BY JAKE MAHER

C

BY JAKE MAHER // jake.maher@streetsensemedia.org

leanups conducted by the District government on Jan. 11 and 24 forced residents in several underpasses between First and 2nd Streets NE to vacate their encampments. The Jan. 24 cleanup on K Street NE was considered an immediate disposition of public property, which does not require prior notice.

The cleanup was announced the previous morning. Residents did not have enough notice to find a new location before the immediate disposition, according to Caitlin, who moved from the K Street NE underpass to 2nd Street NE, which is uncovered and vulnerable to wind and precipitation. “We had a day, not even 24 hours,” she said.

The sidewalk was not able to be used by pedestrians, especially people in wheelchairs, and therefore created a safety hazard, according to Sean Barry, communications director for the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services.

“We considered that a situation that rose to the level of requiring an immediate disposition,” Barry said.

It is illegal to live in a tent, vehicle or other “temporary abode” in the District of Columbia. However, a city protocol stipulates that residents be given two weeks’ notice before a standard disposition of property.

The people living under the M and L streets NE underpasses were given two weeks’ notice before cleanups occurred in both locations Jan 11. Many planned to return to the relative shelter of the underpass until fencing was put up in the underpasses.

This caused many people who used to live under the underpasses to crowd on to K Street NE, according to Barry.

Todd, a local man experiencing homelessness, agreed that the cleanups on M and L streets NE caused overcrowding on K Street NE. “I would have thought something would have happened because it was just too crazy,” he said. “You got tents on both sides from one corner to the next.”

Caitlin estimated that there were 15 tents on the south side of the underpass and five on the north side.

According to Todd, after the cleanup on K Street NE, most of the former residents scattered and could no longer be found.

The NoMa Parks Foundation, associated with the NoMa BID, placed the fencing as part of its ongoing construction of the Underpass Art Parks project, which aims to build light installations in the three underpasses, as well as the Florida Avenue NE underpass, at a cost of $2 million. “Rain” in the M Street NE underpass and “Lightweave” in the L Street NE underpass are LED displays. “[The light installations] are to improve the conditions to make the underpasses more attractive and better lit,” said Robin-Eve Jasper, president of the NoMa BID. She added that the construction at M and L streets NE is expected to be completed in March, and then the fences will be removed.

The cleanups were partially in response to the construction.

“We did change our schedule to do additional outreach because of the art-installation project that the NoMa BID was pursuing,” said Barry. “We wanted to make sure that, as fencing was going to be put up and that was going to essentially block the sidewalk, that the individuals experiencing homelessness were aware of that and were aware of the services that were available.”

The city provided outreach to the individuals in the area, which included offering access to shelters and transportation through the shelter hotline van, according to Barry. Some individuals experiencing homelessness in the area were doubtful of the shelters.

“The shelters are dirty, they’re stinking, they have a lot of thieves in there,” said Robert Johnson, a man who currently lives in a tent near where Caitlin moved to on 2nd Street NE. “Bed bugs are flooded up in there.”

Johnson opined that the NoMa neighborhood does not care about its homeless residents, instead prioritizing money and being “clean and business-minded.”

Caitlin was also skeptical about the light installations being built where she used to live.

“They’re probably just doing it because they didn’t want us there, so they had to think of something to put there or to do to keep us from coming back,” she said.

Improvements to NoMa have been in the works since 2012, according to Jasper of the NoMa BID, and the designs for installations on M and L streets NE were chosen in 2014. “It involved outreach to community stakeholders in a variety of ways, and improvement to the connections between the east and west sides of the neighborhood was important to people,” she said. “Some of it was around safety, and people felt improvements in lighting were important.”

Jasper added that the homeless population in the area has grown since the planning began.

“There were not anything like the number of homeless people living under the underpasses as there are currently,” she said.

Barry said that cleanups such as the recent ones at M, L and K streets NE, as well as a previous cleanup on L Street NE in June 2015, are not a part of the District government’s long-term strategy on homelessness but rather an immediate response to unsafe conditions. “The encampment response really is driven by health and safety concerns, and the fact that you’re really not able to have a safe and healthy situation long-term by having tents on public property,” he said.

In NoMa, a neighborhood experiencing intense development and construction, Todd is pessimistic about the future of tent encampments.

“After [the neighborhood] is built up,” he said, “it’s not going to be none of that.”

Because of budget cuts, Thrive D.C. offers fewer hot meals

BY COLLEEN GRABLICK colleen.grablick@streetsensemedia.org

The District government cut about $400,000 in funding from Thrive D.C.’s meal programming when crafting last year’s city budget. This is the first time in 10 years the organization has had to scale back one of its programs.

A lack of funding led to a decrease in staff, according to Greg Rockwell, Thrive D.C.’s community relations officer. The five-day-a-week hot-meal program was cut back to Monday-Wednesday-Friday, replacing breakfast and dinner on Tuesdays and Thursdays with sandwiches donated through a partnership with Pret A Manger. Thrive also continues to provide daily shower and laundry services, as well as personal-hygiene goods. However, Rockwell said the cuts to the meal program that brought people in the door every day have impacted Thrive’s alcohol-abuse and therapy programs, which have also been decreased from five times a week to three, following the meals served on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Rockwell said that the counseling sessions draw fewer clients as those in need go elsewhere for their meals.

Thrive has decreased the hours that it allows clients to use the facility surrounding the meal program. Rockwell said the decrease in hours has affected clients’ ability to socialize and maintain a sense of normalcy, according to Rockwell.

“They come in, they sit down at the same spot at the same table with the same friends,” Rockwell said. “They have a cup of coffee, they could read the newspaper, they get a meal, and they get some time to breathe and relax after maybe sleeping outside all night or being in a noisy disruptive shelter.”

Reginald Charlemagne, 41, who has been relying on Thrive D.C. for meals for over a year, said that beyond

Reginald Charlemagne.

PHOTO BY COLLEEN GRABLICK

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

the food cuts, he is particularly unhappy about having less time to hang out and use the facilities after meals. The cuts have left him with nowhere to go during the day.

“Talking with each other and also being able to feel like we have something besides the food is very important,” Charlemagne said, adding that being able to watch movies in the facility before made passing the time easier and gave him something to keep his thoughts occupied during the day.

“When you’re homeless, some of the time you can feel like, ‘I go here, I go there, I do this, but what else?’ When you come in here, the time is passing, and you don’t even feel like it’s a burden to spend the day,” Charlemagne said.

Charlemagne said the sandwiches that replaced the hot meals don’t fill many of the clients up. Some clients often will not eat another meal until 5 p.m. that day.

“We kind of suffer for food a little bit,” Charlemagne said of the new schedule. “We are allowed to have two sandwiches, and after around 11:30 a.m. or 12:00 p.m. we are very hungry.”

O.B. Black, 65, has been going to Thrive D.C. for food, showers and laundry for six years. While Black has now secured housing and does not rely on Thrive exclusively for meals, he said he worries about those individuals who may have no other places to go.

“I’m concerned about the other people who were in the position that I was in, who are depending on the meals five days a week,” Black said.

Local community support has been helpful during the past few months as the organization adjusted to its new budget, according to Rockwell.

“When we got the funding cut and we announced it, there was just a tremendous outpouring of support from the community,” Rockwell said. “Seeing the churches around us respond and seeing our community partners and our individual donors just rally behind us and say that we absolutely believe in this program and we’re going to step up to help you restore was just incredibly encouraging and heartwarming.”

Morning program assistant Brian O’Connor said the budget cuts came as a surprise and that the organization has gone through a period of adjustment while trying to figure out how best to serve its clients.

“Coming into the winter months, I was a proponent of keeping some setup where people could get coffee and sit around tables,” O’Connor said. “I figured there’s a certain aspect of socializing that I think people were willing to adjust to even if there were some big changes.”

O’Connor said that the client numbers went down slightly during the first two weeks of the transition but have been steadily increasing ever since.

“People still come and socialize, and it’s telling that even though we’ve scaled back the staff and services, that we still get healthy numbers,” O’Connor said.

Thrive D.C. mostly serves adults who are single and homeless. The cut in funds demonstrates to Rockwell that the government is choosing to prioritize other segments of the homeless population.

“We serve a lot of homeless single adults, and it’s just a population we see that is not getting the same attention or care that other populations are but is suffering just as much,” Rockwell said. “It’s frustrating to see our clients get neglected when they have very strong needs.”

D.C. Council is holding performance oversight hearings for each city agency through February and early March.

The mayor’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2019 will be sent to D.C. Council by March 21.

D.C. Council performance Oversight Hearings are tentativley schedule dfor Feb. 7 – March 9 and Budget Oversight Hearings are tentatively set for March 26 – April 27.

// 5

Volunteers canvass D.C. for annual count of the homeless population

Mayor Bowser addresses the crowd of volunteers before the PIT Count. PHOTO BY OLIVIA RICHTER

BY OLIVIA RICHTER olivia.richter@streetsensemedia.org

Three hundred volunteers dispersed to all areas of D.C. last month to participate in the annual Point-In-Time (PIT) Count of the city’s homeless population. The count gathers data that will increase public awareness and help policymakers track progress towards ending homelessness in the District.

Participants first gathered at Thomson Elementary School in Northwest D.C., where Mayor Muriel Bowser addressed the crowd.

“We set out three years ago with what some people thought was an impossible goal: to end homelessness in our city,” Bowser said before participating in the count alongside volunteers.

The analysis of this year’s count will be released in May. From 2016 to 2017, results showed an 11 percent decline in the number of homeless people in the District, with a total of 7,473 people counted last year. The decline was attributed to a decrease in homeless families. However, the homeless population remains higher than it was in 2015, Bowser’s first year in office.

Chief of Staff of the Department of Human Services Larry Handerhan traveled with a group of volunteers to H Street NE, where he approached a man bundled in grey blankets underneath a sidewalk overhang.

“Do you have a place to stay tonight?” Handerhan asked.

This question is one of the suggested conversation starters listed on the PIT survey sheet.

Handerhan explained the three most common reasons why homeless community members like this man may refuse shelter.

“They call it the three P’s: pets, possessions and partners,” he said.

Because shelters do not allow pets, any homeless person with a dog or cat may be deterred from going. Shelters also provide limited locker space, so a person experiencing homelessness may not go if it means having to give up any possessions.

“Partners” refers to how couples who want to stay together may forego staying in shelters because they separate genders for safety reasons.

Shortly after midnight, Handerhan’s volunteer group moved on from H Street to Union Station. There, groups of homeless people answered survey questions concerning their path to homelessness, how long they had been experiencing homelessness, and more general questions such as about sexual orientation and gender identity.

In addition to survey questions, some PIT volunteers and respondents casually conversed about topics such as politics and even one man’s longing for a homemade chocolate chip

cookie. Volunteers gave survey participants gift cards to McDonald’s, which remained open and busy at the heart of Union Station.

The PIT Count takes place on a single night in cities throughout the United States. Its goal is to provide a more accurate assessment of the numbers of people experiencing homelessness and their demographic characteristics. The results are shared with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which uses the data to determine the effectiveness of present and future funding for local efforts to combat homelessness.

In D.C., the count has been conducted by the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness since 2001. It includes people on the street as well as people in shelters and transitional housing programs.

HUD only requires the unsheltered portion of the count be conducted every other year. But D.C. participates annually, in order to have more accurate data.

Results of the D.C. PIT count have been highly variable in the last few years. In 2015, the number of homeless people sleeping outdoors was counted at 544. In 2016, the number dropped to 318, then it rose to 897 in 2017. Handerhan said the change in numbers is likely related to temperature shifts.

When temperatures dip below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, a hypothermia alert is activated, which brings more services online and guarantees residents a right to shelter if they want it, according to the DHS website. Last year, the PIT count took place on an unseasonably warm night, which likely accounted in part for the higher number of homeless community members sleeping outdoors. This year, the count is expected to be lower because of the freezing temperatures.

One part of the community the PIT Count struggles to reach is homeless youth.

“We do a separate youth census because young people experiencing homelessness in the District tend to have very different life experiences and characteristics from the older population experiencing homelessness,” said Sean Barry, Communications Director of the DHS, who volunteered with the group that travelled to Union Station.

Solid Foundations DC, an initiative of Mayor Bowser’s administration that aims to end youth homelessness in the District, conducts its own census of youths experiencing homelessness separate from the PIT Count. In 2016, the census revealed that 587 unaccompanied minors were experiencing homelessness in the District.

“The work sometimes seems impossible and like we’re never nearing an end,” Mayor Bowser said, addressing the PIT Count volunteers. “But what we do see is that we’re driving down the number of people who are coming into our homeless services system.”

In 2017, the results of country-wide PIT Counts showed 553,742 people experiencing homelessness throughout the U.S., the first increase in seven years, according to HUD. The results showed that between 2016 and 2017, the number of people experiencing homelessness in unsheltered locations rose 9 percent. The results also showed that 40,799 youths were experiencing homelessness throughout the U.S., a sizable increase from the 35,686 homeless youth counted in 2016.

This PIT Count came shortly after Mayor Bowser announced the closure of D.C. General Family Shelter by the year’s end.

The announcement has raised concerns, because construction on the eight smaller housing facilities built to replace D.C. General will not be completed by the time of the troubled shelter’s closure.

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NEWS

D.C. Council examines the city’s bathroom shortage

BY ANNIE ALBRIGHT annie.albright@streetsensemedia.org

A

t least 18 members of the public testified at a Jan. 10 D.C. Council hearing to support legislation designed to address a lack of clean and accessible public restrooms in the District of Columbia. The outsize impact of bathroom shortages on homeless individuals was a fixture of witness testimonies supporting the bill, but witnesses also stressed the positive effect that increased restroom accessibility would have on tourists, children, joggers, pregnant women, seniors and others.

“Nature will call,” said Councilmember Charles Allen, “and it will call to everyone.”

The bill in question would call for the construction of new public restrooms in D.C. and improve access to existing private restrooms. First, it would compel the Department of Public Works to create a multiagency group tasked with selecting sites throughout the city that would benefit most from the installation of public restroom facilities. Second, it would establish the Community Toilet Incentive to encourage private establishments to make their restrooms available to the public in exchange for reimbursement of bathroom maintenance costs.

The Public Restroom Facilities Installation and Promotion Act of 2017 was introduced in April after studies by the People for Fairness Coalition, a local housing and homelessness advocacy group, claimed that there are only eight clean and safe restrooms open to the public during business hours downtown and only three public restrooms open 24/7 in all of D.C. This garnered the attention of Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, chair of the Committee on Human Services and co-sponsor of the bill.

PFFC members visited 85 private establishments with restrooms in five D.C. neighborhoods in order to identify how many would allow nonpatrons to use their facilities.

In 2015, they found that roughly half did. PFFC repeated the survey in 2016 and 2017, visiting only those facilities that had allowed them to use their restrooms the year before.

In these later inventories, PFFC members dressed to look stereotypically “housing stable” (nice clothing) or “housing unstable” (large tattered jacket, sock hat, loose slacks, walking looking down and with an uneven gate).

The follow-up reports describe widespread instances of bias against the housing-unstabledressed individuals conducting the study. These included refusing the housing-unstable-dressed person access to a restroom while allowing the more nicely dressed person in, asking them to use a different bathroom than the more nicely dressed person, or allowing them to use the restroom but treating them differently than the more nicely dressed person. According to the report, in two instances employees chose to accompany the unstable-dressed individual to a bathroom with a combination lock and open it for them, while the more nicely dressed individual was simply given the code.

The group found access to public facilities to be similarly out of reach for people who look or act stereotypically homeless.

PFFC’s 2015 report included a member survey of Metro station bathrooms and showed that station managers generally use discretion to determine who to let use the restroom.

All D.C. Metro stations are equipped with restrooms, and Metro’s policy states that restrooms must be made available to customers in case of “an emergency situation, for small children, or for customers who are elderly or physically disabled.” PFFC’s report cites one station manager saying he would not let “grubby people” use the customer restroom at his Metro stop.

The scarcity of accessible public restrooms takes a particular toll on homeless individuals because they spend lots of time in pedestrianheavy commercial corridors, where public restrooms are often crowded, and because they can face discrimination when trying to use private restrooms.

“As the mother of small children, I know how difficult it is for toddlers, who have tiny

bladders and little control over when they need to use the facilities,” said Reverend Catriona Laing of the Church of the Epiphany.

Leonard Greenberger, a partner at Potomac Communications Group, said that as an avid runner he relies on access to public restrooms while training for races. He also has young children, so he knows bathroom access is crucial.

PFFC sent multiple representatives to the hearing, including Marcia Bernbaum and Janet Sharp. Sharp focused her testimony on the ways in which bathroom scarcities can be less forgiving on women, especially those who are pregnant or menstruating. Bernbaum said that she was testifying in two capacities, as a PFFC representative and as a senior. “When I have to go, I have to go urgently,” she said.

Phillip Black can empathize.

He sells the Street Sense Media newspaper outside of Eastern Market. He works long days and often seven days a week. During the day, Black can use the public restrooms inside the Market. He says they are well maintained and clean, but they are not open all the time. The Market is closed at nights and on Mondays.

Black said that during the day he might try to use a private restroom, but it is difficult because many of the shops and restaurants on the 7th Street SE drive that includes Eastern Market put combination locks on the restrooms, and those that don’t can have prohibitively long lines, especially during tourist season. But those businesses also close in the evenings.

Black said that if he had to use the restroom urgently at night, the nearest option would be the public restrooms at Union Station, a little over a mile from his Eastern Market post.

When asked whether he’d ever been in that situation, Black chuckled. “If I’m walking [to Union Station], I’d have to use the bathroom while I’m walking,” he said. “By the time I got there I’d be finished!”

PFFC’s 2015 report found that individuals in four out of the five downtown neighborhoods surveyed would have to walk one to two miles to

Slide from a March 2017 People for Fairness Coalition presentation to D.C. Council. COURTESY OF PFFC

use a public restroom in the middle of the night.

What does one do if the nearest restroom is miles away and you have to “go” urgently?

According to Black, you make do — you find a cup or an alleyway and conceal yourself as best you can. But that approach can lead to legal trouble.

Once, after being told that he wasn’t allowed to use the bathroom in a 7-Eleven, Black said he was forced to urinate in an alleyway. A police car pulled up and the officer asked him to come over.

“I’m like, let me use the bathroom; I’m in the corner and out of the way,” Black recalled in an interview.

The officer asked him for his name, identification and whether there were any warrants out for him. Black said he got fed up and told the police officer, “Why don’t you go around the corner where they’re selling drugs and make a real arrest?” His attitude and the public urination earned him a night in the 1st District police station.

That’s not always how it happens. Police officers “are human too,” Black said.

“Sometimes, they’ll just say, ‘Go someplace else,’ or ‘Next time, find a bathroom.’”

However, the consequences for not finding a place to “go” in time tend to be most severe for the individuals who find themselves in that situation most often. Public urination and defecation are crimes in D.C. punishable by either a $500 fine or a 90-day jail sentence.

As Reverend Laing noted in her testimony at the hearing, “Individuals who are homeless are not the only ones subject to fines, but homeless individuals, when caught, cannot pay the fine, and ending up in jail earns them a record that can hurt their prospects for obtaining housing or employment.”

Homeless individuals face a variety of factors that complicate their need for a restroom. Some may choose not to take vital medication to treat conditions such as high blood pressure or HIV/AIDS because the side effects include increased urination and diarrhea, and they know they will not have access to a bathroom later, according to Dr. Catherine Crosland, director of homeless medical outreach development for Unity Health Care.

Another common theme among witnesses at the hearing was the indignity of having to resort to nontraditional methods of relieving oneself when there is no other option. Urinating into alleyways, improvised receptacles, makeshift diapers or one’s only pair of clothing is not only a public health hazard but also can be embarrassing and degrading. It can leave traces — messes, odors, stains — that affect how people move through the world. And even if it doesn’t, it can be incredibly demoralizing.

“There’s nothing like a clean bathroom,” Black said. “It’s one of those things that when you’re not out on the street, you take for granted. Sometimes when I’m home I clean the whole bathroom just to use it, because I want it clean and I want it fresh, I want it to smell like Clorox, Febreze, Lysol ... Pine-Sol, that’s the best stuff.”

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

#VENDORWEEK

Voices that matter

// 7

BUILDING COMMUNITY

BY BRIAN CAROME Executive Director

W

hen we began publishing this newspaper 15 years ago, we did so out of a belief that there were important voices missing from the discussion about homelessness and how it should be addressed. Washington, D.C., has long suffered from homelessness at rates higher than elsewhere in the nation.

For decades, the gap between wages and the cost of housing in this city has widened, and we have seen more of our neighbors forced out of their homes and into our streets and shelters. We can do more as a community to address and end homelessness. If we are going to solve our homelessness crisis — and we must — we first have to first gain an accurate understanding of its causes and those it affects most directly.

From our very first edition, published in November 2003, Street Sense has provided a vehicle through which all of us can learn about homelessness from those who have experienced it. In that way, we are unique. Nowhere else in this city can you consistently hear and learn from people who have experienced homelessness, in their own words.

Our vendors work hard, every day, to deliver this opportunity.

Our hope is that after reading our

paper, you will see and understand the issue of homelessness differently, free from the myths and stereotypes often perpetuated elsewhere on the media landscape. We hope you will engage in discussions about what you read on these pages — with your family, your co-workers, the vendors who write for and sell the paper, and with policymakers at the local and federal level. Our hope is that the newspaper acts as an agent of change, not just for the people who publish and sell it but for the greater community.

Ultimately, we hope the paper contributes to a discussion that eventually rids our community of homelessness.

During one week every February, the International Network of Street Papers (INSP), of which we are a proud member, celebrates the work of street paper vendors worldwide. We normally observe this week by inviting local celebrities to sell our paper for a few hours. This year, we are celebrating by turning up the volume of the voices that our vendors bring to our community. This edition celebrates in a special way what we do in every

paper throughout the year: raise the voices of men and women who have experienced homelessness, out of a hope that those voices contribute to a new understanding of the issue and ultimately motivate a community and political will to eradicate it.

More recently, since 2013, we have built upon the success of the paper by adding new platforms from which our vendors can express their ideas and opinions. Today, our vendors are raising up their voices through theater, film, spoken word, photography, podcasts and illustration.

Each voice enriches our community and, we hope, brings us towards a fuller understanding of homelessness and how it affects us all.

Because it does affect us all.

Thank you for celebrating with us this week through your purchase of this paper. If you are moved by something you read here, we hope you will share your thoughts with a neighbor and start a conversation with the vendor whose writing touched you. Such conversations can help build a stronger community and enrich the lives of all of us.

We can do more as a community to address and end homelessness.

Listen to our stories.

My customer B. Michelle Harris PHOTO BY CHON GOTTI // ARTIST/VENDOR

B. Michelle Harris is a native Washingtonian and an associate professor of nutrition at the University of the District of Columbia, near where I sell my newspapers. She has taught at UDC for more than 10 years and strives to instill a value for volunteerism in her students. She tells them that advocacy is a verb and pushes them to get involved. Over the years, her students have volunteered at D.C. Central Kitchen, So Others Might Eat, Salvation Army, D.C. Hunger Solutions and several agencies affiliated with the D.C. Department on Aging.

“Thank you, Street Sense Media, for all you do for our community,” Harris said.

Chon Gotti, Artist/Vendor

BIRTHDAYS Sasha Williams Feb 18 ARTIST/VENDOR

ACCOMPLISHMENTS Empowering people begins with listening to them. Give our vendors a platform and get their stories in your inbox by signing up for our emails.

Subscribe by visiting

streetsensemedia.org/subscribe

Ken Martin

SOLD 3 PHOTOS TO PRISM MAGAZINE ARTIST/VENDOR

Robert Warren

ELECTED TO THE BOARD OF THE UNITED PLANNING ORGANIZATION ARTIST/VENDOR

8 // ST REET SENSE ME DI A / / FE B . 7 - 2 1 , 2 0 1 8

CELEBRATING SUCCESS

On the other side of the glass: One man's journey from the street to a home STORY BY JEFF GRAY // ART BY JANE CAVE jeff@streetsensemedia.org // janecavephoto.com BY

H

Artist/vendor

e used to sleep outside a furniture store up on Wisconsin Avenue. It was right down the street from the gentlemen’s club that let him earn money as an unofficial doorman, where he’d once been handed a fistful of cash by a very drunk Harrison Ford. Plus, there was an exterior outlet he could plug his radio into.

He would lie awake at night, peering through the glass into the brightly lit showroom, with its queen beds, overstuffed sofas and ornately carved wooden dining tables. The showroom was set up like someone was living there, so the customers could imagine this piece or that piece in their homes. As he gazed through the glass, it became his home; his front room, his dining room, his bedroom.

One day he found an old box TV that someone had thrown into the dumpster around the corner, carried it back, plugged it into the exterior outlet, and there he was in his living room, leaned back in the big plush-leather recliner with his feet up on the dark brown ottoman with the brass buttons, watching TV. David Denny would lie there on the concrete looking in, a thin pane of glass the only thing separating him from his fantasy.

My Home

BY LATISHIA GRAHAM Artist/Vendor

I am stronger each day, and every day I'm thanking the Lord for my health and my strength. When I was at the shelter, yes, I felt I couldn't make it. But thank you Lord for each and every day. I feel good.

For once in my life, all the other places I had, this one is the best that I’ve been in that I can call my home.

***

A housewarming for Latishia. Everyone prayed together and many of her gifts were pink, her favorite color.

PHOTOS BY COLLEEN COSGRIFF

Some two decades later, David stands at the bedroom window of his apartment, looking through the glass at the street outside. His apartment. That still sounds strange. He woke up confused that first night, wondering where he was. It took him a few ticks to remember.

Everything had moved so damn fast. After years of crawling at an impossibly slow pace, the system had lurched into hyperdrive. Just two and a half weeks after he had first gone down to the Pathways to Housing office, there he was signing the lease on a government-subsidized apartment. The folks at Pathways all told him they couldn’t remember anyone else getting into housing that fast.

Standing at the window, David doesn’t have to look far for a reminder of how far he’s come. He raises his eyes to the squat, red-brick building across the street, the last of the block’s abandoned structures awaiting renovation. Boards cover the empty windows, and dry, brown vines climb the near corner as if they’re looking for somewhere else to go.

“Damn,” David thinks, squinting back into a past that seems both far and near. “I used to be homeless there.”

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

// 9

Two radically different scenes visible from separate windows in David Denny’s new bedroom. With each passing day, he finds himself looking more at the edge of the field he dreams of running through and less at the abandoned building he used to squat in.

*** Before those nights outside the furniture store, before that bit of time when he would curl up on a bench across from TGI Fridays, after he’d slept behind the church over on Tenley Circle, David had spent his nights in that red-brick abandoned building. If he worked the plywood enough to slip through the window and he set up in a room far enough back to where the cops wouldn’t see the light as they drove by, it was an okay spot to spend the night. Of course, he didn’t have electricity or running water, and the furniture wasn’t much to speak of: banged-up milk crates as tables and chairs, dingy cardboard laid out as a mattress, a coarse movers’ blanket bunched up into a pillow. He shared the building with its other tenants: cockroaches, rats and racoons. One night he woke up faceto-face with a wild-eyed possum — he stayed frozen, locked in a primal staring contest, until the thing slunk back into the darkness.

One night he wrote a poem.

The stench emanating from unwashed feet, In abandoned buildings on a dead street.

No place to even lay your head.

A cardboard box, your only bed The cold morning air and ceiling leaks, Stirs alcoholics, dope fiends, and crackhead freaks.

Milk crates strewn about used as chairs, While some replace the missing stairs.

Off to panhandle the middle class, Through dope needles, stems, and broken glass.

Not all the memories of his time on the street are awful. A true poet, David has always been able to find moments of beauty among the darkness. He remembers the view from the spot where he used to sleep up on Prospect Street, the yellow, green and blue lights of downtown Rosslyn glittering across the black Potomac. He remembers back when he stayed behind the Catholic church, how the nuns would leave him coffee and coffee cake in the morning, always careful to make a quiet noise so he’d wake up before it got cold.

His love of poetry came from his father, a retired Army man who moved his family to D.C. in 1959 to take a job with the post office. David’s earliest memory from that time comes from a blackand-white photo, now lost, of him and his mother dressed in all white, holding hands in front of the Capitol building. He could walk over to the old Penn Theater with a dollar and buy a movie ticket, cookies, popcorn and a box of Milk Duds and still have money left over to ride the bus home. He remembers his paper route and the shops on the corner and the friendly neighbors.

That all changed when the city decided to build a new bridge on their land and showed up with the eminent-domain papers.

David’s father had to move his family across town to Simple City, a neighborhood notorious for its crime and poverty. David’s idols changed— instead of looking up to sailors and Marines, he

looked up to the dope dealers who drove by in their long, shiny Cadillacs. It didn’t take long for him to be pulled in.

Prison is where David’s love for poetry flourished. While the cell walls closed in around his body, his mind escaped. He spent hours reading and writing. He borrowed a dictionary and thesaurus from the library and flipped through them every time he came across a word he didn’t know. He graduated from a prison GED program and started teaching eighth-grade math to other inmates. He earned a gig as a clerk for the warden, who took such a liking to him that David worried the other inmates would resent him for preferential treatment.

But David couldn’t stand the halfway houses. Five times he was put into a halfway house to finish out a sentence. Five times he ran and ended up back in prison. The last time he got locked up, he insisted he be able to complete his sentence in prison instead of leaving for a halfway house. That removed the temptation to run, but it also took away the support of a re-entry program and left him fending for himself after release.

When David stepped off the prison bus in 2009, he had no support system, no job prospects and nowhere to go. It would be nearly nine years before he found a home. *** He didn’t believe it when he got the phone call. Not 24 hours after he sat down with those folks from Pathways to Housing, they called asking if he wanted to go look at apartments. He had been on the list for a housing voucher for years without progress and then, all of a sudden, was touring apartments. It felt as if he’d clicked his heels together three times.

That was just a joke he told, of course, but his path home felt just as fantastical and enigmatic. He had sat through meetings where they asked him a bunch of questions like, “How many times have you been homeless?” and they had plugged his answers into some algorithm that spit out a number called a Vulnerability Index that ranked him against other people who needed housing. His social worker had tried to get him placed before — after all, he had those severe bouts of depression and the nerve damage in his legs — but it hadn’t worked. Until he went to Pathways. His social worker said it was like trying to get through a fence. They tried other gates, and those hadn’t budged; they tried the Pathways gate, and it swung open.

However it happened, David knows it was just in the nick of time. With his legs being the way they are, he figures he wouldn’t have lasted much longer on the street. The shooting pains started a couple years back and have only gotten worse.

The doctors are stumped. At first they said it was vascular, then they thought it was neurological. He’d been through ultrasounds and diabetes tests and more doctor’s appointments than he can remember. His team at Pathways takes him to and from those appointments, which is good, because it’s harder for him to get around these days.

One of the doctors recently mentioned a new theory. He said that perhaps the pain is a physical manifestation of psychological trauma, that it could somehow be caused by his depression. David doesn’t buy that, but he is certain of one thing: Whatever’s wrong with him was caused by all those years on the street. ***

David turns away from the window, the one framing the redbrick building and a difficult past, and shuffles across his bedroom.

He has his own furniture now: a queen-sized bed and chest of drawers, a dinette table and chairs in the dining room, a sofa and large coffee table in the front room. Sometimes he smiles and thinks about that Billie Holiday lyric, “God bless the child that’s got his own.”

Not that housing has cured everything.

Each step across the hardwood floor of his bedroom is a painful reminder of the nerve damage in his legs. The memories from all those years on the street still weigh heavy as he comes to the window on the other side of the room.

He looks out of this window more than the other. It faces east, overlooking the green field of a city park. A cool, clear stream gurgles gently through the center, David Denny shows off a pair of mugs that were given to him several years ago by fellow Street and a small foot bridge provides a walking Sense Media vendor Phillip Black. An artist was selling them at Eastern Market, along with other path across. items in the same style, with colorful abstract faces. David always loved the mugs and kept them in David stands at this window and thinks storage. He is happy to put them to use and wishes he could have gotten a coffee pot in the same style. But he has never seen the artist again. PHOTO BY COLLEEN COSGRIFF about the future.

1 0 // S T REET SENSE ME DI A / / FE B . 7 - 2 1 , 2 0 18

OPINION In favor of a people's dividend

BY TOM CLARKSON

Most of the problems in the world today are caused or made worse by the fundamental issue of wealth concentration in the hands of the few. According to the Credit Suisse 2017 Global Wealth report, the wealthiest 1 percent of the world’s people own as much personal wealth as everyone else in the world put together.

In the U.S., the 1 percent wealthiest owned 40 percent of all personal wealth in 2017, versus 25 percent in 1982. Let’s be clear: This kind of wealth concentration causes suffering. War, terrorism, the opioid epidemic, homelessness, unemployment, the breakup of families, crime and multiple refugee crises are all symptoms of the underlying problem of wealth concentration in the hands of the few.

For the last 50 years, few people have taken seriously this lesson from Dr. Martin Luther King, who said in his “The Other America Speech,” at Stanford University on April 14, 1967: “…It is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. … They find themselves impoverished aliens in this affluent society. And there is a great deal that the society can and must do if the Negro is to gain the economic security that he needs.

Now one of the answers, it seems to me, is a guaranteed annual income, a guaranteed minimum income for all people, and for all families of our country.

It seems to me that the Civil Rights movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income. Begin to organize people all over our country and mobilize forces so that we can bring to the attention of our nation this need, and this is something which I believe will go a long, long way toward dealing with the Negro’s economic problem and the economic problem which many other poor people confront in our nation.”

I propose, accordingly, a People’s Dividend: a form of guaranteed income for all.

The People’s Dividend is a practical form of the idea that Dr. King proposed, and it can become a reality in a year or two if we elect politicians who are willing to enact a simple tax on wealth. Here’s how it could work: Congress would pass a law taxing the personal wealth of the richest 1 percent in the U.S. The tax would be equal to annual growth in the wealth of the 1 percent after they pay all of their other taxes and spend as much as they do now.

In 2017, such a tax would have collected about $1.5 trillion.

The next step is simple: Have the IRS or the Social Security Administration distribute the $1.5 trillion to every adult and child in the U.S. who has a Social Security number or a taxpayer ID number.

The payment would be tax-free and unconditional, meaning everyone gets it, regardless of how much or how little other income they had. Even the 1 percent get it.

Because it goes to everyone, the People’s Dividend is a form of universal income.

The $1.5 trillion would give each of the 333 million people in the U.S. about $4,500 a year. For a family of four, that’s $18,000. The poverty level for a family of four is $24,000, so the People’s Dividend by itself gets them three-quarters of the way to the poverty line, every year.

The dividend is guaranteed to be paid only as long as the wealth of the 1 percent is growing. If their wealth declines in a given year because of stock market fluctuations, the tax would be reduced until their wealth had recovered to $27 trillion, where it is today.

Tom Clarkson is a retired accountant who worked at the State Department.

Give people monthly income

BY GARY MINTER

Work is good. We should reward honest labor, not punish it through the unfair income tax.

It would be wiser (and cheaper for taxpayers) to convert the entire welfare, public-housing and social-services system into a “monthly income” cash stipend deposited on debit cards like the ones used for food stamps. Give each U.S. citizen who registers and is evaluated for work at their state employment office a monthly income of $500 if they are unable to work.

Give them $1,000 if they work at least part-time, through the current Earned Income Tax Credit. The current EITC for single workers with no dependents (which is so low as to be a joke) should be raised to the current EITC level for workers with dependents. Let people have the dignity of managing their own income and making their own choices.

By eliminating all the costly red tape, paperwork, holier-than-thou drug tests, standing in line for “recertification,” government “middlemen,” money-grubbing slumlords, out-of-date bureaucratic jobs and nit-picky rules, both taxpayers and low-income working U.S. citizens would be happier.

Gary Minter is a former Street Sense Media vendor.

Democrats are turning people into Trump supporters

BY JEFFERY MCNEIL

You could see the Democrats seething in rage during President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.

They showed their hate for this country. They couldn’t stand for the flag, celebrate record-low black unemployment or cheer for things that they themselves support, such as lower prescription-drug costs or increased infrastructure spending.

Hey, Fake News: Keep up the Russia-collusion narrative. Trump is winning more converts, while the Democrats offer nothing but anti-Trump hatred.

While Trump’s speech was a call to participate in America’s prosperity, I was disappointed in Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), who delivered the Democratic response. I was rooting for Kennedy, hoping he would be like John and Robert, whom I adored, but they made Joe III walk the plank, speaking about an American who was soundly rejected in 2016. Democrats don’t see how hypocritical they look, claiming to hate money when people like Kennedy were born rich. Kennedy is the quintessential limousine liberal who doesn’t know any immigrants that don’t mow his lawn or clean his bathtub. I tuned out when he said he will tear down any wall built by Trump, because we can do both — we can have a humane immigration system without undermining our sovereignty and national security.

How can progressives say they care about native-born African Americans and Hispanics when they put the interests of illegal immigrants over those of everyday Americans? If they want rights, they need to do what every other immigrant has done before them: come here legally.

Sometimes you may not like the door opening to you, but to my fellow African Americans, Trump is like a prison break. You can stay in your cell or escape the closemindedness of liberalism. It’s okay to think for yourself.

You don’t have to consult other Black people about who to support. Progressives are about style and rhetoric, using flowery language to confuse you, while Trump is a man of action. I gravitated to Trump because I like the fact he doesn’t take crap from the establishment. He’s like a tank that blasted through the veneer of politeness and political correctness. He doesn’t back down from confrontation.

When Trump steamrolled Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s government shutdown over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, I wasn’t surprised. I saw him do the same thing in Atlantic City. I saw the unions try to shove him around, and he just closed up shop and put them out of work. Dems will learn the hard way.

Jeffery McNeil is a Street Sense Media vendor and columnist.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

I'm tired of your Trumploving columnist!

BY COLLY MUK

Street Sense is a publication about homelessness, poverty and lowincome people, at least from what all of us vendors were told when we signed up. The idea sounded fantastic and looked good on paper, but why in the hell do I always feel like I am selling fliers for the White House and President Donald Trump via the Street Sense opinion page? If anyone wanted to get that kind of political news or updates, trust me: They know where to go.

I don’t have anything against the columnist’s views, party or his strong support for President Trump. All I am saying is that the paper should focus more on issues that affect the homeless, the lowincome community and those experiencing poverty. Coverage of political issues should be based on a politician looking to end homelessness and poverty.

Again ,this is not a rage about this writer himself. I just find it so astounding and frustrating to the point where I feel like carrying that writer’s material is embarrassing and unacceptable in this part of town.

He wants to play for a team that doesn’t want him. He is fighting against the same policies that have helped him survive while going through poverty.

For those who agree with me, you will get two papers for the price of one if you buy Street Sense from me! You can’t beat that deal. RESIST!!

Colly Muk is a Street Sense Media vendor.

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

- Want to share firsthand experience?

- Interested in responding to what someone else has written?

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

Please send submissions to opinion@streetsensemedia.org.

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

/ / 11

ART The Republican Retreat

BY HENRIEESE ROBERTS // Artist/Vendor

On Feb. 1, ralliers gathered in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia around noon. The Republican Party was gathering at the Greenbrier, a lavish resort, to plan their agenda for the year, an agenda focused on cutting vital safety-net benefits and selling off our infrastructure to the highest bidder.

Just outside the doors of their retreat is a population that would be devastated by the cuts those inside envision, a population in need of better social services and infrastructure. That population, many of whom are White, working-class Trump voters, is increasingly coming together with a diverse set of communities across the country to battle the Trump administration ever more effectively.

But they can't do it without a fight. Some of us from several states showed up to participate in the gathering and send a message: "Hands off! Hands off my healthcare! Hands off public infrastructure! Hands off the safety net services I need to thrive!"

We met at the Center for Community Change at U and 16th Street here in Washington, D.C., and headed to Charleston, West Virginia, by bus. Fellow Street Sense Media Vendor Angie Whitehurst was a participant, which caused excitement for me!

After arriving in Charleston, we had a meeting the night of Jan. 31 as we ate dinner and were welcomed.

West Virginia is a state of contrast: gorgeous trees,

waterfalls, rafting and coal pollution that blows up to the top of the sky. Fracking in the northern part of the state has also contributed a fair amount to local pollution.

The next day, we went to see the president and let him hear a piece of our minds. He was not going to get away with laying out feel-good generalities that have racist overtones.

Several of us spoke on disability rights and the Disability Integration Act. Resources are needed so that disabled people can live in our own homes. We need to protect our citizens’ right to live as equals, even though some of us have limitations. We need attendants and personal assistants to work with us in our homes. We need home and community services that allow us to live in our homes, an option that is much cheaper than institutional care. After all, we are all able-bodied only temporarily, destined to become infirm as we age.

Please call your senator and representative and ask them to sponsor the Disability Integration Act, which is stuck in the Judiciary Committee.

It was an honor to stand for our rights and our safety net with all at the Resistance Rally outside of The Greenbrier resort in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia.

PERCEPTION OR REALITY:

Our seniors

BY ROBERT WILLIAMS, USMC // Artist/Vendor

We all, one day, will be seniors, including your children, grandchildren and other loved ones. So why don’t we respect and care for seniors now? We continue to allow the bureaucratic system to discard people’s loved ones as trash. Many scrape by, isolated in dilapidated housing, or find themselves no longer able to afford the rent. Some end up wandering aimlessly, unable to seek refuge from inclement weather, unsure of where to take care of their bodily functions and struggling to carry their life’s possessions wherever they go.

On the most recent bone-chillingly cold night, I found an acquaintance of mine on the steps of the temple at 14th and K streets NW, unable to move. I used to know this woman, now in her mid-60s, years ago when she was homeless in D.C. We had just reconnected two days prior, the same day she was flown back from federal prison. When she told me she couldn’t move, I made sure 911 was called.

When the ambulance arrived, I tried to ride along to look after her. The driver had not even wanted to bring her personal bag with her, much less me. From the onset, he treated her differently than he might have treated someone of better economic means. He insisted her bags would be there, on the street, when she got back. While most of our stuff was left behind, it took me a while to persuade the driver to bring her personal bag, which contained medicine and vital personal items.

It is illegal to leave an animal out overnight in poor conditions, yet okay for an ill homeless senior to be left abandoned on some cement steps.

As I write this, my friend is still recuperating at the hospital five days after I found her. Most of the staff were quite

accommodating to both of us, with the exception of two nurses.

Her doctor had even participated in the annual Point-in-Time Count to survey the homeless community sleeping outdoors.

Nonetheless, the hospital has tried to discharge this woman at least twice. I’ve been staying there as much as I can to make sure she gets the care she needs. Unfortunately, a homeless individual will not get the same attention that an average citizen would, unless someone is there with them.

We are in a new year, but our elected officials bring along some old games and unfilled promises, camouflaged as they may be. They continue to play upon your intelligence, line their pockets and bring joy to developers who are all too happy to gentrify our city and displace our seniors.

Yet you continue to sit like a lump on a log, silently accepting anything and everything they say and do. Come on, folks — wake up! If we don’t unify and stand, stand, STAND for something, we’ll fall for anything. What does not adversely affect you now will do so soon. Like it or not, at the current velocity at which we are traveling, you can pretty much rest assured that some of your peers, family members and loved ones will find themselves catapulted into the ever-increasing ranks of the homeless in 2018.

What is this United States of America, home of the free and the brave, coming to? Who’s free? The wealthy, the haves, the powers that be? Free they might be. But brave people do not suppress others to elevate themselves. Perception or reality?

We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. Let’s do this thang together. In this new year, I wish you peace, blessings and success in your endeavors. I am truly grateful and appreciative of my readers. It has been very uplifting this past year to have personally met some of you. To happen across someone and hear them say, “Hey, I have read your column and enjoyed it” really makes me feel good.

And I haven’t forgot about you Lilah, you little princess! I trust you and your family are well. I miss you and hope to see you soon. Keep up the good work in school!

Angie Whitehurst among a crowd of people carrying signs that say “Enough is Enough” at the Feb. 1 Resistance Rally in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia. HENRIEESE ROBERTS

The Annapolis annivesary Women’s March was held Jan. 20 as a “march on the polls,” featuring voter registration tables at the start and finish of the event. HENRIEESE ROBERTS

Advocates talk universal housing at Woolly Mammoth

BY REGINALD BLACK // Artist/Vendor

Local artists, including a DJ, held a Jan. 18 showcase at Woolly Mammoth Theater to draw people in to discuss housing issues plaguing our city. The event, organized by the advocacy group ONE D.C., centered on the concept of a universal right to housing, regardless of income.

Aja Taylor of Bread for the City described the pressure and inequality felt by many neighborhoods. “These are policies, these are actions and inaction. This is how we get to situations like the mayor giving a press conference and another shooting is happening three blocks away,” Taylor said. “We are seeing the effect of this housing crisis.”

An attendee from Congress Heights described her experience working with neighbors to have a say in how the land is used: “They want to take away from our families. They separate us so they can build one- and two-bedrooms or an efficiency. It doesn’t matter what color you are.”

Will Merrifield of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless said that the amount of money involved in development projects creates this fear of a lack of democracy.

He stressed the importance of land control. “If developers are in charge of this dollar policy, they will try to buy up all the land,” Merrifield said. “We have to be in complete solidarity. ... We have to figure out ways to control the land.”

Eugene Puryear of the advocacy group Justice First said that housing policy is a choice. “We need to go back to the [Civil Rights Movement] idea that housing is a social good,” Puryear said. “Everyone has a right to a home. [But] there won’t be enough housing if we depend on the market.”

1 2 // S T REET SENSE ME DI A / / FE B . 7 - 2 1 , 2 0 18

ART

The Original

BY REGINALD DENNY // Artist/Vendor

(I wrote this on Jan. 24, the second anniversary of my mother's ascent to glory. Love you, Mom!) I am the original, the only, Reginald Charles Denny, born to Amelia Ann and Joseph Edward Denny. I have experienced homelessness multiple times.

My life as a Street Sense Media vendor has been an invigorating, intoxicating, exasperating experience in which I have learned many life lessons. I purchase and

sell the paper because those actions help me buy items I need for daily living, e.g., food, clothing, personal hygiene products and transportation. Street Sense has many positive aspects attached to it. The organization provides many beneficial services.

Being a vendor offers me the opportunity to earn income and to be an independent contractor with the ability and capability to write my own paycheck.

Street Sense also enables me to participate in our Writers Group, Photography Group, Theater Group, and Knitting Group. They all strengthen my confidence, my selfesteem and my creative skills.

Distributing and buying Street Sense papers puts me in a great position to meet all sorts of people, any of whom may at some point be the bridge between me and my next success. I've heard that "the thing

A musical experience:

Dark Side of the Moon, pt. 1

BY CONRAD CHEEK // Writer/Vendor

In my previous column, I promised to explain why I feel that Stereo Review Magazine recommended the “Dark Side of the Moon” LP is a good way to demonstrate a stereo system.

Pink Floyd designed much of the sound to emanate from one speaker to another, as in the beginning of the song “Money.” Also, there are very-low-frequency sounds, such as the helicopter noise in the song “Speak to Me,” and there are very-high-frequency sounds, like the clocks in the beginning of “Time.”

The range of sound that the human ear can hear is from 30 hertz to 20,000 hertz — hertz meaning cycles per second. My dad connected an oscilloscope to his stereo, and I witnessed what appeared to be a pure sinusoidal waveform on it during the low-frequency notes of one of the songs.

Sinusoidal waveform, 1 cycle. CONRAD CHEEK, JR

It was only later in my life, when I studied electronics, that I realized what I had witnessed.

My first exposure to Pink Floyd was this record. A childhood friend of mine, Joe, was in college at Howard University. We would get together, drink tea and play chess in the basement of his parents’ home.

The good thing about the LPs is that there are no bad songs on it or anything that would make you want to change the music. It starts with the sound of a heartbeat and an instrumental with sound effects from the other songs to come. This includes a person speaking with a seemingly British accent. Then there is an interesting

that stands between you and your next 'ascent to success' is a PERSON." This is definitely why buying the paper from vendors is so advantageous for us.

I am grateful and proud Street Sense enables us to spread awareness about the effects of poverty and homelessness in our neighborhoods. But the paper is also an effective method for communicating and highlighting the successes of those who have transcended these conditions.

I truly thank God for this vehicle and its vendors _and staff who definitely_ __aid and assisted usiin obtaining another level of living beyond and_ despite our circumstances.

message in the second cut, “Breathe in the Air,” followed by another instrumental, “On the Run.” The next song, “Time,” was one that I could truly relate to at that point in my life. It was the early 70s, the Vietnam War was still going on and they had stopped the draft three months before I graduated from McKinley Technical High School.

A neighbor of mine had told me that his draft number was 351. They had stopped at 350.

I had not gone to college directly after high school, and at the time, I felt that I’d dodged a bullet. So there I was playing chess as opposed to going on a mission with a rifle in my hand, to a foreign land. I had no idea what my profession would be, but as I entered the field of biomedical engineering, as a technician employed to service and maintain analytical, diagnostic and therapeutic medical instruments, I moved from my parents’ home to an English basement apartment. It had a fireplace and was located at 10th St. and Independence Ave., SE. At this particular time, the lyrics of “Time” came true: “Home, home again ... It’s good to warm my bones beside the fire” The final lyrics announced the last song on side one, “The Great Gig in the Sky.” However, this song has no real lyrics, only the sound of a woman (Clare Torry) moaning in three segments of the music. The first segment sounds like anger and anguish. The second sounds like repentance. And just before the third segment starts, if your system is loud enough, you’ll hear her say, “I’m not afraid of death.” The last segment sounds to me like acceptance of her fate.

I’ve noticed an interesting thing about the album cover: There’s one LP in it but it was designed to hold two. The front cover displays a single beam of white light hitting a prism and being dispersed into the spectrum (rainbow) of visible light. As you turn the cover over, the spectrum passes through another prism and comes out as a single beam of light again.

I feel that the cover is indicative of the quality of the music and its message, a continuum of the life cycle we all face.

Next, I'll share with you side two of this magnificent stereophonic composition and how the lyrics and sound effects have entertained and inspired me.

New ecology

FREDERIC JOHN // Artist/Vendor

The Saiga on the taiga laid his horns aside, then promptly Died *It was recently revealed that the sudden death of over 200,000 saiga antelope in 2015 was caused by environmental factors that triggered a normally harmless bacteria to become fatal.

My story, my thanks

BY GERALD ANDERSON Artist/Vendor

First of all, I would like to thank everyone who sent me cards and everything else for the holidays. Also, I had a nice time at my book talk at the Martin Luther King Jr. birthday event at Sidwell Friends school. There were a lot of people and I had a real story to tell. I have been told I am a very good storyteller, and that put a big smile on my face.

There was a guy sitting next to me, and he said he remembered my face from somewhere. We started talking, and he saw my book. It turned out that he remembered me from the D.C. Jail talk I gave.

He then asked where the lady was who helped me to put the book together. I pointed out that she was sitting right next to me, and her name is Susan.

It was a good show, and I'll be going home next month.

Children of the night

BY RON DUDLEY, A.K.A. “POOKANU” Artist/Vendor

Children of the night, don't give up the fight The world did you wrong, so imma do you right Children of the night, don't give up the fight The world did you wrong, so imma do you right No Mommy don't make me pull that belt At five I watched my momma almost kill herself She made me pull until she found a vain “Oh no, Mommy,” her baby cried in vain She turned down the flame Shot herself in the neck Collapsed, then fell on me Oh god, it's hell I see Mommy, Mommy, please wake up, don't die That's when I started to cry 'Cause lord knows, I saw myself through my mother's eyes I saw myself through my mother's eyes Her body started shaking A tear rolled off her cheek She took the needle out her neck that's when I started to speak Children of the night, don't give up the fight The world did you wrong, so imma do you right Children of the night, don't give up the fight The world did you wrong, so imma do you right They say I died in these streets But I was just resurrected Waiting on life I got the blood of christ If god is our father That means we're brothers But how could that be?

We ain't got the same mother See your mother was a virgin My mother she wasn't Every night the devil made her sleep with her cousin Every night she tried To tell the devil to leave But he would suffocate her Tell her never to breathe And now I'm in the world With the gene of a serpent He can feel me when hurtin’ I can see when he's lurking Then one day an angel told me satan my dad Then they felt fire when the devil get mad Children of the night, don't give up the fight The world did you wrong, so imma do you right Children of the night, don't give up the fight The world did you wrong, so imma do you right

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

// 13

Oh, Valentine’s Day

BY EVELYN NAMN // Artist/Vendor

Oh, Valentine’s Day The day filled with lacy cards Heart-shaped candy And big bouquets of flowers Oh, Valentine’s Day As only we can celebrate it Filled with moments That are magical That are ours to share

Goal-setting

BY MARCUS GREENE // Artist/Vendor

In 2018 I felt my life wasn't going anywhere.

First things first, I prayed to God, then made my list. Then I proceeded to make my appointments.

Doctors, house, Social Security number, VA benefits and paper sales. I am also still jobsearching. But most of all is my relationship with my girls. They are not in my future goals because I want first to find housing, increase my income and savings, and raise my credit score.

Let's face it: No one wants to be a loser. In my life experience, I have noticed that people have different value systems. Material things are usually beautiful things, but there is not everything. As I measure my growth or my progress through life, I find that God and family are priceless.

Further, as I measure my growth or my progress through life, not comparing it with anyone else's, I'm just doing my best each and every day, keeping my head up to the sky, Earth, Wind and Fire.

Thank all of you for your support. And thank God.

The grand essentials to happiness In this life are the key components Love, Live and Love again There is always something to do in life Always something to love in life And always something to hope in life Keep in mind that love is important It can be given like a gift Of one’s inner-most soul to another So both souls can be joined as a whole

The monkey and the pilot

BY MICHAEL CRAIG // Artist/Vendor

The monkey was distraught, sitting under a tree, trying to figure out how life had become so difficult. It felt estranged. Nothing that it had expected to achieve in life had occurred.

It was sitting there, looking at the clouds with tears in its eyes. Then it started to think and realized that it could not be downtrodden any further. At that point, it started looking for solutions to the predicament that it was in.

The monkey saw answers in the clouds and realized that it could resolve all of its problems with faith and motivation. And did.

Before long, the monkey was no longer distraught. With full confidence, it overcame all worldly difficulties and was flying well above the clouds, where it could see that here was so much more in the world.

It had become the PILOT. The pilot of its own destiny!

Oh Valentine’s Day We’re been waiting for you, And wondering when you would arrive Waiting for the tons of sweets and roses And so much more So, today, as Valentines go out To people near and far This one I’m sending right to you To say how nice you are

My name is Moyo:

Meeting Fela Kuti

BY MOYO ONIBUJE // Artist /Vendor

This is part four of an ongoing series. In part three, Moyo wrote about his first marriage, his son and coming to the United States.

I come from a huge family, a country bordering three continents, and my experiences are vast. I will be sharing them in time. In the great tradition of Alex Haley, one of the greatest writers America has ever seen, I continue this series.

When I first met Mr. Fela Kuti — the creator of the musical style “Afro Beat," a multi-instrumentalist and leader of an 18-piece orchestra called "Fela and the Egypt 80"— I believe I was 13 years old.

Fela's mother, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, a women's rights activist, took me to see him on a street named after his father, Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, the principle of the only grammar school in the country at that time. The car we drove was a Volvo.

I remember it had a strange horn, something your car really needed in Lagos, Nigeria, because of the constant traffic jams.

It was 1977. Fela was in his late thirties. This “fella” had hands the size of two gorilla paws and was very wealthy. As young as he was, Fela already had several albums to his credit.

As I entered his estate, a series of adjoining compounds, I saw Paul McCartney (of Beatles fame) come into the room. A cultural festival was going on that had invited artists, dancers, musicians and sculptures from all over Africa. The centerpiece was carved by Nigerian Yoruba master carver Olowe of Ise, whose work sits on the fourth floor of the new Smithsonian

African-American museum in Washington, D.C. The event, called FESTAC, was the costliest festival to have been celebrated on the African continent. It is what made Fela a household name.

Fela was advocating mainly to install African pride in his people at that point. He used to ride on a donkey on a street named after his family to his African shrine, Calcutta. It was called this because the slums where the poor lived reminded him of Calcutta, India — now Kolkata. As he road, the people used to throw leaves underneath the feet of the donkey. This was at the height of his fame. I call this his pre-advocacy period. It was after his house was burnt down by the military that Fela shifted into high gear on issues of poverty and homelessness.

He was banned from entering Ghana by the Ghanaian president for inciting Ghanaian university students to revolt. He started a daily column in the national newspaper, "Chief Priest Speaks," in which he lambasted authorities for corruption and the neglect of millions of homeless and poor Africans. Even today in Nigeria, this is still a massive problem.

In 1977, the military government invested billions of dollars in building fancy theatres to house the millions of Africans and visiting heads of states. Fela complained that the money could better be used to feed the teeming masses of poor and homeless, much the same way that I complained about the two tons of food I used to pick up and trash from Congress every morning on the truck I worked for from 2002 to 2005.

A Nigerian supreme court lawyer’s daughter moved away

from her parents into Fela’s house, which caused a massive scandal and put Fela on the radar of the judges and the military.

He was the most fearless advocate that ever lived. He operated a no-man's-land policy, under a corrupt and oppressive military regime. And no one could do anything about it in Nigeria.

So Fela formed an intimate part of my life and growing-up experiences, from his music to advocacy for the poor and homeless to 200 beatings and 12 imprisonments (which knocked years off his musical output) to his living in abject poverty. The Nigerian nickname for Fela Kuti was "Ebami Eda," which simply means “chief priest.”

In looking at my life in retrospect, I can understand that my story is as tumultuous as Fela's at times. Having been arrested not once in England or Africa but countless times in Washington, D.C., often on trumped-up charges. I've been beaten up many times for my outspokenness, although not tortured, yet. One needs to be prepared for that these days.

Though some people say jail is a form of torture. As I approach mid-life, I aim to chronicle in this series all of the main incidents that have shaped me and all of the emotions that have been stirred up in me over the years. Nonetheless, I cannot write about myself without writing about a man whose music and words came directly from the other world.

In the next part: I will look at my work managing the destruction and recycling of classified and declassified documents out of government buildings such as the U.S. Capitol, the U.S. Supreme Court and others.

1 4 // ST REET SEN S E ME DI A / / FE B . 7 - 2 1 , 2 018

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BY FRANKLIN STERLING // Artist/Vendor

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

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

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

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

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Catholic Charities // 202-772-4300 catholiccharitiesdc.org/gethelp

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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 2114 14th St., NW marthastable.org

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

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D.C. Coalition for the Homeless 202-347-8870 // 1234 Massachusetts Ave., NW dccfh.org

1-888-793-4357 Laundry Lavandería

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

JOB BOARD Housekeeper Town Sports International // Columbia Heights

The Clean Team Member (CT) contributes to

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

Community of Hope // 202-232-7356 communityofhopedc.org

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH HOTLINE Línea de salud del comportamiento

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// 15

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

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

REQUIRED: Physical demands include ability to walk through all areas of clubs, climbing stairs (where applicable), and bending and lifting (e.g., picking up towels, restacking of weights, moving of equipment as necessary).

APPLY: tinyurl.com/tsicleaner

Kitchen Aide - Shower Attendant So Others Might Eat (SOME) // 202-797-8806 71 O St., NW some.org

St. Luke’s Mission Center // 202-333-4949 3655 Calvert St., NW stlukesmissioncenter.org

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

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

So Others Might Eat // Washington DC Part-time, Friday and Saturday 6:30 am - 3 pm

Coordinates daily food service for clients

within dining room for breakfast and lunch.

Coordinates daily volunteer participation and work activities within dining room and kitchen area. Must be able to lift up to 40 pounds. May be required to stand for long periods.

REQUIRED: High School Diploma or GED; 1-3 yrs. customer service experience APPLY: tinyurl.com/SOME-kitchen-shower

Custodian Aramark // The George Washington University

The Welcome Table // 202-347-2635 1317 G St., NW epiphanydc.org/thewelcometable

The Custodial Services Worker cleans and maintains assigned area(s) to meet customer and client satisfaction and safety regulations.

Properly cleans and maintains housekeeping equipment. Follows procedures for storage and disposal of trash and transports it to designated areas. Reports maintenance concerns via work order requests to appropriate personnel.

Secures the facility, ensuring building is locked/ unlocked as required. Ensures security of company assets. Other duties and tasks as assigned by manager.

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

REQUIRED: Previous custodial experience preferred. Frequent lifting, carrying, pushing, or pulling greater than 50 lbs. Must be able to follow basic safety procedures and precautions due to physical risks and exposure to hazardous chemicals.

Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless 1200 U St., NW // 202-328-5500 legalclinic.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

TSI’s success by providing a safe and clean environment for the members. Responsibilities include maintaining cleanliness of the locker room, building exterior, parking lots, entrance, hallways, staircases, exercise area, studios, courts, babysitting room, pools and offices.

APPLY: tinyurl.com/aramarkgwu

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

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