03.11.2015

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Volume 12: Issue 9 March 11 - 24, 2015

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Drugs, Mice, Weapons; Everything a Family Shelter Needs? pgs 4-5

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products difficult to obtain for homeless womenrpg 7 Young st true st udent publi shes or streng ies of th persev and erance

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Street Sense aims to serve as a vehicle for elevating voices and public debate on issues relating to poverty while also creating economic opportunities for people who are experiencing homelessness or poverty in our community.

CORRECTION:

The online version of last edition’s article “Barry Farm Tenants Gear Up to Fight Displacement” has been updated to stress that redevelopment of public housing takes time. Both Sheridan Station and Arthur Capper Carrollsburg remain in progress and are often delayed—like Barry Farm—due to market conditions, funding, and other factors. “It’s our job at the Housing Authority to provide safe and healthy housing,” Christy Goodman, DCHA spokesperson, said. “I can’t promise everyone will receive a voucher, but no one will be turned out on the street.

COVER ART Children playing at the family shelter on DC General’s campus, which also houses the DC Jail, a detox center and a rehab facility.

PHOTOS BY SABRINA CASERTA

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OUR STORY Street Sense began in August 2003 after Laura Thompson Osuri and Ted Henson approached the National Coalition for the Homeless on separate occasions with the idea to start a street paper in Washington, D.C. Through the work of dedicated volunteers, Street Sense published its first issue in November 2003. In 2005, Street Sense achieved 501 ( c ) 3 status as a nonprofit organization, formed a board of directors and hired a full-time executive director.

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March 14 Event Promises Food, Clothin and Much More for Homeless Community

By Julie Gallagher Editorial Intern On March 14, at 12 p.m., the OneUmbrella Foundation will be hosting OneUmbrellaFEST at Franklin Square Park NW, an event that provides food, clothing, job and resume workshops, medical care access and fun for the homeless community.

“We have held this event on a quarterly basis since fall 2013 and it has been a huge success in the Washington, D.C. area,” OneUmbrella’s Director of Community Outreach, Jessica Burns, said.

Last year over 10,000 meals were provided at OneUmbrellaFEST to over 1,000 homeless individuals. This year they are

expecting an even larger turn out, with about 200 volunteers, Burns noted.

According to Burns, hot food and togo sandwiches will be provided. Donated clothing will be pre-sorted and displayed for people to look through and take, and a barber will be at the event.

OneUmbrella volunteers will be available to help those who attend the event navigate online job searches and applications, edit resumes, set up email accounts and conduct mock interviews.

OneUmbrella describes this job initiative as putting participants in contact with individuals and organizations to “support them in their mission to get off the streets and rejoin the workforce,” according to

the event on Facebook.

Unity Health Care will be present at the event to provide basic medical screenings and make follow-up appointments.

A live DJ will be at the event, encouraging dancing and an afternoon of fun!

There will also be a local artist at OneUmbrellaFEST with a station set up for participants to enjoy.

“OneUmbrella’s overall mission this year is to help homeless people get off the streets, help them get housing, jobs and integrate them back into the community,” Burns said.

Anyone interested or in need is encouraged to attend. Volunteers can sign up at oneumbrellafest.splashthat.com.

Restaurant Partners with Legal Clinic to Feed Washingtonians in Need

By Jacquie Lee, Editorial Intern

Florida Avenue Grill, a local restaurant, and the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless (WLCH) kicked off a mealexchange program on February 25, 2015, called Meal-for-Meal Wednesdays. For every meal purchased in the restaurant on a Wednesday in 2015, Florida Avenue Grill will donate one meal to a person in need.

“We want to help Washingtonians in need...and just give back to the community who gave to the Grill,” said Toni Jones, media relations intern for Florida Avenue Grill.

Last year, the Grill and the Legal Clinic partnered in the Grill’s third annual “Goodwill at the Grill” Thanksgiving Community Breakfast, and served over 350 Washingtonians in need. Now, they are expanding “Goodwill at the Grill” all year long, Jones said.

Meal-for-Meal Wednesdays is the brainchild of Grill owner Imar Hutchins. He modeled the idea off of a popular campaign by Tom’s Shoes, a company that promises to

provide a pair of shoes to someone in need for every pair a customer buys. However, Hutchins wanted to go local.

“We don’t have to go around the world to find people in need. We can go right across the street,” Hutchins said. “We wanted to galvanize public awareness around that campaign.”

A lawyer himself, Hutchins decided to partner with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless because he wanted to raise awareness about the options many of his lower-income customers had.

“They weren’t even aware of some of the things that are available to help them free of charge,” he said.

The Legal Clinic set up a booth at the Grill’s Thanksgiving Community Breakfast last year and provided legal advice and gave information about legal resources available in the District. This year, Hutchins hopes to continue the trend and educate his neighbors about the legal options they have through the non-profit le-

gal community. For every meal pledged to a person in need, an employee marks it down on a chalkboard in the restaurant’s back office. Currently, the Grill is working on how to digitize that system, but soon the public can see how many meals have been pledged so far by visiting the Grill’s website, www.floridaavenuegrill.com, Hutchins said.

An Easter “Good Will at the Grill” event is scheduled for April 8 and will be the first of four Grill events to distribute food. April 8 is also six days after the District’s budget is announced, which is no coincidence.

“The budget will have just come out, and the clinic and other advocates for certain things will be there. It’s a chance to comment on what was in there and what wasn’t in there…[and] we can organize people to rally around whatever changes need to happen,” Hutchins said. “[The event] is after Easter, but mainly it’s for after the budget comes out.”

STREET SENSE March 11 - 24 2015

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NEWS IN BRIEF

Florida Teacher Chooses Homelessness

By Julie Gallagher, Editorial Intern

Thomas Rebman was a middle school English teacher in Orlando, Florida, when he decided to voluntarily go homeless for thirty days in July 2014 to teach his students about homelessness.

Rebman, according to his website (homeless-hungry.org), began his journey with his ID and the clothes he was wearing. He only used legal government services, like shelters and food pantries, to survive. In order to make money to pay for necessities, he donated plasma.

During this time, Rebman kept a blog on his Facebook page “Homeless and Hungry,” and updated videos to YouTube so his students gain some first-hand perspective on homelessness. The Facebook page attracted a community of over 12,000 followers and, as a result, $4000 was raised to donate to various organizations, according to his website.

One of the biggest challenges for Rebman was that Orlando criminalizes homelessness. According to a report issued last year called “No Safe Place,” issued by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, “34% of homeless people in the Orlando area are without shelter beds, yet the city restricts or prohibits camping, sleeping, begging, and food-sharing.”

Rebman, in many of his videos, expressed anger with these laws and their confusing nature. He explained that problems with law enforcement arise when the laws are not understood.

“I can’t figure them out, and I’ve got a master’s degree,” Rebman told the Orlando Sentinel. “I know two of my fellow homeless who were arrested.”

Since the conclusion of Rebman’s 30day journey, he has devoted himself to educating people about homelessness. His Facebook page is updated daily with information and takes donations on his website.

LAPD Fatally Shoots Homeless Man

By Jennifer Ortiz, Editorial Intern

The Los Angeles Police Department is currently investigating the fatal shooting of a homeless man that occurred on Sunday, March 1.

Two officers and a sergeant shot the man after he tried to fight for another police officer’s weapon according to police Cmdr. Andrew Smith. The man was declared dead at the scene. The man’s identity has not been released, but witnesses say he went by the street name “Africa,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

Police officers made their way to 5th and 6th streets on Sunday afternoon after receiving a call reporting a robbery, according to Smith’s account of the occurrence. Smith reported to the LA Times

that the officers approached Africa, and he “began fighting and physically resisting the officers.”

According to Smith, the officers tried to take the man into custody and later tried to use a Taser, but it was “ineffective.”

The video captured by a bystander shows Africa throwing punches at the police officers who tried to detain him.

They dropped him to the ground as another officer charged at a woman who had picked up a baton off the ground.

According to the LA Times, an enhanced version of the video shows Africa reaching for the officer’s waistband before the three other officers fired at him.

Smith told the LA Times that investiga-

tors will use audio enhancing software on the video to determine what was said during the altercation. Investigators are also looking for additional footage that may have been captured by body cameras that the officers wore on Sunday.

During a news conference on Monday, LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said that the officers involved in the shooting were “specially trained in dealing with homeless people and mental health issues” as part of the LAPD force that focuses on skid row.

A resident of that area, Ina Murphy, told the LA Times that Africa arrived in the area about 5 months ago after spending 10 years in a mental facility.

Several witnesses have conflicting ac-

counts of the occurrence on Sunday.

An area resident said that people are allowed to sleep on the streets from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. and that the police had asked Africa to remove his tent several times that afternoon.

Another witness, Dennis Horne, said that the police arrived when Africa began fighting with someone inside his tent. Officers used a Taser on Africa and dragged him out of the tent after asking him to come out.

During a press conference on Monday, Los Angeles Mayor, Eric Garcetti said, “I don’t think you or I should judge tactics or whether a situation was done right or wrong before an investigation is done.”

“Doing It For the Kids,” Weathering a Family Shelter

By Sabrina Caserta Editorial Intern

Take the District’s blue line past GWUFoggy Bottom, past Federal Circle and get off at the Stadium Armory Metro Station.

As soon as you emerge from underground, you’ll see a very different picture than the one the city’s tourist board boasts.

Replace monuments with dilapidated bricks, museums with dirty glass and diplomats with the city’s most impoverished and vulnerable residents- the homeless.

You’ll be greeted by DC General- a former hospital turned 288-unit emergency Homeless Shelter circa 2001. The campus’ prison, detox center and rehab facility surround the shelter’s stained and worn bricks. A stark contrast to the new, bright playground which rests in the center of it all, serving as a reminder to the rest of the world that children do live herecontrary to what you would initially think.

Littered outside the shelter are residents, passers-by and junkies. You might find LeDawn Garris with her braids tucked behind her ears, smoking a Newport.

The 39-year old has been a District native her entire life, but has been a resident of DC General for a year, with little

LeDawn Garris outside of DC General.

PHOTOS BY SABRINA CASERTA AND JASMIN PICARIELLO

hope of leaving. Instead, she shares one small room with her three teenagers.

Four mattresses, with one on the floor.

“They say this is temporary, but they lie. I wanna go somewhere affordable and safe,” Garris said. “I can’t wait to leave DC General. I ain’t never coming back.

Never. I rather sleep on the streets. If I didn’t have my kids, I could get by, but I don’t want my daughters on the streets.

They can’t take it like I can.”

A report released in 2014 revealed that more than 25 percent of all homeless people in the nation’s capital are children, and half are people in families. Since 2010, family homelessness in the District has risen 50 percent.

Nationally, homeless families comprise nearly 34 percent of the total U.S. homeless population. The reasons why families experience homelessness range from lack of affordable housing to domestic violence, mental disabilities, fractured social supports, unfinished education and lack of employment opportunities.

Many families, even if they could work, don’t earn adequate wages. 20 percent of all U.S. jobs wouldn’t keep a family of four out of poverty. The National Center On Family Homelessness projects that some 5.8 million units are needed nationally to fill the gap in affordable housing for low-income households. The growing divide leaves the homeless with few options.

“Ain’t no affordable housing in D.C., except Southeast. And you can’t live there unless you a survivor. You can’t be scared, cause it’s hard,” Garris said. “And now they say, ‘Ms. Garris you ain’t got no money, you here for the rest of your life.

Be prepared. My daughters don’t understand, they say, ‘Ma, how can someone let us be homeless like that?’”

In a city that some of the most powerful call home, on any given night nearly 8,000 are without just that- a home.

Many take comfort in groups, gathering at metro stations, airport lobbies, and for some, homeless shelters.

DC General children playing on the grounds recent $450,000 addition.

Even the ones with mice, cold water and little heat- like DC General- can be better than the streets. The shelter spends $156 a day per unit on case management, operations, food, security and facility costs according to the Department of Human Services (DHS) Fiscal Year 2015 budget report.

“We’ve got mice, we just had scabies and I don’t even know what that is,” Garris said. “This facility is too big, they do what they can, but stuff slips through the cracks.”

DC General garnered national attention nearly a year ago after the disappearance of now 9-year-old Relisha Rudd, a former resident. The only suspect is 51-year-old Khalil Tatum, a janitor at the shelter who committed suicide after allegedly killing his wife, just weeks after Rudd’s mysterious disappearance.

The trail stopped when Tatum’s dead body was found in Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, a northeast Washington park. Each passing month offered no more clarity on where the girl who offered a general exuberance for life, might be.

Her disappearance haunts the city to this day, especially Garris, whose 15-yearold daughter was raped when she was just six years old in a Maryland area they were living at the time.

It’s projected that 83 percent of homeless children have had been exposed to at least one serious violent event by age 12, adding to the trauma and affecting both their physical and mental faculties.

“That little girl should’ve never happened. There ain’t no reason she should be missing. That’s a life, a child. Someone needs to be watching them,” said Garris. “I think it [DC General] should be shut down. I think it should at least be a smaller setting- a smaller setting would be a better setting.”

With its dysfunction, there were talks of closing down DC General and selling the property. In late 2014, city officials discussed the idea of converting five or six smaller buildings into 40-50 unit family shelters dispersed throughout the metro area.

“We are supportive of replacing DC General with smaller shelters through-

STREET SENSE March 11th - 24th, 2015

5

COVER STORY out the community,” said Kate Coventry, Policy Analyst at D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute. “But, you can’t close it without having those other facilities in place. It’s not going to be quick, but we need to start making progress.”

Funding for the several smaller shelters could potentially come from the operating budget for DC General, which in fiscal year 2014 was over $14 million.

“There is an open solicitation for smaller, more community based locations. We anticipate DC General to close in the next year and a half, but the Bowser Administration wants to close most responsibly,” said Dora Taylor, DHS Public Information Officer.

According to Taylor, all 254 families currently living in DC General should be placed in the next 18 months, though they still anticipate the need for emergency shelters.

The District’s homeless with face another Washington winter before 18 montsh have passed. The city is responsible for providing the homeless shelter during times of hypothermia and hyperthermia. The District’s annual Winter Plan went into effect on November 1 and will stay in place until March 31 for this season. It provides for emergency shelter whenever the temperature falls below 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

The city was formerly housing the homeless in recreation centers chock full of cots. However, as a result of the successful Dignity for Homeless Families Amendment Act of 2014, homeless families must be afforded a place with “four non-portable walls, a ceiling, and a floor that meet at the edges so as to be continuous and uninterrupted,” a “door that locks from within as its main point of access,” sufficient insulation, lighting the occupants can turn on and off and access to hot shower facilities.

This bill passed by the Council last November amends the definition in the Homeless Services Reform Act of 2005.

With the influx of families who sought

shelter for the colder months of this year, the city was forced to rent out hotel and motel rooms as shelter.

Mayor Muriel Bowser plans to introduce a proposal to solve the District’s family homelessness by 2018. With the help of the Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH), they have developed a ‘comprehensive strategic plan’ to guide the rest of the city in remedying the homelessness crisis.

“The plan is to prevent homelessness whenever possible, keep it brief and make sure it’s not repeated,” Coventry of D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute said. “There’s no end to homelessness, the key is to improve our response to it.”

The plan is scheduled to be released on March 13th. There will be a public comment meeting, as well as a meeting with consumers at DC General, where comments are expected back by March 20th.

“It’s an ambitious, but achievable goal and we believe it’s one our community shares and must all reach. As the District continues to grow and thrive, we must utilize every possible tool to ensure that no resident, especially our vulnerable children, are left behind,” Mayor Bowser said.

The ongoing Rudd case highlighted flaws in the system. The District came under fire for a myriad of disturbing facts about the case; the 8-year-old had been missing for over 2-weeks before it was officially reported, even though she had a mounting number of school absences.

Also, DC General staff noticed the inappropriate relationship between Tatum and Rudd, but failed to report it. Similarly, social workers were aware that there was suspected abuse and family dysfunction, but did not intervene.

“We always knew we were working with a very high-risk population, I mean kids who are experiencing housing instability are prone to any number of threats and tragedies, but at the end of the day, I mean we all have a responsibility to do more to protect them,” said Kelli Beyer,

DC General residents during Homeless Children’s Playtime Project programming.

Families passing by the bus stop located on the DC General campus. the Communications and Outreach Manager for Homeless Children’s Playtime Project (HCPP). “In the case of Relisha I think there’s a lot of agencies who probably are wishing at this point that they had done something more.”

HCPP serves several shelters throughout the District, including DC General. They operate twice a week, providing a variety of play and educational opportunities for homeless children.

As a result of Rudd’s disappearance, 26 recommendations were drafted and have been, or are undergoing the process of being implemented at DC General. Some of these include stricter rules against fraternization between staff and residents, enforcing curfew, as well as improving case management, security measures, facility monitoring and training for shelter staff.

“We were impressed with the 26 recommendations from the Relisha Rudd report,” Beyer said. In response to Rudd, HCPP has made the commitment to focus more on attendance and keep track of where their kids are at all times.

Just a couple of months ago, Garris found out there was a male pedophile living with her and another 200-something families in DC General. ‘We always the last ones to know,” Garris said. “We didn’t know ’til they haul him out.”

The man had been living in the shelter with his girlfriend and her children for under three months, it was ‘a difficult case to flag,’ according to Dora Taylor, the Public Information Officer for DHS. “The family came from Maryland and he had not been registered as a sex offender in D.C. There was lapse in accounting for his registry,” Taylor said, “Technically there’s no law that says they cannot be there, but we are working to clear up some of these procedures.”

Misconduct tends to happen in the stairwells where there aren’t cameras, according to Garris. Despite the ‘no fraternization’ rule imposed by the District, staffers will ‘play picks’ with residents; either pursuing a sexual relationship or

paying them special attention, another DC General resident noted.

Homeless youth are exposed at higher rates to pedophilia, human trafficking rings and some even resort to ‘survival sex,’ and exchange of sexual favors for food or shelter according to the National Network for Youth.

“DC General is not a shelter, it’s a prison. I’m telling you, we got prostitution, we got drugs… There’s drugs baby, running through this joint. You just name it,” Garris said. “Anything could break off in here.

We got no safety.”

“I’m certain there are security checks, I have no documented cases of weapons smuggled in,” Taylor said. “We do have a problem with drugs outdoors. We are working to get the bus stop moved off campus, that seems to be a magnet for that activity.”

Some female residents walk in and out of the shelter with a knife stuffed in their bra, according to Garris. ‘Wire bra,’ they’ll explain if the metal detector goes off.

“A lot of people have weapons, probably guns too. All they gotta do is put it in their bags, security can’t check our bags.

Now I’m really scared,” Garris said. “But I don’t fight. Step and move. I got my kids.

You can’t make me mad, being in here is mad enough.”

Garris suffers from a reading disability, but travels to take classes at Literacy Volunteers and Advocates (LVA) in Northeast Washington. The nonprofit coalition combats adult illiteracy by offering a myriad of classes and programming specific for people dealing with learning challenges.

Garris’ dreams consist of becoming a housekeeper and living somewhere safe.

“I cry a lot, I feel bad… Some people treat you indignant, but I’m not stupid. I know when I’m not being treated right…

My mom never taught me shit, and now that I learnt it, it’s hard,” Garris said.

“Nobody knows when they could become homeless. We ain’t never gonna get this shelter right, if they watching us, who’s watching them?”

Service Providers Attempt to Circumvent Transportation Barrier

By Jacquie Lee Editorial Intern On Monday March 9, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a $5 million investment in safety and aesthetics at a Southeast D.C. intersection.

“The improvements we’re making near the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X Avenues are an important step to realizing the goals of Vision Zero,” Bowser said.

Vision Zero is a transportation safety strategy inspired by and named after a Swedish policy that aims to reduce the number of serious traffic accidents and deaths to zero. Vision Zero has already been adopted by other major U.S. cities such as New York and Los Angeles. The initiative was part of the mayor’s platform in 2014, along with several other transportation goals.

As the mayor puts her transportation platform into action, Metro riders are eager to see more of her talking points realized. During her campaign, Bowser also called for equity and inclusion in transportation planning policy; to address the needs of the District’s most underserved communities; and to improve transportation services provided to individuals with disabilities.

In Washington, debate over the cost of housing tends to overshadow the affordability of and access to transportation.

Fare prices rose three percent--10 cents per ride-- on average for Metrorail last year. Bus fare rose to $1.75 per ride, according to Washington Metropolitan Transit Authority (WMATA)’s website.

After a month of requesting data in regard to the Metro budget and programs, Metro was unable to provide anything substantial.

“The budget advances Metro’s strategic plan and includes funding to provide safer, better, and more service, all while continuing safety improvements, the rebuilding of the Metro system, increasing capacity, and improving the effectiveness of the current rail and bus networks,” Metro posted on www.wmata.com last year.

But for many homeless people in the District, the rising cost of transportation hurts more than it helps.

“Sometimes I had to miss appointments because if I’m hungry, I’m not going to catch the bus, I’m going to eat,” Ken Martin, a Street Sense vendor, said.

Before obtaining a MetroAccess card, Martin had to choose between going to doctor’s appointments and eating. MetroAccess allows cardholders to travel for free on Metro bus and rail, as well as request a van to come pick the cardholder up at any given location for a maximum of $6.50 per ride. Martin received his card last year. But obtaining the card was difficult, he said.

“You have to demonstrate your illness.

They put you on an incline and watch you walk,” Martin said. “They don’t make it easy for someone who is suffering to pass the test.”

A 2010 report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Policy Development and Research labeled transportation as a structural barrier to mainstream services for homeless individuals.

For low-income residents in the District, service providers try and bridge the gap in funds people need for transportation.

Providers can purchase Metro tokens-small coins with an M in the center--that can be used instead of cash for Metro fare. Each token is worth about $1.75, and provides a one-way ride, according to Executive Director of Thrive DC Alicia Horton. These tokens have been phased out of general sales by Metro, but service providers like Thrive DC can still purchase them from Metro’s headquarters.

“Now that it’s only social services [who can purchase tokens] indicates to me that they are in the process of weaning [tokens] out of the system,” Horton said.

For those who meet the criteria for a disability discount, Metro offers reduced fares. Someone can receive a Metro Disability ID card if they are 65 or older, under 65 but on Medicare, a veteran, or after filling out an application to prove their disability.

Miriam’s Kitchen helps clients apply

for those fares, and also provides Metro bus or rail tokens. However, the Metro tokens Miriam’s Kitchen distributes are only available for those traveling to medical appointments. They run out quickly and can’t be given to everyone, according to Advocacy Director Kurt Runge.

“A lot of people walk or use their own limited funds to ride public transportation,” Runge explained.

Thrive DC sets aside $700 a month for tokens and transportation assistance, which is far too little according to Horton. Since the fare increased last year, that $700 has been spread even thinner.

“We turn more people away than we are able to help,” Horton lamented. “[Tokens are] included in our budget, but we have to raise our budget every year.”

Thrive DC provides tokens for transportation to doctor’s appointments, job interviews and to people who are waiting for their first paycheck from a new job.

Organizations find that raising funds for transportation is difficult because people don’t like to pay for it.

“It’s not an area that a lot of foundations find very sexy,” Horton said. “They would rather pay for food or things that people can wrap their heads around in terms of emergency needs.”

Federal grants won’t pay for transportation because it’s difficult for the government to track how the money is spent, according to Horton.

“It’s more of an accounting headache [for them],” she said.

If tokens are phased out completely by Metro, transportation costs could grow even higher for service providers who pass out tokens.

“Tokens offer a cheaper and easier method of assistance…SmartTrip cards get lost or damaged and if people haven’t registered for them, then they cost money,” Horton said.

Thrive DC client, Evelyn Hodgson, 57, travels five days a week, but without Metro tokens she can’t make it to doctor’s appointments, or to visit her mother in the hospital, she said.

An issue for all public transit users,

not just homeless riders, is the safety of the Metro rail stations. Some stations are safer and have better upkeep than others, according to Hodgson. She feels much safer at the Columbia Heights Metro Station than at the Rhode Island Metro Station.

“Sometimes people will be hanging around [at the Rhode Island station] and it is not safe,” Hodgson said. “Someone will come up to you and take your money.”

According to the MetroTransit Police 5-Year Crime Report, there were 358 “snatch and pickpocket” crimes in 2014, down by more than 300 from the previous year. Nevertheless, Ken Martin also notices a big difference in the quality of stations throughout the city.

“If you go to Addison Road Station and you visit Rockville or Shady Grove, you see significant differences,” Martin said. “You don’t see people hanging around smoking and acting any kind of way they want to act on the red line like on some parts of the blue or orange line.”

The average median household income is $15,648 higher near the Columbia Heights Metro Station than the Rhode Island Metro Station, according to a neighborhood income map created by the MIT “You Are Here” project.

The median household income near Shady Grove is $46,921 more than the area surrounding Addison Road Station. “[We need to] get Metro to admit that they are discriminating on routes and in certain areas,” Metro rider Cynthia Irston, 52, said As 2014 came to a close, mayor-elect Bowser resigned from WMATA’s board of directors in anticipation of her transition and inauguration. During her tenure on the board, Bowser led the development of Metro’s first affordable housing policy. The policy stipulates that developers proposing residential projects on WMATA-owned property must comply with local affordable housing requirements and are encouraged to seek creative sources of financing such as low-income housing tax credits.

Metro riders such as Irston await the mayor’s vision of transportation equity for all eight wards.

STREET SENSE March 11 - 24, 2015

Providing Pads, Period By: Jennifer Ortiz Editorial Intern

Donations of soaps, shampoos and toothbrushes meet the needs of many who experience homelessness, but during a particular time of the month, women need more than these common donations to maintain proper hygiene.

“When you think about homelessness, you think about being unsheltered and about any immediate needs that you can support,” Whitney Parnell, Community Engagement Manager at Capitol Hill Group Ministry,said. “You’re not thinking, ‘Once a month a woman is on her period, so I should be giving pads to organizations for them to give out.’”

Angie Whitehurst, a Street Sense vendor, said that most shelters she has been to have feminine hygiene products, but they run out. When going without an adequate supply of these products, “you learn to do things in different ways, which can be dehumanizing,” Whitehurst said.

Jamila Hogan, an artist who works under the stage name “Jay Mills” works with a coalition of artists, Will Rap 4 Food, providing for the needs of women experiencing homelessness.

Mills was first inspired by a Washington Post article that highlighted the need for toiletries in New Jersey shelters. Then, a

friend told her a story that launched her into action.

“There was a young woman who had her cycle for the first time at the shelter, and there were no products for her.

That’s what took my breath away,” Mills said. “That’s when I thought, ‘We can’t do this. We can’t ever have someone not having a pad in D.C. It’s uncalled for.’”

Mills researched various homeless shelters in the District and found that most women’s shelters had an adequate supply of feminine hygiene products. However, when she reached out to larger shelters that serve both genders, particularly Thrive DC, she found that female sanitary pads topped the list of the most requested items.

When Mills arrived at Thrive DC, they did not have a specific budget for toiletry items. They provided her with the number of women they served in order to calculate the approximate number of women’s sanitary pads needed per month--roughly 14,000. This helped her establish a fundraising goal of $3,500 a month. The money raised buys sanitary pads, and any excess goes towards deodorants and shampoos which follow on the list of Thrive DC’s needs according to Mills.

Thrive DC’s Volunteer and Communications Coordinator Greg Rockwell said that they tend to get a lot of donations

of tampons, but that is not what most women want.

“It’s an expensive product, and it’s such a huge need we have,” Rockwell said regarding sanitary pads. “It’s great to have another partner in reaching out to our community. There are over 8000 people who are homeless in D.C., and we need all the help we can get.”

Mills explained that as a woman, she is able to understand the fluctuation of needs in terms of estimating how many feminine hygiene products a woman uses.

“It doesn’t matter how many women you know, there are just certain things you don’t know unless you’re a woman,” said Mills. “One of these things is how many pads you need for your cycle. The answer’s not simple. It varies.”

Street Sense vendor Sasha Williams explained that having an irregular menstrual cycle has deterred her from wanting to ask for tampons so frequently. The shelter gave her a few products when she first arrived, but because “it’s kind of embarrassing to ask” Williams tries to purchase them herself whenever she can.

“When I go to the store and I have enough money for that box of tampons, I’m so happy,” Williams said.

Whitney Parnell said that though she hopes that women can feel empowered enough to ask for feminine hygiene products, she understands that it can be a dif-

7

NEWS

ficult and uncomfortable situation.

“Facing homelessness, the compromise of pride that has to come with asking for anything in that certain situation is already something that’s so heart wrenching to think about,” Parnell said. “But menstruating is a very personal experience that women who aren’t in these circumstances already have trouble talking about in society.”

Mills told Street Sense that through the work that she does with WIll Rap 4 Food, she has met other artists who are “committed to the cause.” Will Rap 4 Food’s seasonal service project, “Breaking Bread” once served 3,500 lunches for people experiencing homelessness in one day.

Will Rap 4 Food will participate in an upcoming fundraising event on March 21 that will also include charity vendors selling food, jewelry, books etc. All proceeds will go to Thrive DC’s toiletry fund. The coalition of artists encourages all members to find charities that work hands on with people in need. Through her fundraising efforts at Thrive DC, Mills has learned about many facets of homelessness.

“When you have people who are starving, when there’s not enough food, it’s hard to say we need these other things that are considered a modern day luxury,” Mills said. “Just giving these women pads is something so small in terms of other things that they need.”

Advocates Fight for Acknowledgement of a Universal Human Right

By Clara Lishan Ong, Editorial Intern

Washington, D.C. has one of the highest rates of homelessness in the country: 5 times higher than the national average, according to a June 2014 report by the Transitional Housing Corporation and DC Community of Hope.

Robert Warren, Executive Director of the People for Fairness Coalition (PFFC), was recently invited to speak with law students at Georgetown University to discuss the D.C. Human Right to Housing Initiative and his own experience with housing and homelessness.

PFFC is a city-wide effort to end homelessness for individuals in D.C. through advocacy, outreach and mentorship. “[Homelessness is] perhaps the most visible and most severe symptom of the lack of respect for the right to adequate housing,” according to The Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, an unpaid independent expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC). According to the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights—adopted by member states such as the U.S. in 1948—“adequate housing” is a universal human right.

Yet there is no current national right to any sort of housing or shelter in the Unit-

ed States. The District is one of the few cities in the country with a legal right-toshelter, when temperatures reach below freezing temperatures at least.

“I was so shocked when someone told me that housing was not a human right, but a commodity,” Warren told Street Sense. “Yes, it’s a commodity, but it needs to be available to everyone.”

The new D.C. Human Right to Housing Initiative has been gaining momentum since fall of 2014. The project emerged as a collaboration between the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, D.C. Access to Justice Commission, the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program, and a number of local legal service providers.

The campaign plans a multi-pronged strategy including policy, media and community outreach. The groups are working to develop and implement priorities for legal advocacy. By providing low barrier, comprehensive legal services in D.C., clients may gain access to housing, shelter and life-saving services. A Right to Housing Resolution draft has been introduced to the D.C. City Council with a goal of implementation within the next few years.

The Initiative plans to make legal ar-

Patty Fugere listens as Robert Warren discusses housing and homelessness with her class. | PHOTO BY CLARA LISHAN ONG guments with the “human rights framework,” which consists of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and six other core human rights treaties the U.S. has signed. These agreements recognize housing as a right, but do not bind the U.S. to act on it. The advocates hope for success on par with the District’s Right to Overnight Shelter Act, which passed with a 72 percent vote in 1984.

In February, The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty filed an assessment with the U.N. on the United States’ ability to follow recommendations it accepted from the HRC in 2010.

Recommendations related to housing

and homelessness.

“Homelessness has not been reduced... homeless persons remain vulnerable to threats...housing affordability remains at crisis levels...and discrimination remains persistent in the housing market,” the report stated.

Patty Fugere, Executive Director of the Washington Legal Clinic, and her colleague Amber Harding conduct the Georgetown University Law Center class Robert Warren visited: “Homelessness, Poverty and Legal Advocacy.” The class requires students to submit a portfolio proposing how to tackle a housing issue of their choice, containing materials such as a strategic plan, media advisory, letters to stakeholders, and publicity outreach materials.

The course aims for students to get hands-on experience in housing advocacy.

Fugere and Harding believe this will “humanize homelessness” for their students.

Warren’s recount of dealing with the recent winter blast did that well enough.

“I met a homeless man on one of the coldest nights,” Warren said. “His blankets were frozen to him and to the ground. I had to peel the blanket off just to get him indoors.”

Community Policing

By Henrieese Roberts, Vendor

WALKING THROUGH FOGGY BOTTOM: Historic Stevens School

By Chris Shaw,“The Cowboy Poet”

Sadly, Black History Month is finished again for another year. We'd be remiss as we begin our stroll through one of D.C.'s oldest “village” communities, Foggy Bottom, if we did not glance at one of the prime surviving sites of this proud legacy-Thaddeus Stevens School!

As one might expect, many Black shrines around Washington Circle have long since vanished: Count Western Market, Stationhouse Number One, Godey's Lime Works, Saint Mary's Projects, and the Gaskins Memorial Baptist Church. These are lost to massive rezoning and redevelopment.

Not a minor miracle is the tenacious survival of the 1868-built Stevens, duly named for an equally-rugged Abolitionist of slavery. This was none other than New York Senator Stevens, who stood proudly at the head of the battle to end such a

"cruel and peculiar institution."

For most of its long existence, the rather humble, quoined-brick structure served elementary grades for “children of Color.”

More recently (since about 1970), the site also accommodated spillover from the newly-integrated Francis Middle School. A little-remembered factoid is the matriculation of Presidential daughter Amy Carter from Stevens, back in 1979!

The future for this institution appears, for now, brighter than her sister landmark from 1868- the Cluss-designed polychromatic Franklin Building just down K Street. Even the designer of humble Stevens is unknown (probably the City Municipal Architect of the time), condos, offices and boutiques are planned for the fabric. (Next installment: Victorian glory, Modernist doom!)

Last year, President Obama signed an executive order creating the Task Force on 21st Century Policing. The Task Force’s goal is to strengthen community policing and trust between law enforcement officers and the communities they serve. The public was invited to participate in a number of ways. The United States Conference of Mayors 83rd Winter Meeting was held here in January and included a session entitled “Strengthening Community Policing in the 21st Century” with several of the Task Force members.It was conveyed that with every tragedy comes opportunity.

A draft report was release on March 2, 2015, compiling agency working group results with public input.

I identify with the policing task force because I believe we can always perfect the workflow and capacity in which we

perform. As a photographers I’ve made goofs, had bad moments, and seen tragedies when out on photo shoots. But when I forgot to put the battery back in my camera or went out without memory cards, I heeded peers’ suggestions to put a sticky note in the battery slot and the memory card door to let remind me that they were empty. It is through peer input like this workflow is improved and tragedies eliminated. It is indeed a tragedy to go on a photo shoot without a memory card or battery. I look forward to communities where public safety for all is a goal and have been happy to see the Task Force and public work to achieve that.

Presidents’ Day Reflection

By Barron Hall, Vendor

In the name of God, gracious and merciful. Poor and homeless in the capital of the world. A bold people cut off because of who they are. At least the Native Americans have their reservations. All we have is the so-called crumbs on the table that were left. Where are our forty acres? And our mules? If I were younger I would try to be anywhere else except here in America.

It’s plain to see, we have been cut off either to sell drugs to each other or to kill each other for money or dignity. Or we are locked away in prison somewhere. We are clearly in the wrong place or a people not wanted! There has to be somewhere better and safer. Shame on you, America.

My God said you will reap what you sow.

We are a better, too intelligent people to be in the shape we are in. We have black athletes, one or two that could cure our ills. But our God says hold on. Vengeance is mine. Unless we have something for America to export, they have no use for us. In Afghanistan, it’s the poppies and the minerals that America wants to control-that we kill and die for. Or the gold and minerals that are in Africa. Where are the house negro boy and girls that marched so they could use the same bathroom or eat at the same table with the masters that are free in America? I guess we don’t matter. Happy President’s Day.

HOW TO DEAL WITH TAXES: OVERDUE

By Arthur Johnson, Volunteer

Dealing with taxes is frustrating enough for most people, but dealing with overdue taxes can be one of the most stressful issues you ever face.

I can’t stress enough the importance of filing your tax return even if you owe more than you are able to pay. Not filing when you owe money carries a penalty of five percent per month of the taxes that are owed. The additional interest on those taxes starts at 0.5 percent per month and increases by the same amount each month until reaching a maximum amount of 25 percent.

Remember that Self-Employment tax is filed with IRS form SE. And the good news is you can deduct half of the self-employment tax as an adjustment to income on your Federal 1040 form, resulting in a reduction of Federal taxes.

For short-term relief you may file an

extension--Internal Revenue Service (IRS) form 4868--that will give you an additional six months to file the return.

However you will be subject to interest and penalties.

If you can’t pay your taxes in the immediate future, the IRS has a program called Fresh Start. Through the program you can file an Offer in Compromise, which allows you to pay an amount less than the what is owed. There is normally a $186 fee to apply, but if you meet the IRS’s low-income guidelines you won’t have to pay the fee or make payments until it is approved. The process requires an IRS form 656 booklet.

Fresh Start allows up to 6 years to repay your tax obligation in full. You can visit the Taxpayer Advocate service to get help.

It is a part of the IRS and responsible for making sure you get the help you need

and that you are treated in a respectful and fair manner. The Washington DC office is at 77 K Street NE Suite 1500 and their phone number is (202) 803-9800.

During tax season, you can receive tax preparation help with filing Federal returns through D.C. Public Libraries. Community Aid DC is helping people at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library; located at 901 G St NW. Hours are Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday 4:30-8pm Thursday 1:30-4:30pm Saturdays 9:30am4:30pm and Sundays 1-4pm.AARP will offer tax help at the Anacostia, Capitol View, Lamond Riggs, Mt. Pleasant, Petworth, and Southwest Neighborhood Libraries.

Please contact the specific libraries for the hours that AARP will be present.

The District of Columbia Office of Tax and Revenue will also have Tax resolution days where you can meet with someone

to try and make payment arrangements if you owe D.C. income taxes. These days also offer help registering a business in the District. There are two upcoming resolution workshops from 4-8pm. One is Wednesday March 18 at Deanwood Recreation Center located at 1350 49th st NE and the other is Wednesday March 25 at the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library. You can also call (202)727-4829 for more information.

These are some options that are available, but everything depends on your personal income and circumstances. The most important thing to remember is to seek assistance with filing and do not under any circumstances ignore the tax bill. The IRS will collect taxes owed eventually, it is to your advantage to work with them.

STREET SENSE March 11 - 24, 2015

FEATURE

Georgetown Freshman Founds Press, Builds Solidarity in Homeless Community

By Emma Holland Editorial Intern Before his first semester at Georgetown University, freshman Andrew O’Brien hatched an idea to create a booklet to tell the stories of people experiencing homelessness. On March 9, “Profiles of the D.C’s Homeless” was registered with an International Standard Book Number (ISBN), and became available for purchase on Amazon.com.

O’Brien--the writer, photographer and editor--was inspired by conversations with people on the street of his hometown, Boston. He signed up for a class, Ethics of Entrepreneurship, in order to access the $1,000 grants it provides students to innovate and do good.

After interviewing some people on the street around Georgetown, O’Brien was lead to the Faces of Homelessness Speaker’s Bureau, part of the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH).

“We get a lot of these sorts of project ideas,” said David Pirtle, a speaker for Faces of Homelessness. “He struck me as very determined to get it done.”

Pirtle was right.

One month after meeting with Michael Stoops, Director of Community Organizing for the National Coalition, O’Brien brought back the magazine containing 10 profiles of homeless and formerly homeless men and women.

“It was one of the quickest, most successful turn-around projects that I’ve ever seen a student do,” Stoops said.

The project took O’Brien two and a half months to complete, beginning in September 2014.

“We are intern-friendly and studentfriendly,” said Stoops.

Even if a student project or experience just makes an impact on the student, NCH believes it is worthwhile because the students are the future of the U.S., according to Stoops.

“I see young people as one of the groups that’s going to help end homelessness in this country,” Stoops said.

“They’re not as jaded.”

O’Brien seems to think of his youth as an asset as well. His magazine’s introduction reads “I’ve got license to be an unrelenting idealist for at least five more years.”

He isn’t satisfied to let the publication just have an effect on himself either.

There were enough funds to print 125 initial copies. Some were given to the people profiled within. O’Brien plans to charge $10 for the remaining copies in the first batch. The money will go back to Solidarity Press, a publishing collective that O’Brien created for this project. Some will

be used to produce more copies of the magazine. The rest will be used for new projects, according to O’Brien.

He has high hopes for the future of Solidarity Press and wants other writers to get involved and spread the word about social justice and human rights issues.

In the meantime, O’Brien plans to distribute his magazine to as many people as possible.

Michael Stoops says that 90 percent of student projects like these don’t come to fruition, and those that do often perpetuate stereotypes about homeless people.

“The typical lazy reporter will go out and interview the first homeless person he sees and then say that they represent all homeless people,” Stoops said. “[O’Brien] understands that the homeless population is not monolithic.”

O’Brien says he never had to intentionally avoid stereotypes, because they don’t exist in reality.

“I went out, interviewed a random sampling of people, and this is what I got: a highly diverse group of people with no particular stereotype connecting them,” O’Brien said.

He often met his interviewees on the street. He would approach them, ask if they wanted water or anything, especially if they were near a convenience store. Then he would talk to them about the city’s politics or housing. Eventually, O’Brien would ask if they wanted to be profiled in his magazine.

Though some people didn’t want their families to know that they were homeless, or didn’t want this hard time in their lives to be documented, most were happy to share their stories.

O’Brien was grateful and a bit surprised.

“To be honest, if I were in their shoes and some college kid came up to me and asked for my life story after a bit of small

talk, I don’t think I would have been as kind,” O’Brien admitted.

David Pirtle, having shared his own story, was particularly impressed by O’Brien’s interviewing skills when it came to emotional memories.

“He was always able to get past the regular spiel…and really get into the heart of the story,” Pirtle said. “I think sharing stories like these is the most effective way to build empathy for a population for whom people don’t have a lot of empathy.”

The magazine is meant to inform the reader and empower those who are profiled, according to O’Brien.

Pirtle lauded O’Brien’s ability to make their interview-- filled with “um’s”, “oh”s and pauses--into compelling stories.

“I was really impressed with the way he pulled it together, not just my story but everyone’s,” Pirtle said.

Outside of Solidarity Press’s first publication, O’Brien is a member of Georgetown Homeless Outreach Programs and Education (HOPE). It is a student organization that hosts programs relating to homelessness.

He hosted a recent Georgetown HOPE forum featuring Street Sense vendor, Angelyn Whitehurst as a speaker. Street Sense Director of Marketing and Communications Jennifer Okoson also made an appearance to tell students about the organization’s mission and how students can get involved.

O’Brien is now benefiting from a Figge Fellowship to study faith and homelessness.

According to the Georgetown University website, Figge Fellowships give undergraduates the tools for “theological reflection on the human problems of today.”

“Many homeless individuals I met expressed a kind of optimistic fatalism, a fatalism stripped of cynicism, about their situation,” said O’Brien. “Instead of railing against fate for their situation, they instead loved fate and accepted their situation as a kind of test from God.” O’Brien wanted the opportunity to study his observation further.

“I wondered how the public’s perceptions and misconceptions of homeless individuals might affect the formation of this kind of faith within the homeless population,” O’Brien said. “That’s what I’m studying now: stigma and faith.”

The first few sentences of the introduction to Profiles of D.C’s Homeless are, “Hello friends. Thank you for picking up this publication. Let’s get down to business.”

From his first college semester, O’Brien has been doing just that.

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COMICS & GAMES

VENDOR ADVICE: Discipline and Respect

By Gwynette Smith, Vendor

Ode, For My Best Friend

By Anonymous Vendor I figuratively crawl from a goat skin yurt To allow the sun’s rays to bathe over my real (or unoccupied) hurt And you, dear lady, with soul’s grace and alluring beauty so fair To Venus and Apollon one may turn And your regal bearing and quiet wisdom allude Some fabulous powerful airs as to a lady judge!

Yet this is in no manner why my heart’s humours turn to sludge No – this is the reason indifferent season when some turn their faces away In the name of “good propriety” You, for no apparent reason, Shower great kindness on me.

STREET SENSE March 11 - 24, 2015

OPINION

The Cost of Doing Nothing

False Choices

By Brian Carome, Executive Director

Those of us who feel we have been screaming in the wilderness for decades about the moral implications of homelessness can rest our voices. The numbers are in. And if you are in any way concerned with how your tax dollars are being spent, you might want to pay attention to these numbers. The data comes to us from an analysis conducted by The Advisory Board Company--an international health care research, technology, and consulting firm-at the front door of the District’s system for responding to chronic homelessness. $19 million.

That is the price tag for a single year of emergency services provided to more than 800 of Washington’s most vulnerable, chronically homeless people.

“Chronic homelessness” encompasses people who have been repeatedly without housing for years and have at least one, often many, disabling medical conditions.

The group studied had 4,702 emergency room visits; 2,544 ambulance rides to the hospital; 2,346 interactions with the police; 2,154 in-patient hospitalizations; and 1,696 uses of a crisis service (such as suicide prevention).

The average annual cost to provide these emergency services was $40,843 per person. For people like Ricky, a 51-year-

old man who has struggled with schizophrenia for most of his life, medical costs alone were $208,908.

Yet, on average, the cost to provide Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) - including professional case management - is only $20,500. Yes, it costs half as much to house a chronically homeless person as it does to leave them on the street. PSH has been proven to reduce costs by speeding recovery and sharply reducing interaction with emergency services.

At a February 27th briefing at the Wilson Building, Shana Palmieri, Director of the Behavioral Health Division at The George Washington University Hospital, said this about PSH: “Permanent Supportive Housing is a health care solution. It is a healthcare intervention. It will reduce the cost of treatment and increase its effectiveness.

If there was one prescription we could write at the time of discharge from our hospital, it would be a prescription for Permanent Supportive Housing.”

At that same briefing, Waldon Adams, shared his decades’ long struggle with chronic homelessness. He experienced the onset of mental illness as a child.

While in the U.S. Navy he was injured in an explosion, which in addition to physi-

By Neil Donovan, neiljdonovan@comcast.net cal damage caused Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Now struggling with two mental illnesses, Waldon became addicted to crack cocaine. On more than one occasion he received emergency in-patient detoxification services. He was repeatedly and involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospitals. Along the way Waldon contracted HIV. A heart infection nearly killed him. Treatment for both required long in-patient care.

For the past several years, Waldon has lived in a PSH unit. He has been clean and sober for six years, even kicking his addiction to cigarettes. He is training for his 13th marathon. “I had no idea I was costing you so much,” Walson said from the panel. “I felt so bad about it that I became an advocate for PSH.” D.C. Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Brenda Donald said “The administration of Mayor Muriel Bowser is totally committed to ending chronic homelessness. And we expect to be one of the next cities to declare an end to veteran homelessness.”

Thanks to The Advisory Board Company, we now know that anything short would be a tremendous waste of taxpayers’ dollars.

Conservatives Get Sick Too

By Jeffery Mcneil, Vendor

When the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law in 2010, I had no understanding of healthcare. I didn’t understand what an individual mandate was or why we needed it.

My education about the American healthcare system was accidental. I never concerned myself with health insurance because I’ve been lucky health-wise. This wasn’t true with other members of my family. My mother died at 46 from heart disease and my father died last year from prostate cancer.

There is nothing more distressing than seeing the person who raised you transform from healthy to a skeleton. I remember seeing my father writhing in pain, but refusing to see a doctor because he thought they were more concerned about treatment payment than keeping him alive.

During that period, I spent hours with administrators dealing with paperwork that I didn’t understand. In other industrialized nations such as France or Great Britain, a patient can walk in and be seen immediately. In America, you have to file paperwork before doctors will even see you.

I used to believe doctors weren’t in it for the money, but after witnessing my father’s suffering I am no longer a neophyte. Many doctors turned my dad away because he didn’t have the right medi-

cal coverage. If they did see him, they weren’t suggesting treatment, but prescriptions to ease the pain.

Our healthcare system has turned away from morals. Instead, it’s a breeding ground for special interests who care more about protecting their bottom line than aiding the sick and infirmed.

I consider myself a conservative and a Christian. I believe in American values such as hard work, personal responsibility and tough love. Although I believe these values are vital, I also believe in compassion for those who are unable to help themselves.

On March 4, the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing arguments on the King v.

Burwell case, where the plaintiffs argued that the ACA prohibits the federal government from intervening in states that did not set up exchanges.

The federal government provides subsidies such as cost-sharing reductions and tax credits to people who live in states that did not set up state-managed insurance marketplaces.

“If the Supreme court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, millions of people will lose their Health Insurance subsidies and would no longer be able to afford health Insurance,” Health and Human Service Secretary Sylvia Burwell told Republican leaders.

11

Although conservatives have vowed to repeal and replace Obamacare, the Republicans haven’t specified an alternative plan.

I’m not for socialized medicine, but I don’t want to go back to the days of pre-existing conditions either. What these far-right kooks are doing is perpetuating a system that both Democrats, as well as some Republicans, acknowledge is broken.

The Tea Party is selling craziness as conservatism when it comes to our nation’s health care. Healthcare shouldn’t be politicized, it’s something we all need.

Although I feel sickened by what the conservatives are doing, it’s more egregious that after almost four years, Democrats have poorly implemented Obamacare and made little coherent defenses against relentless right-wing assaults for its repeal.

There are many things wrong with Obamacare, but repealing is the talk of crackpots. Our nation needs to discard the motive of profit in our healthcare system and replace it with humanity.

We will all use the healthcare system eventually. In a country as rich as ours, everyone, Republican or Democrat, should spend their last days dying with dignity, without the added stress of worrying about high medical costs.

Choosing between managing and ending homelessness is a false choice and irresponsible advice to give Washington’s new mayor in the middle of an ever increasing crisis. The District has joined a growing number of communities across the country willing to admit that their best local efforts to end the persistent and chronic social disorder of homelessness has failed and worse yet has resulted in an increase.

Without overstatement or exaggeration, we can declare that homelessness in Washington is at a dangerous level requiring immediate action: the city's response to homelessness, as a radical expression of persistent poverty, is both inadequate and inhumane. The mayor's new head of social services and homeless czar both recently testified before the city council, admitting that the city's historic response to homelessness is itself derelict. It is a system in disarray, failing to help the city’s most vulnerable, and wasting money. The city's own negative assessment and troubled findings of homelessness are important conclusions and admissions.

The mayor's advisors believe that now is the time to reorient our thinking away from managing homelessness to ending it. This is bad advice and has already begun to have dangerous and damaging consequences.

The truth is that every plan called "ending homelessness" has only led to increases in the numbers of those in need.

The correct path is to remain oriented on managing homelessness, well enough to avoid perpetuating its difficulties and smart enough to achieve the end of homelessness through the creation of affordable housing for those in need, when they need it. It is the creation of affordable housing that will end the crisis; everything else has been shown to be unsuccessful.

The overwhelming desire to have a chronic problem go away is shallow impetus for reform. The mayor's immediate and lasting response to the city's homelessness crisis will determine whether we truly solve this problem, once and for all, or if we simply kick the can down the road.

The mayor must convey an important message to those concerned, namely, that we will not abandon those who are without housing in the misguided name of progress.

Mayor Bowser must declare that she will not be bound by the false choice of managing homelessness vs. ending it. Rather, she will hold her administration to a new standard, where the crisis of homelessness will be managed well, with utmost integrity, in a culture of accountability and improvement. Through these efforts we will achieve housing for all those in need.

Neil J. Donovan previously served as president of the National Coalition for the Homeless and is aenior advisor to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

The Street Sense Writers’ Group is led by writing professionals and meets every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. The group’s goal is to develop ideas and collaborate on the next great issue of Street Sense.

Grateful in Darkness

By Rachel Higdon

Life is so rough.

Life is an obstacle.

But I love life and I am grateful for the one I have.

I live in a run-down shelter and rely on Street Sense for income.

I fill out job applications, but no one wants to hire me.

So, it’s like I’m stuck in this vicious circle.

But at the end of the day, I feel blessed that I have a bed to sleep in and that I am physically well off.

I am thankful for food stamps and Medicaid.

I am thankful to be able to take showers.

I know one day I will find a decent job, good housing, and become financially independent.

I know God’s got my back.

God is great.

Dad, It’s Your Day

By Ken Martin, Vendor

Yo u w o u l d h a v e been 98 and a welcome sight. Hard to believe it’s been 31 years since you and mom left. I think about you less than I probably should. But I miss you more than I ever thought I would.

Were you still here and I could see you with your grands and great grandchildren, my life would be touched by the living energy you all produce. That might be what I need to make this comeback sooner. God willing, I’ll make it without you.

What else can I do?

Happy Birthday, Mister!

A Homeless Guy With Heart

By Beverly Sutton, Vendor

I want to tell a story about a homeless guy.

Three weeks ago I was sitting outside selling my papers, when this homeless guy told me to come over to him. I went up to him, and he took my hand and he put a bill in it. When I opened my hand up, I thought, Wow,

twenty dollars from a homeless person!

I was shocked. The way he looked, you wouldn’t think he could help, but you’d be surprised. You’d think he wouldn’t have money to give anybody.I told him, “Thank you, I appreciate it! God bless you.” And I told him, “I hope someday you get on your feet, better and better, and you won’t have to carry your clothes around and carry bags on your back.”

This isn’t the first time a homeless person gave me money. I’m black. This man was black. One time, I was homeless and a white homeless lady gave me money like that. I was in his shoes once, and I never gave anyone money like that, because I didn’t have any money to give. But now, if someone will ask me for money to get something to eat, I would give them two or three dollars.

On Mounted Wings By: Levester Green Vendor Since the last vendor profile written about me my student loans have been forgiven. I had hopes of returning to school someday, especially since I’m constantly in a school setting around American University. But I’m still wary that I’ll have a repeat of the oppressing events I experienced when first attempting to return to school.

That was back in 2006 when I was homeless down in Norfolk Virginia. I was staying at the Norfolk shelter on Brooke Avenue when I first got the inclination that I could get out of that bad situation by going to school & completing my degree. I walked past the Educational Opportunities Center almost daily. I was familiar with the organization since they were the ones who initially helped me enroll in school down at South Carolina State University. So I stepped in again, this time at a different location, to plan out & pursue my future.

Shortly after setting myself up with that long distance, futuristic touchdown bomb - I was offered a job by a guy in a car who directed me to All~Star Temp Agency. I thought sure, I could use the extra money to get through the month.

The Manager there was named Walter, I remember. He sent me right out on a light construction job at a Ruby Tuesday, they were building and preparing to open.

Around three days in, I stopped for a bite of breakfast before work at the gas station along the way. The attendant accused me of stealing a pack of 50 cent doughnuts. I was not guilty and ended up tossing my 50 cents at the window and storming out in anger at his accusation. I got about a block away from the job when police pulled up on me and asked me to return to the gas station for something I didn’t do. I refused!

Virginia has a law where the state can

issue a bench warrant based on only an accusation. The first officer called for backup since I was being resistant about a crime I didn’t commit. I was just trying to get to work that day and continue on my way. The second officer must’ve been patrolling the parallel street in pursuit of me. He arrived on the scene, parking crookedly, and immediately hopped out of the car screaming “Get on the ground!”

He extended his blackjack and proceeded to strike me with his wand, breaking my forearm on the first blow. That left me with no choice but to get down on the ground as I was cuffed. “You broke my arm!”, I exclaimed. It made little difference. An ambulance was called out and arrived 30 minutes later, only to put a band-aid on my broken skin and not treat my broken limb!

I spent that whole half hour cursing the officer as he sat there in wait playing Solitaire on his cruiser’s computer. My bag was never checked, being dismissed as “He probably already ate it and discarded it by now”. I sat for a week before I could see a doctor about a cast. I was given 30 days in lockup. Upon release I returned to the scene of my arrest where I discovered why my glasses were never retrieved. They had been stomped on and destroyed, scraped across the concrete.

I left for Maryland at once, where I was expecting to receive my college funding and complete my mission of enrolling in classes once again. In all of the commotion I forgot which schools I had sent my financial aid off to and ended up at the University of Maryland University College since they were offering waived admission fees. I got about two months worth of school in before I was falsely arrested again. Campus police followed me around, issuing citations for trespassing only to have them rescinded by the schools’ administrative offices three times!

I only got through that period of hav-

ing no home, no glasses, and a broken arm with some help from some fellow students. They took me in and accepted me at the school’s radio station. They allowed me to come in out of the cold and spend time with them doing something that I love - playing music! After a night of warmth and lodging provided by the student body, I was arrested following a janitors inquiry of “Do you belong here?”

He asked a second time not being satisfied with my answer of “Yeah!”

I got another 30 days for nothing. I ended up getting jumped in prison for getting a drink of water from the faucet rather than the sink in my cell as suggested. The emergency response team--a.k.a. the “goon squad”-- was called. After I spoke with them calmly, they forced entry into my cell. Seven to eight “goons” began jumping and stomping on me inside after the ringleader had maced me for no good reason other than being protocol and procedure. On top of that one of the goons threatened to rape me as the cowards stole from me and retreated. The attack continued all the way down the corridors, through the medical shower and into an awaiting cell. I just took the assault, baring in mind that one of my younger cousins died from blunt force trauma to the temple, to the dome. These fellas were playing for keeps!

I ended up in the “hole,” traumatized.

I was left there sore, sulking over the events that had just taken place. I was in the youth housing unit, and other people in there let me know that this was a fairly regular occurrence. They were trying to comfort me, but that troubled me even further. I’m a man, a poet with a very loud voice. These were just defenseless children and kids in the same unit with me. I could think my way out of the box, but what about them? They depended on their parents, and their parents weren’t there for them.

STREET SENSE March 11 - 24, 2015

13

VENDOR WRITING

MY KATRINA: Part 29

By Chris Shaw “Cowboy Poet” Episode 28

Meanwhile, Back in Gloryville Anne Rawlins was fuzzy-eyed from weeping. She was lashed to a battered, pale battleship-green bedstead in a garret room of the crumbling Swalm’s Hotel at the Harrison-Gloryville crossroads in the eastern neck of the Delaware peninsula. And where was that fricking scoundrel Bull Grimes, chronic betrayer of his lifelong chum-- none other than the nowvanished Billy Luck!

Anne noticed that the washcloth bonds had frayed from her constant tossing in the bedstead. The corroded metal frame had enhanced the tearing process on the rag. She heard what seemed like a rattle-rattle noise coming up the hollow wood stair hall to her attic enclosure, and jumped up with a small shriek.

Next thing Anne Rawlins knew, Grimes’ besotted bellowing was just a few feet from where she now stood, atop the wobbly old bed. Luckily, she realized, Bull had inadvertently locked both locks on the flimsy door. Now--in a blind rage-Grimes decided to batter the door in, but as the panels splintered, the plywood wouldn’t give immediately...Thank God for insanely stupid, “Bull-headed” men like Grimes!

This raucous din of the crunching veneer, coupled with Grimes’ unearthly cries, allowed Ms. Rawlins ample time to scramble out onto the pitched roof, between the peaky eaves and dormers, and to slide down the rickety red fire escape to the graveled lot. She literally tumbled, softly now, into a straw batting that filled the empty stake-bed truck belonging to Henrico’s Chicken Company. Grimes lay sprawled up above in the now-collapsed bed that had, for a time, served as Anne Rawlins’ temporary prison.

Anne, Billy’s erstwhile main squeeze, was now free-wheeling down Route 50, towards Baltimore. “Where are you headed?” she hollered into the driver’s cab, half hanging over the seats from in back.

“Lexington Market, honey,” replied Hank Hartrant, the chicken and egg driver.

“Weren’t you my man Bill’Luck’s gal, once?”

As the truck bounced across the windhowling, perforated grid of the Bay Bridge’s center span, Anne hollered back over the roar of the truck tires, “Hell yes, and I miss that rascal Billy! How I wish we was back in each other’s arms...” (to be continued)

Manners & Perspective Marcus Green, Vendor

I have a system that I go by.

1)

2)

3)

4)

God rests always in the way I do things. In other words, align my will with God’s will, the sees all.

Love myself, because if I don’t I have no love for anybody else.

Stay positive, no matter what, because my bi-polar, PTSD can hold me back if I let it.

Pray and do for others because it comes back.

Stayed for a Weekend Elizabeth Bryant, Vendor

It’s me, Elizabeth Bryant again. I went to Ocean City with two people, we rode in a car there and contributed some gas money.

I really see God and the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ working in our lives.

A husband and wife let us stay with them. They felt comfortable and so did we. They are really a cool couple, and treated us to seafood. But I couldn’t go

because my leg was hurting from Friday from the cold air, so they brought me food back that I enjoyed. We went to an AA meeting and was no fuss and confusion. We bought food and put it in the freezer so we didn’t have to spend a lot of money. The weather in Ocean City was cold, but I plan on going again if God and the Holy Spirit in jesus name allows. We are going away again for Mother’s Day in May which is cool. My friend went but she had a bad cold.

By Gerald Anderson Vendor

PREVIOUSLY: After a bit, I opened the shade and I could see the plane coming down and then come the BOOM. We bouncing and we be landed.

It hit my stomach in a way I never felt before. I say, “I hope the brakes on this plane good, ‘cause we still like we flying, but on the ground...”

Now that this big old plane has transported me to the District, I look out the window, and everything startin’ to be all new to me, even before I unbuckle my seat belt.

I feel excited and I feel afraid. I’m so curious to get off the plane and out to the airport. What this new life gonna be like?

I’m hopin’ to bump into Bundy and his master. But, wherever they at, I hope they made it safe.

At least I hope the District reminds me something of my hometown, New Orleans.

I hope the food gonna be like that, especially the chicken.

I hope they find us a good place to sleep.

I hope they let us see doctors to check on our health.

I hope I meet up with some of my family, that maybe didn’t go to Texas.

I hope they give us some clothes.

I wonder how the time run. Do it be daylight here? I thought it might be dark most of the day here, because I never been to another state before.

As soon as we entered the airport from the Delta plane, we heard shouts of “Con-

gratulations,” shouts of “Praise God.” It was a crowd of people, cheering like we was celebrities.

The way they was greetin’ us, it seemed they had good folks here, some with volunteer badges, some Red Cross, some military in uniform.

We walked out of the airport to what looked like hundreds of busses. That’s when I caught a flashback to all them National Guard trucks lined up at the projects to help folks get out of New Orleans.

I asked, “What are all them busses out there. Is this a bus station too?”

They tell me the busses was waiting for Katrina evacuees. We loading you up, they say, those busses gonna take you to the armory.

“What?,” I asked. “We staying at an army base?”

One guy, a Metro police—although I didn’t know what that was—said to me, “You gonna be all right.” He told us, “We got health care in a trailer.”

They makin’ sure nobody in serious pain. That right there put a smile on my face. But I still was wonderin’, Who I gonna run into that I know? I really want to run into Calio and KK. They squashed us like sardines into them busses. They drive us across a bridge, and then they say there’ll be a gate and it’ll rail back, and that make me think of prison.

From me bein’ in prison, I was thinking, Now is my chance to get a new life, if they don’t hold New Orleans against me. (to be continued)

Do or Die Homeless

By Jackie Turner, Vendor

The homeless situation in the District is scandalous. When you look in Southeast and Northeast and even some parts of Southwest, you can find blocks of empty apartment buildings, yet there is only one homeless family shelter in the city. HUD is giving $1.8 billion to the District. Washington is getting money at the city level as well, yet the homeless population is becoming larger. Remember one out of five homeless are children. The family shelter – DC General – is not accepting any new residents. Most of the money the District gets for homeless services is going toward back pay for things like hotels and past medical services.

President Obama proposed a bill to help homeless vets that did not include homeless families. It would be harder to get a bill passed to help homeless fami-

lies. Then there are realtors that buy up buildings and keep them empty until the price of the real-estate in that area goes up. Then they remodel and start to rent. They are required to offer a small percentage of their units for low-income renters. The problems is that rental of low income housing is more than the voucher that the government gives. This creates a desperate situation for poor and homeless individuals and families. The people complain and landlords say that is their right to charge what they want for their property, leaving the people out of luck and housing!

The homeless situation in DC is scandalous.

Sooner or later it will be a desperate situation, do or die for the homeless. No money to live.

What Street Sense is About By: Charles Davis, Volunteer

When I wake up, the first thing in my mind is thanking God for another day. After that, it’s time to get my little bills together. That’s when Street Sense comes to mind. Every time responsibility hits me, I have to start counting those papers so I can get moving for the day.

Street Sense is about motivation and preparing myself for better things in my life. Since I have been selling this paper, I have met many good people who are showing me a more positive path in my life and I’m doing better for myself.

I have just applied for my classes in the D.C. Employment Services Assessment Program. Working with Street Sense will really help me get back and forth to class. It will also help me buy my office supplies, which I am really looking forward to getting.

Before I started with Street Sense, I had a very difficult time organizing things.

But now things are coming together. So, I would like to thank God for giving me this opportunity with Street Sense, and I hope and pray things will continue to get better in my life. God Bless!

Love You

Learn

By Robert Warren Volunteer

By Sasha Williams Volunteer

Love I you all the days of my life Love I you through all those lonely nights Love I you till the end of all time Love I you right or wrong Love I you like a love song Love I you that’s all I want to do Love I you for being you Love I you for loving is the way to live Love I you giving all that life has to give Love I you with all my heart and soul Love I you when loves grows old Love I you into the shining light Love I you I love, love, love you.

His love keeps the tears from my eyes, for I know that I only have one duty to keep to, always repeat my glad tiding to you of a word with a light to guide one through A love for you and I for in the next life man will have no tears to cry. For the Peace that Christ said would be for the Believers they will see

Knowledge knows I can and I want to knock someone out or something to make them feel what I want them to feel at the moment Wisdom is like y o u a r e b e t t e r, show them something that they can learn from.....

Love I you through all those lonely nights Love I you till the end For the bold and the proud, Hell was there all the while I think of no more days of hate, only the light of Lord and living in one’s Faith.

Keep Believing

By Lawrence Rogers, Volunteer Keep believing and keep praising.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for.

The evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1.

God created you with a purpose in mind.

I will praise thee, for I am fearfully

and wonderfully made marvelous by thy works. And that, my soul knoweth right well. Psalms 139:14.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

By Patty Smith, Vendor

It was a typical morning of trying to stay warm, I brought one of my friends to the Street Sense offices. We left the shelter around 7 a.m. She wanted to see what I do for the organization. I told her I sold the newspaper, and I have a special way to draw customers. I sing some of the popular songs from the 70s and 80s - new music too!

My friend was not impressed. “That’s all you do?” she said.

But I really want to get her a job, a path to a better life. We waited for Street Sense to open and she met some of the staff. They conversed for some time.

Hopefully she changes her mind.

We left to run a couple errands.

... faith is the substance of things hoped for...

PASSERBY: JONATHAN By: Ron Verquer, Volunteer Mr. President and Mr. Director of the V.A., To stop you in your tracks. We don’t want Jonathan falling through the cracks Well, walking west on M Street to Wisconsin Ave. in Georgetown, early evening, there was Jonathan sitting on a step with a sign. Well, I took a breath and turned around after taking a few steps past him.

Sometimes the good Lord puts something on your heart that stops you in your tracks. A little tired is what I was feeling.

His sign said, “I’m HQ COMBAT VETERAN.” Jonathan looked and talked nice, and what I could see in his eyes was way too much--much more than any HUMAN would want to see. I hope and pray that our people in the federal government will

BABY BUSINESS:

help very soon. Jonathan had a job as a financial advisor. I hope and pray that Jonathan can go back to work soon.

I want these words to help him. He had been out in the cold too long: 8 months.

While he has been here, good people have been coming up to him and helping him with short term needs. A beautiful lady came up to me and asked me to help him,like this lady helped me. I believe the good Lord sent her. Thank God, you’re sending these ladies there with kind helping words to lift him up. It lets me know your angels are helping.

And I talked to a man of Jewish faith, because Jonathan is Jewish. The person told me that the synagogue that would help him is in Trousislteon. This winter I

would ask for help from any Jewish person for prayer and help for Jonathan.

Here is Jonathan’s email: hermoncia@ gmail.com.

Hoping for shalom, “Perfect Peace.”

Metro Matters, Metro Manners: By the Anti-Apathetic Vendor

(part 1)

Yes, it’s cold outside, and we are all trying to arrive safely at our warm and cozy destinations. But must we be so rude and inconsiderate?

You bump and shove as though another train won’t come. You cut off my walking path, knocking my bag off my shoulder. I tolerate you because “you know not what you do.” What I don’t tolerate, though, is when you cut between a child and a parent. You never separate a vulnerable charge from his or her responsible adult caregiver. What are you thinking? Don’t you care? Think before you answer that.

15

STREET SENSE March 11 - 24, 2015

COMMUNITY SERVICES Housing/Shelter

Food

Clothing

Showers

Outreach

Medical/Healthcare

Transportation

Laundry

Education

Employment Assistance

Legal Assistance

Academy of Hope: 269-6623 601 Edgewood St, NE aohdc.org

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

Community of Hope: 232-7356 communityofhopedc.org

Jobs Have Priority: 544-9128 425 Snd St, NW jobshavepriority.org

Covenant House Washington: 610-9600 2001 Mississippi Avenue, SE covenanthousedc.org

John Young Center: 639-8569 119 D Street, NW

Calvary Women’s Services: 678-2341 1217 Good Hope Road, SE calvaryservices.org

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

Catholic Charities: 772-4300 catholiccharitiesdc.org/gethelp

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

Charlie’s Place: 232-3066 1830 Connecticut Ave, NW charliesplacedc.org

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

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

Friendship Place: 364-1419 4713 Wisconsin Ave, NW friendshipplace.org

Community Family Life Services: 347-0511 | 305 E St, NW cflsdc.org

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

Foundry Methodist Church: 332-4010 1500 16th St, NW foundryumc.org/ministry-opportunities ID (FRIDAY 9-12 ONLY)

Georgetown Ministry Center: 338-8301 1041 Wisconsin Ave, NW georgetownministrycenter.org

Gospel Rescue Ministries: 842-1731 810 5th St, NW grm.org

CELEBRATING SUCCESS! • Patty Smith received housing!

• Our theatre troupe, Staging Hope, performed for an audience of 40 people at Ohev Sholom National Synagogue

Lorrie Hayes | 03/09

Martha’s Table: 328-6608 2114 14th St, NW marthastable.org Miriam’s Kitchen: 452-8926 2401 Virginia Ave, NW miriamskitchen.org

My Sister’s Place: 529-5991 (24-hour hotline) mysistersplacedc.org

N Street Village: 939-2060 1333 N Street, NW nstreetvillage.org

New York Ave Shelter: 832-2359 1355-57 New York Ave, NE

Open Door Shelter: 639-8093 425 2nd St, NW newhopeministriesdc.org/id3.html

Samaritan Inns: 667-8831 2523 14th St, NW samaritaninns.org

Samaritan Ministries: 1516 Hamilton Street NW | 722-2280 1345 U Street SE | 889-7702 samaritanministry.org

Sasha Bruce Youthwork: 675-9340 741 8th St, SE sashabruce.org

So Others Might Eat (SOME) 797-8806 71 O St, NW some.org

St. Luke’s Mission Center: 333-4949 3655 Calvert St. NW stlukesmissioncenter.org

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

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

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

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

Vendors

By Phillip Black, Vendor, “The Cat in the Hat” I’m so very proud and happy that most of the Street Sense vendors are making so many improvements in their lives. Some vendors have gotten jobs. Some have gotten their own apartments and even bought cars. Street Sense is a very powerful force and an important tool to better ourselves.

Also, let’s not forget the staff and interns at Street Sense. Brian Carome is the captain of our ship at Street Sense. He has made changes for the homeless to help

get them back into the community and be productive. He also has a great support team in Eric, Rachael, Jeff and Jennifer. Thank you, guys, for being so supportive and helping the homeless get back on our feet. In order to finish, you have to get started, and Street Sense is the place to do it.

I have a place to stay and have full custody of my children: Javonna and Rasheeda. Start to Finish!

VENDOR PROFILE: JAMES DEVAUGN

THE LAST WORD: HONORING LAURA SCOTT

By Brian Carome, Executive Director

By Emma Holland, Editorial Intern

The happiest moment in James Devaugn’s life was December 4, 1972, when his first son, James Devaugn Jr., was born.

“I was just 17,” James recalled.

He now has 15 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. James enjoys spending time with his family and just having “people.”

“I come from a family that sings,” he boasted.

There are a few gospel singers in his family and his cousin, Raheem Devaugn, makes R&B records. The family also has a strong tradition of football.

“My father was a football player and I was a football player and I made my son a football player,” James explained.

Now some of his grandsons play, one at Auburn University.

James didn’t always have so many people around him. As a child, he had a speech impediment, which made it hard to communicate. His stuttering made it take a very long time to express what he wanted to.

“I couldn’t talk like I am now,” James pointed out. “When I was coming up, I found out I wasn’t like the other kids because they would laugh at me.”

Though his grandparents would try to help him speak by asking him to sing what he wanted to say--a common treatment for stuttering)--James remained isolated for much of his childhood. This caused him to act out.

“I was in and out of juvenile facilities,” James admitted.

After getting out of jail, speaking normally, he found work and completed his GED. “That’s when my life started looking better,” James reflected.

His first job was landscaping at the Navy Yard. He only worked during the summer months while still in school, and went full-time afterward. His last job was with the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.

“You know how they do to people my age,” James said. “I trained people to do my own job.”

He was fired and has been living in a shelter for about 18 months.

James enjoyed taking care of his family and watching it grow over the years. When he became homeless, he told his wife to go live with her parents, just outside of the District. But they stay in touch.

“I call her, talk to her all the time,” James said.

He also makes sure to talk with his youngest daughter often. She is 18 and preparing to graduate from high school.

“She told me what she wants to be is a veterinarian,” James said proudly.

James has been selling Street Sense for about a month. He learned about the paper from his friend Eric Thomas-Bey, another vendor. James reads the paper first so he can tell customers about what his product, and enjoys meeting new people while he works.

“When they see me and stop and say hi, we can chit-chat,” James said. “I like to talk, that’s because I can talk now.”

March 11 - 24, 2015 • Volume 12 • Issue 9

Street Sense 1317 G Street, NW

Nonprofit Org US Postage Paid Washington, DC

Washington, DC 20005

Mail To:

Permit #568

Remember, buy only from badged vendors and do not give to those panhandling with one paper.

Interested in a subscription? Go to page 15 for more information.

Those of us who long for a kinder and gentler world lost a friend and gained an angel this week. Laura Harbour Scott passed away this week after a valiant battle with metastatic breast cancer. Our heartfelt condolences go out to Laura’s husband Jeremy Scott - a member of the Street Sense Board of Directors - and their two children, Lauren (age 9) and Claire (age 7). Laura faced the challenges life brought her with grace and courage. The task of building that kinder and gentler world is left to us now. I for one will draw strength from the example Laura set.

A Little of Your Time

By Carl Turner, Vendor

I want to take a little bit of your time to say, “Thank you for your support and donations.” Without those, I would not make it through these long and cold winter days and nights. Some of us don’t realize donations are a blessing and a gift for which we all should be thankful.

Selling Street Sense is a JOB. You need to work it like that. When you do, you will get paid. You get out of it what you put into it. Sometimes I work 10 hours a day and only make a little money. Other times, I work three hours a day and make lots of money.

But no matter what kind of day I have, I don’t give up. I hang in there and keep the faith. If you do the same, you will be okay.

My Amazing Journey

By Chon Gotti, Vendor

Since the day I was born, I was taught two words that ultimately made a big difference in my adult life. I could not understand it as a child, but my Grandmother knew otherwise. She taught me the ropes early. It didn’t dawn on me until my late 30s that these two words would be the centerpiece of my amazing life travels.

You see, my grandmother was a true entrepreneur and she made it her business to let me know early on that I was following her Amazing Path to Success.I was my grandmother’s favorite grandchild.

She took me by the hand and showed me lots and lots of love, almost spoiling me to death. My poor mother. I miss and love her to death, but she was a little jealous of our bond.

The first great word my grandmother taught me was “integrity.” The second was so powerful that it made me smile and have awesome daydreams of wealth beyond my wildest imagination. That word was “entrepreneur.” My mother and father taught me well about working hard

and having a great job. They were shining examples of how the middle class achieved success in the 1980s and 1990s.

Because of them, I had some of the best jobs that money could buy, but there was something missing.

I actually needed a change and a dramatic shakeup. I realize now, after all those workaholic years, that I was on the wrong path. I’m not saying that working for somebody else was a waste of time, because I really did enjoy the learning process and having earned money to take care of important situations in my life.

But now I know that the almighty God had something else in store for me, waiting to finally be revealed through my Amazing Journey of Failures. I’ve always had integrity, now I am succeeding as an entrepreneur. I finally understand my loving and amazing grandmother.

I love you, grandma. Keep teaching while in heaven. From your favorite grandbaby.