With the Fannie Mae Foundation shutting down, what’s the Walkathon’s status? page 5
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April 1, 2007 - April 14, 2007
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Volume 4, Issue 8
www.streetsense.org
Rent Lawsuits Rattle Women at Local YWCA By David S. Hammond and Laura Thompson Osuri
David S. hammond
Bunks sit vacant during the day at the Harriet Tubman Shelter, which is located in the cafeteria of the D.C General Hospital.
Looking Ahead, Gales School to Open As Women’s Shelter. By Jennifer Jett and Mandy McAnally Homeless women in the District will receive a boost when the Gales School reopens as a low-barrier women’s shelter this fall. The shelter, located near Union Station, is projected to have 150 beds, all for single homeless women. And if the budget allows, the city hopes to make Gales a 24-hour shelter with enriched services for the residents, including site-based mental health care, according to George Shepard, the interim family services administrator at the Department of Human Services. When the Gales School Shelter closed in March 2004, it housed 100 men and 50 women. It was thought that Gales would open as a men’s shelter. But when the city decided last Fall to keep the Franklin Shelter
for men open, it made plans for a new women’s facility. Currently, there are only 349 shelter beds in four year-round low-barrier shelters for homeless women in the city, compared to 1,348 beds for men, according to the United Planning Organization. Ivy, now a client at the Open Door emergency shelter, stayed at D.C. General her first night in a women’s shelter and said it was a horrible, degrading experience. “They just throw you in there with some dirty sheets and then kick you out at seven in the morning,” she said. “I am just at a total loss for words. You won’t understand until you have to go for yourself.” Kristyn Feldner, who manages the Luther Place Night Shelter at N Street Village, had an in-depth look at shelters around the city over the past few months and said the build-
ings often were run down. “A few of the facilities we’ve seen are in dire need of repair,” she said. “They absolutely try their best, but physically some of those things are hard to make a case for.” Kathy Banks, a resident at N Street Village, said women who spend time at the day center there often complain about conditions at other shelters. “A lot of them say the same thing – sometimes they don’t have running toilets, sometimes they don’t have hot water for showers,” she said. “There’s a lot of drug use going on.” Another woman at N Street Village, who asked to remain anonymous, echoed complaints that shelters are cold and dilapidated. “I think the shelters that help women
See
Women, page 5
T
he hilarious thing about history is that it is talked about in the context of events consigned to the barracks of the past. But the next presidential election has a plethora of atypical candidates with the potential to make it to the White House, such as New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama. This opens the door for the history of America to be predestined by the choice of the American electorate. Electing Hillary Clinton would
EDITORIAL
A new program in Africa kicks off, page 7
POLITICS
FINANCIAL
Erik Sheptock sounds off about the problems with combating homelessness, page 12
The Senate proposed a bill to provide money to house the chronically homeless, page 6
See YWCA, page 4
Somebody Said Obama
NATIONAL
Supportive Housing Fund
One of the 54 rent complaint notices women at the YWCA recently received.
VENDOR VOices By Leo Gnawa
Inside This Issue
Sports for Social Change
Sharon Rohner
Conditions in Women’s Shelters Trouble Residents, Advocates
When Sharon Rohner was served with legal papers demanding unpaid rent on her room at the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA she was confused – although the papers had her room number on them, they had another resident’s name. And when she learned that an additional 53 residents of the nonprofit facility in Shaw (which is not affiliated with the national YWCA) had received similar papers, she was upset. And although some of the cases are reportedly being dismissed, the experience has shaken the residents. “The women were distraught,” Rohner recalled. Many went to the management saying “‘I paid my rent on time!’ and actually had their rent receipts in their hands.” According to residents and their attorneys, about half of the facility’s residents have received legal papers in the last few weeks demanding that they pay anywhere from a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars in back rent. The demands came in the form of a “complaint for
possession of real estate,” which is not an eviction notice, but the usual form for a claim of unpaid rent in Landlord-Tenant Court. Several residents who received legal papers say they have always paid their rent on time, and that they have the records to prove it. “I have my [rent] receipts, and my
Less Talk, More Action
Savings Initiative
DIRECTOR’S LETTER
Nonprofits and the District start a program to encourage people to save money, page 10
A new editor starts at Street Sense, page 14
Editor Change-Up
indeed be a historic step – the first time in American history that a woman became president. And I don’t want to be unfair to her, but the choice of a woman president would not have the same historical importance as that of an African-American. Women, with the selection of Nancy Pelosi as the first woman speaker of the House of Representatives, have already inscribed their mark on the pages of American history this year. So, the next historical breakthrough would naturally be the election of a president who is African-American, instead of women making history twice in the same period of time. I am by no means suggesting that the American electorate choose the next president of the United States solely on the basis of making his-
See
Obama, page 13