06 16 2021

VOL. 18 ISSUE 21

$2

JUNE 16 - 22, 2021

Real Stories

Real People

suggested donation goes directly to your vendor

Real Change

“You want us gone that bad?”

How the fight over a Dupont encampment tested who has the right to DC’s streets STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

@ STREETSENSEDC

2 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A // J U N E 1 6 - 2 2 , 2 0 2 1

BUSINESS MODEL

© STREET SENSE MEDIA 2003 - 2020 1317 G Street NW, Washington, DC 20005 (202) 347 - 2006

streetsensemedia.org

info@streetsensemedia.org

How It Works

Street Sense Media publishes the newspaper

Each vendor functions as an independent contractor for Street Sense Media, managing their own business to earn an income and increase stability in their life.

$2.00

YOUR SUGGESTED

$.50 Vendors pay

DONATION

per newspaper copy

goes directly to your vendor, empowering them to overcome homelessness and poverty

NO CASH? NO PROBLEM.

Pay vendors with the Street Sense Media app!

S TREET S ENSE M EDIA . ORG /A PP

VENDORS Ayub Abdul, Shuhratjon Ahmadjonov, Akindele Akerejah, Abraham Aly, Gerald Anderson, Charles Armstrong, Lawrence Autry, Daniel Ball, Phillip Black, Reginald Black, Debora Brantley, Andre Brinson, Laticia Brock, Donald Brown, Brianna Butler, Melody Byrd, Anthony Carney, Carlos Carolina, Jeffrey Carter, Conrad Cheek, Curtis Clark, Anthony Crawford, Jenkins Daltton, James Davis, David Denny, Reginald C. Denny, Patricia Donaldson, Ron Dudley, Joshua Faison, Queenie Featherstone, Jet Flegette, Jemel Fleming, Gracias Garcias, Chon Gotti, George Gray, Marcus Green, Levester Green, Samuel Hall, Lorrie Hayes, Vennie Hill, Joseph Jackson, Chad Jackson, Fredrick Jewell, Frederic John, Carlton J.M. Johnson, Henry Johnson, Pierre Johnson, Mark Jones, Reggie Jones, Darlesha Joyner, Jewel Lewis, John Littlejohn, Ken Martin, Sean McBride, Marcus McCall, Jennifer McLaughlin, Jeffery McNeil, Ricardo Meriedy, L. Morrow, Collins Mukasa, Evelyn Nnam, Earl Parker, Faith Peace, Aida Peery, Marcellus Phillips, Jacquelyn Portee, Anthony Pratt, Abel Putu, Doris Robinson, Michele Rochon, Yvonne Rollocks, Rita Sauls, Malcolm Scott, Mary Sellman, Patty Smith, David Snyder, Franklin Sterling, Warren Stevens, Beverly Sutton, Sybil Taylor, Archie Thomas, Eric Thompson-Bey, Jacqueline Turner, Joseph Walker, Rochelle Walker, Amia Walker, Michael Warner, Robert Warren, Wendell Williams, Latishia Wynn BOARD OF DIRECTORS

AVA I L A B L E

Mary Coller Albert, Blake Androff, Jeremy Bratt, David Cloe, Clare Krupin, Jennifer Park, Michael Phillips, Dan Schwartz, John Senn, Aaron Stetter, Daniel Webber, Shari Wilson, Corrine Yu

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

As self-employed contractors, our vendors follow this code of conduct: 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Street Sense will be distributed for a voluntary donation of $2.00. I agree not to ask for more than $2.00 or solicit donations for Street Sense Media by any other means.

I will only purchase the paper from Street Sense Media staff and volunteers and will not sell papers to other vendors.

I agree to treat all others, including customers, staff, volunteers, and other vendors, respectfully at all times. I will refrain from threatening others, pressuring customers into making a donation, or engaging in behavior that condones racism, sexism, classism, or other prejudices.

I agree not to distribute copies of Street Sense on Metro trains and buses or on private property.

I agree to abide by the Street Sense Media vendor territorial policy at all times and will resolve any related disputes I have with other vendors in a professional manner.

Brian Carome

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

6.

I understand that I am not an employee of Street Sense Media, but an independent contractor.

Eric Falquero

7.

I agree to sell no additional goods or products when distributing Street Sense.

Jake Maher

8.

I will not distribute Street Sense under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Thomas Ratliff

9.

I understand that my badge and (if applicable) vest are property of Street Sense Media, and will not deface them. I will present my badge when purchasing Street Sense. I will always display my badge when distributing Street Sense.

10. I agree to support Street Sense Media’s mission statement. In doing so I will work to support the Street Sense community and uphold its values of honesty, respect, support, and opportunity.

DEPUTY EDITOR DIRECTOR OF VENDOR EMPLOYMENT VENDOR PROGRAM ASSOCIATES

Marcellus Phillips, Aida Peery, Clifford Samuels

DIRECTOR OF VENDOR PROGRAMS

Darick Brown

CASE MANAGER

Charlie Musoff

DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS

Doris Warrell

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

The Cover

The Street Sense Media Story, #MoreThanANewspaper

An encampment cleanup notice posted at the Massachusetts Avenue NW and Q Street NW encampment.

Originally founded as a street newspaper in 2003, Street Sense Media has evolved into a multimedia center using a range of creative platforms to spotlight solutions to homelessness and empower people in need. The men and women who work with us do much more than sell this paper: They use film, photography, theatre, illustration, and more to share their stories with our community.

Our media channels elevate voices, our newspaper vendor and digital marketing programs provide economic independence. And our in-house case-management services move people forward along the path toward permanent supportive housing.

At Street Sense Media, we define ourselves through our work, talents, and character, not through our housing situation.

PHOTOS BY SARAH WATSON Editorial intern

WRITERS GROUP ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE

Willie Schatz, Thomas Ratliff

OPINION EDITORS (VOLUNTEER)

Rachel Brody, Lydia DePillis, Britt Peterson

INTERNS

Claudia Levens, Sage Levy, Eliza Schloss, Ryan Tomsheck, Jarrod Wardwell, Sarah Watson, John Woolley

EDITORIAL VOLUNTEERS

Ryan Bacic, Katie Bemb, Lilah Burke, Lenika Cruz, Kelsey Falquero, Jacqueline Groskaufmanis, Roberta Haber, Moira McAvoy, Nick Shedd, Andrew Siddons, Jenny-lin Smith, Orion Donovan-Smith

VENDOR PROGRAM VOLUNTEERS

Earle Eldridge, Tess Emiroglu, Roberta Haber, Ann Herzog, Kevin Jaatinen, Miss Jamison, Jacob Kuba, Sean McBride

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

EVENTS

// 3

NEWS IN BRIEF Millions in rent and utility relief still available through STAY DC

National Black United Front Inaugural Juneteenth Day of Service Saturday, June 19 // 3 p.m. - 5 p.m.

500 Malcolm X Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20032 Aiming to provide 100 families in vulnerable communities with care packages and resources that can empower them to be more self-sustaining. Additionally, volunteers will help clean up along the Malcolm X Ave SE and Martin Luther Jr. Ave SE corridor. We are seeking donations and volunteers to help with bring this idea into fruition.

MORE INFO: tinyurl.com/dc-juneteenth-service SATURDAY, JUNE 19

UPDATES ONLINE AT ICH.DC.GOV

SATURDAY, JUNE 19

Juneteenth Peace March & Demonstration

D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness Meetings

Black Paradigm Small Business Expo 2021

11 a.m. - 1 p.m.

Housing Solutions Committee June 21, 3 - 4:30 p.m.

Strategic Planning Committee June 22, 2:30 - 4 p.m.

Shelter Operations Committee June 23, 1 - 2:30 p.m.

10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

2001 Mississippi Ave. SE

Starting Point: Banneker Playground (2505 9th St. NW) • 10:30 a.m, Line up • 11 a.m., Peace march 1 • 11:20 a.m., Peace demonstration End Point: African American Civil War Memorial (1925 Vermont Ave. NW) MORE INFO: tinyurl.com/juneteenth-march

Youth Committee June 24, 1 - 2:30 p.m. ***For call-in details and more info, groups, contact: ich.dmhhs@dc.gov.

Visit Covenant House D.C. to celebrate Juneteenth this year with the biggest Black business expo! There will be free clothing giveaways and tons of Blackowned products and service!!!

INFO: https://tinyurl.com/dc-19-expo

Submit your event for publication by emailing editor@streetsensemedia.org

PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY UPDATE

CORRECTION

Effective immidately and in line with both CDC recommendations and District Government ordinances, Street Sense Media vendors are no longer required to wear masks and gloves when selling our newspaper outdoors. Data shows that less than 1% of transmission of COVID-19 occurs outdoors.

Last edition’s story “DC residents owe the highest student loan debt per capita in the US. Councilmembers asked the federal government to cancel it” has been updated online to to reflect that the Change.org petition urging President Biden to cancel all federal student loans has more than 1 million signatures. We originally reported there were more than 1.5 million signatures.

These PPP items are remain available to vendors for free at the Street Sense Media office.

The D.C. Department of Human Services held an information session on June 8 for tenants, members of the public, and advocates to receive updates on reforms to the Stronger Together by Assisting You (STAY) D.C. program.

The STAY D.C. program provides funding to tenants whose income was reduced due to the COVID-19 pandemic to pay past and current rent and utility bills. The city allocated $200 million in federal relief funds and $152 million in local tax dollars for the program in April to help residents during the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. STAY D.C. offers applicants assistance for up to 12 months, with an option of three additional months.

As of June 8, applications from 11,012 tenants and 8,606 housing providers had been submitted, according to DHS data. The program has processed 5,372 applications where both tenants and housing providers submitted an application. Since the beginning of the program 1,795 applicants have been approved with payments being processed.

More than $1.3 million in rental assistance and $325,000 in utility funding has been used, leaving approximately $350 million yet to be distributed Given this excess of funds compared to applications, DHS is encouraging more tenants to apply. City representatives explained that while landlords need to respond to tenant applications within 10 days or the application process will proceed without them, there is no specified time limit in which applicants will hear back. More than 3,000 applications are still under review: 1,314 are in the initial stages and 2,030 are in the final review process to determine applicant eligibility.

STAY D.C.’s application process, however, faced criticism from D.C. advocates and social workers who commented on a confusing application process. The application software is not mobilefriendly, making it challenging for some low-income residents to apply online, according to advocates.

D.C. government representatives explained new reforms that aim to provide increased support, including home visits to tenants, paper applications, and biweekly email updates to applicants.

Attendees at the feedback session also expressed confusion about what documents are necessary.

The STAY D.C. application requires applicants to demonstrate how they lost income due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is not always easy for people experiencing housing insecurity. Social workers called for more guidelines for tenants filling out self-attestation documents that stood in as demonstrated loss of income.

Some tenants at the event also said they hoped funds could be sent to their landlords at a faster rate, highlighting long delays after their applications were approved. Efficient distribution of payments is especially important as the $200 million of federal emergency funding through STAY D.C. must be fully used by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, when any remaining federal funds have to be given back to the U.S. Treasury Department.

—sarah.watson@streetsensemedia.org

4 // St reet Sens e Me di a / / june 1 6 - 2 2 , 2 021

NEWs

What is DOPA? Inside the proposed changes to an unused program meant to preserve affordable housing

By Will Schick will@streetsensemedia.org

I

t’s been more than a decade since D.C. lawmakers sought to add the District Opportunity to Purchase Act as a new tool to preserve affordable housing in the city. But the resulting program has languished ever since, prompting the D.C. Council to approve legislative fixes on Tuesday to facilitate a role for the D.C. government in purchasing rental buildings and protecting tenants who might otherwise be displaced.

The District Opportunity to Purchase Act, enacted in 2008 and commonly known as DOPA, allows for D.C. to purchase apartment buildings as a means of maintaining the city’s dwindling affordable housing stock. As initially written, it empowers the District to acquire “at risk” buildings in which at least a quarter of the apartments are deemed affordable for people making less than 50% of the area median income. The city can then sell those buildings to pre-qualified developers, who must maintain the units as affordable for as long as it remains a residential building.

However, the city did not establish the regulations needed to implement the program until nearly a full decade later, in 2018, and still has yet to acquire any properties under the program.

On June 1, the D.C. Council gave initial support to five major changes to DOPA put forward by At-Large Councilmembers Anita Bonds, Elissa Silverman and Robert White; the bill with these legislative fixes won final approval this week.

“It is essential that we utilize every tool at our disposal to support additional affordable housing, and this is an important step forward,” Bonds said in a statement to Street Sense Media and The DC Line.

In April, a group of housing advocates and city representatives met with Bonds and Silverman to discuss the proposed changes aimed at preserving affordable housing in the District. Bonds, who chairs the D.C. Council’s Committee on Housing and Executive Administration, said at the meeting that she hoped new legislation could make the program more enticing to developers.

The new plan for DOPA was developed by a working group of government officials, tenant advocates and affordable housing providers who revised an earlier version proposed in 2019 by the Bowser administration.

First, it raises the income threshold that defines “affordable” — thereby enabling purchases under DOPA — from 50% of the median family income (MFI) to 60%. Enacting this change, Bonds said, will “make this program more compatible with other programs available to housing developers, such as the low-income tax credits.”

There are three ways for developers to qualify for the lowincome housing tax credit, according to the Tax Policy Center.

Only the first overlapped with the initial DOPA requirements: A developer qualifies for the low-income tax credit if at least 20% of the project’s units are for tenants with an income of 50% or less of the MFI. The other two ways to qualify are centered around tenants at or below 60% of MFI. Developers qualify for the tax credit if 40% of the project’s units will be for tenants earning 60% or less of the MFI, or if the average income of all tenants is not more than 60% MFI and no tenants earn more than 80% MFI. This update means the vast majority of DOPA projects are likely to qualify for the tax credit. Second, the proposed law allows for added flexibility for increasing rents, which Bonds and others hope will make buildings acquired under DOPA more enticing to private-sector partners.

According to Beth Mellen, a supervising attorney at the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, this is an important move that could address some of the not-so-evident problems presented by DOPA thus far.

“DOPA has a protection that on the surface seems wonderful for tenants. Existing tenants will pay their current rent or 30% of their income, whichever is less. But the problem is this has proved to be a bit of a poison pill for the program,” Mellen said at the April meeting. She believes the reason this provision is so disastrous for the program is it makes it almost impossible to maintain affordability without obtaining ongoing government subsidies.

While those two changes are focused on making DOPA more financially attractive for developers in order to get the program moving, the legislation also includes provisions to strengthen protections for tenants.

A third key provision in the bill means developers who acquire housing units under DOPA could not raise rents on existing tenants for the first year. And any subsequent rent increases would be fixed to levels allowed under the District’s rent control law or to an affordability program that is already in place.

Implementing DOPA can help correct years of racist government policies that have led to today’s wide disparities in housing, which have disproportionately affected Black families.

D.C. Council Office on Racial Equity Fourth, the legislation expands DOPA eligibility to all residential buildings regardless of how many of the existing units are deemed “affordable” — a significant expansion of the existing authority.

“The current formula is relatively strict in a market where rents have been rising, and so many buildings are just excluded, kind of out of the box,” Mellen said.

Lastly, the new legislation amends an enforceable covenant that had required the affordable units in a property acquired through DOPA remain affordable for as long as the building remains a housing facility owned by the District. Under the new legislation, this guarantee persists even if the government sells the property to a new owner.

Hank Brothers, an attorney who represents developers and specializes in affordable housing, said that while he sees the changes as making DOPA more effective and appealing to developers, the legislation doesn’t resolve all of the reasons some may be wary of participating.

“There is a fair amount of risk in taking [on] a DOPA property,” Brothers said. “There’s general real estate development risk; there is also the risk of the dealings with the resident population.”

Brothers, who is experienced in cases involving the District’s long-standing Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), said that tenant organizations generally distrust developers —

of any type — regardless of whether they come to the property “under DOPA, TOPA or otherwise.” This distrust, Brothers said, can result in costly delays.

In spite of the challenges, Brothers said, he’s optimistic about the new changes to the program which he helped advocate for, and believes they will “resolve uncertainties” developers have about whether they can participate profitably.

Polly Donaldson, the director of the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), described DOPA’s broad priorities as boosting the availability of affordable housing, increasing the number of homes where affordability is protected by enforceable covenants, and creating “mixed-income” communities.

In an interview with Street Sense Media and The DC Line, Donaldson said that she believed the changes brought on by the new legislation will address “all of the concerns that we had that we thought prevented the program from being implemented.”

Although DOPA has not resulted in any building purchases, the program hasn’t been dormant, according to D.C. officials.

Since the regulations were finalized in November 2018, Donaldson said, DHCD has received 87 DOPA notices identifying buildings the District could purchase. The agency has pursued 15 of those opportunities by publishing requests for proposals for the program’s pre-qualified developers to consider.

DOPA is aligned closely with the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which gives the residents of a rental building the first opportunity to buy the property if it is being put up for sale. The District’s chance to buy a building is triggered only after tenants pass on their opportunity under TOPA, but supersedes any offers on the private market.

The city did not purchase four of the 15 properties because tenants exercised their TOPA right to purchase. According to Donaldson, developers did not show interest in the 11 properties that remained eligible for purchase under DOPA. In her comments at the April meeting, Silverman affirmed the need to fix DOPA to aggressively preserve affordable housing and emphasized just how much was being lost while they discussed how to repair it.

“We are in an affordability crisis in the District,” Silverman said. “We have a severe shortage of low rents west of Rock Creek Park even at this time. And we’re slowly losing affordable housing as buildings are bought and sold.”

Silverman also described DOPA as part of the “racial equity equation” in the District.

“It’s about making sure those, especially Black and Latino, residents who have been living in neighborhoods can stay in those neighborhoods,” Silverman said.

A report prepared by the new Council Office on Racial Equity in May says that implementing DOPA can help correct years of racist government policies that have led to today’s wide disparities in housing, which have disproportionately affected Black families.

According to the report, Black and Latinx families face the highest rates of “rent burden” in the District — paying more than 30% of their incomes — and the lowest rates of homeownership.

Without the changes that will now be sent to the mayor and Congress for approval, all those at the April meeting concurred the program would remain as it has been for nearly 13 years: empty words on paper.

This article was co-published with The DC Line.

streetsensemedia.org

// 5

At a Glance

Franklin Park to reopen in August

By Will Schick will@streetsensemedia.org

F

or years, many homeless residents in D.C. lived in Franklin Park, located on K Street NW. Not only were tents a permanent fixture on the park’s grassy lawns, but nonprofits such as Martha’s Table used the park as a base for homeless outreach efforts, delivering meals and other services.

That all changed last June when the National Park Service closed Franklin Park for a yearlong renovation, displacing the unhoused residents who lived there. Now, officials are predicting a reopening in August. Former residents, meanwhile, are wondering whether they’ll have a place in the reconfigured park.

Once the park reopens, it will feature a new restaurant with outdoor seating and restrooms, a children’s play area, a rehabilitated fountain, and updated walking paths. The DowntownDC Business Improvement District (BID) worked alongside the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation and the National Park Service to lead the $18 million project.

It remains unclear, however, how the District’s homeless might be received at the newly refurbished property.

Responding to public questions about how the park will address people “who are not following the rules,” a DowntownDC BID official said at a community meeting last month that the park will have both overnight security and visibly posted rules related to an enforceable code of conduct.

Gerren Price, director of public space operations for the DowntownDC BID, said that the rules will be established through a “collective effort” with advocates and other community members. “We look forward to the opportunity to ensure that this is a space that really everyone can enjoy,” Price said.

Danté Turner, an unsheltered resident who used to get meals at Franklin Park, said that he thinks the redevelopment is intended to drive homeless people away from the area.

[Disclaimer: Turner is a Street Sense Media vendor.]

“When they rebuild it … they want it for people that have jobs or whatever. When they come and take their break, [they can] go out there and eat versus somebody that’s out there in the day [living there],” he said.

Turner also suspects that publicly posted rules at the park will try to deter people who are homeless from setting up encampments. “‘No camping here, no sleeping here’ — I can just see that coming,” Turner said.

Rachel Rose Hartman, the executive director of the DowntownDC BID’s foundation, said that the project partners thought long and hard about how to minimize the impact on the city’s homeless residents during construction.

“We knew when it closed that we would need a place for individuals to go to during the day,” Hartman said at the May 25 public meeting.

The planning for the park’s renovations began back in 2005, with the project subject to repeated delays related to funding and the design. Hartman said that the Downtown Day Services Center operated by the BID was opened in 2019 with the intention of filling any gap in services when the park closed.

The center is located a couple of blocks away in the basement of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church and offers meals, showers, and other specialized services. homeless —.But it had to move those services outdoors due to COVID-19, limiting its offerings over the past year.

When Franklin Park closed, meal services were similarly moved to nearby Vermont Avenue. Speaking on behalf of the BID and its project partners, Price said at the presentation that these services will continue there.

“We’ve already started the process of engaging a lot of the community-based organizations who have been participating in the Vermont Avenue site,” Price said of the planning for postconstruction services in the downtown area.

Daniel Kingery, who lives outdoors in neighboring McPherson Square after having been evicted from nearby Lafayette Square when it was fenced off in response to racial justice protests last summer, said that he responded to the closure of Franklin Park last year as he would respond to anything else.

“It’s an unprepared move — you just find another place to go,” he said.

Kingery, who served in the Marine Corps from 1979 to 1982, said that many of the people who used to live in Franklin Park are still in the vicinity. They continue to access meals and other services offered by Martha’s Table and other providers, he said “A lot of the people that come here come around here because they used to do a lot of the feeding over there in Franklin Square,” Kingery said of the downtown blocks just north of the White House.

Kingery, who sleeps next to a park sign that says “no camping,” said that he believes the government goes out of its way to make it difficult for people who live outdoors.

“As the government gains more control over the parks and more dislike for the homeless people, they will make it more difficult for a homeless person to spend the night [in a park],” Kingery said.

Abraham Ali, another unsheltered resident who lives in the area, said he used to rely on services offered at Franklin Park when it was open.

But the park’s closure did not really hinder his ability to access nearby meal services.

“Yeah, you going to the other park,” Ali said. “Whenever they closed here, they set up there.”

Ali also said that he has no hard feelings about the park being closed.

“Whatever they have to do to fix it, they have to do to fix it,” he said.

Another public meeting will be held online in July at a date and time that have yet to be determined. The meeting announcement will be made on the BID’s website: www.downtowndc.org/franklinpark.

This article was co-published with The DC Line.

Daniel Kingery and his belongings at McPherson Square, across from Franklin Park. Photo by Will Schick

Congratulations to SSM vendors Queenie Featherstone, Reginald Black, and Robert Warren, along with all of the People for Fairness Coalition on their recognition from the D.C. Council!

vendor Program announcements • Vendors can bring in a complete CDC vaccination card for 15 free papers.

• The next vendor meeting will be on Friday, June 25.

• Vendors are no longer required to wear a mask for outdoor sales.

• The Street Sense Media office will be closed on Monday, July 5, for Independence Day. Our stories, straight to your inbox Street Sense Media provides a vehicle through which all of us can learn about homelessness from those who have experienced it. Sign up for our newsletter to get our vendors' stories in your inbox.

www.StreetSenseMedia.org/connect

6 // St reet Sens e Me di a / / june 1 6 - 2 2 , 2 021

NEWs

A warning from history:

New research on the Tulsa race massacre

By Steven MacKenzie The Big Issue

I

n May 2020, George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a serving police officer. The killing shocked the world and galvanized the Black Lives Matter movement. Change is coming but it is long overdue.

In May 1921, the worst incident of racial violence in America took place in Tulsa. The Greenwood district of the city was known as the Black Wall Street, its destruction likened to Kristallnacht. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, died.

Only now, nearing the 100th anniversary, is its story being told. The Big Issue, the United Kingdom’s street paper, interviewed historian Scott Ellsworth who is leading efforts this month to exhume unmarked graves of victims. He explains why we need to remember.

The Big Issue: What was the Greenwood district of Tulsa like before the events of late May 1921?

Scott Ellsworth: Greenwood was an incredibly vibrant community, and home to 10,000 African American men, women and children. It was home to two newspapers, two schools, a hospital, a public library and a dozen churches.

Thirty restaurants served everything from sandwiches and bowls of chilli to barbecue and steaks and chops with all of the trimmings. Two theatres — the Dreamland, which sat 750, and the Dixie, that had seats for 1,000 — offered motion pictures, jazz concerts, lectures and boxing matches. In Greenwood, there were three dozen grocery stores and meat markets, as well as clothing and dry goods stores, a photography studio, a feed and grain store, tailor shops, billiard halls, five hotels and

Black civilians were rounded up and removed from the area while their homes and businesses were destroyed. Image from the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa

the offices of more than a dozen African American physicians, surgeons, dentists, and lawyers. The wealthiest of Greenwood’s merchants lived in beautiful one and two-story homes, complete with pianos, fine china and garages for their automobiles, while most citizens lived in simple wooden homes. But throughout the community there was a deep, abiding sense of pride. This was their neighbourhood. They had built it. And soon they would have to fight to defend it.

What were the roots of unrest and what was the spark that led to the riot?

The late 1910s and early 1920s were an especially dark time for race relations in America. Segregation was on the rise, in 1915 there was a rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan, the largest and most powerful terrorist group in US history. Race riots and lynchings were common nationwide. In 1920, an 18-year-old accused murderer was lynched by an all-white mob in Tulsa.

From that moment on, Black Tulsans knew that they could not rely on white Tulsa police officers to protect African American prisoners from mob violence.

What happened on May 31 and June 1?

On the afternoon of May 31, the Tulsa Tribune, one of the city’s white daily newspapers, published an inflammatory front-page story claiming that a 19-year-old African American shoe shiner named Dick Rowland had sexually assaulted a 17-year-old

white female elevator operator in a downtown office building.

The Tribune also published an editorial titled “To Lynch Negro Tonight.” Within a half hour of the newspaper hitting the streets, a lynch mob began to gather outside the courthouse in whose jail Dick Rowland was being held. When word hit Greenwood that evening that the white mob was storming the courthouse, a group of 75 African American World War I veterans went down to the courthouse and offered their services to the sheriff to help protect the prisoner. As they were leaving to return to Greenwood, an elderly white man attempted to disarm one of the veterans, a shot was fired, and the massacre had begun. The Tulsa police then showed up. But instead of stopping the violence, they deputized members of the lynch mob and provided them with arms, telling them to “Get a gun, and get a n*****.”

For the next few hours, crowds of whites murdered innocent African Americans — who were just getting off work — downtown, while gangs of whites took part in drive-byshootings along residential streets in Greenwood, firing into parlors and children’s bedrooms. Some fires were set, and there was an attempt to invade the African American business district, but that was repulsed by armed Black home and business owners. By three o’clock in the morning, it seemed like the worst of the violence was over. It was not.

The next morning, just before dawn on June 1, thousands of whites invaded Greenwood, killing any African Americans who resisted, and imprisoning those who did not. Then the white mobs systematically looted and set fire to Greenwood.

streetsensemedia.org

// 7

Not only did the police and local National Guard units fail to stop the invasion, but they also fired on Black citizens. Machine guns were unleashed upon Greenwood, and in at least one instance, an airplane dropped sticks of dynamite. Before the violence finally ended that afternoon, more than 1,000 African American homes were destroyed, while 10,000 Black citizens were now homeless. Thirty-five square blocks, the entirety of Greenwood, had been reduced to ash and rubble.

How many people were killed?

To this day, we still don’t know. Reasonable estimates run from somewhere in the 70s to 300. Nor do we know what the ratio is between white and Black casualties.

Not many people in the UK have heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre — is it better known in America?

Only fairly recently. I’ve been researching and writing about the massacre off and on for 45 years, and I still regularly hear from people who say, “Why haven’t I ever heard of this before?” The Watchmen series introduced the massacre to millions of television viewers worldwide.

Why isn’t it better known?

Initially, the massacre was front page news across the United States. Indeed, the massacre was even mentioned in London newspapers. But the white politicians and businessmen who ran Tulsa soon realized that the massacre was a big public relations problem, and so they planned to bury it. And that is exactly what they did. Official records were stolen, incriminating articles were cut out of newspapers, photographs were seized.

For 50 years, the city’s white newspapers went out of their way to not mention the riot, while researchers who attempted to look into, talk about, or write about the massacre were threatened – some even with their lives.

But the massacre wasn’t discussed, at least in public, in the African American community either. Some survivors suffered from PTSD as late as the 1990s. And many survivors didn’t want to burden their children and grandchildren with the painful stories of what they had endured. So they just didn’t talk about it.

This picture taken around midday on June 1 shows stores on Greenwood Avenue were being looted and set ablaze.

Image from the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa

Much of the Greenwood area was reduced to ash

and rubble. Image from the Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, The University of Tulsa

So for 50 years the story of the massacre was actively suppressed. During the past 50 years, we’ve finally been getting the story out again. It’s been a long haul. But we’re getting there.

What happened after the riot and what is its legacy?

Tulsa was then touted as being the Oil Capital of the World, and Greenwood rebuilt itself. In less than two years, there were again two and three-story brick buildings along Greenwood Avenue. Many old-timers told me that the Greenwood of the 1930s and 1940s was even bigger than the one that had existed before the massacre. And pride among the African American community skyrocketed. They had fought to defend their district, and after it had been destroyed, they rebuilt it again.

But there were also undeniable losses. It’s been recently estimated that had the massacre not occurred, there would be an additional £600m (about $845 million) in generational wealth in Greenwood today. That represents decades of university fees, childcare payment, books for children, down payments on houses, seed money to create new businesses. Then, Greenwood was attacked once again, beginning in the 1960s, by the forces of urban renewal. An eight-lane interstate highway was built right through the Greenwood commercial district, while racist practices prevented African Americans from securing home and business loans. Today, while the heart of Greenwood Avenue is experiencing a renaissance, including the construction of a brand new, state-of-the-art museum, Tulsa’s African American citizens are burdened with significantly higher rates of poverty than their white neighbors on the other side of town.

What has recent research uncovered?

Nearly 25 years ago, I launched a search for the unmarked graves of massacre victims, most of them African American, who were hastily buried by the white authorities while their family members were still being held under armed guard in detention camps. Well, after getting a lot of help, and after interviewing some 300 survivors and eyewitnesses, this past October we discovered a mass grave in Oaklawn Cemetery in Tulsa of what we believe contains the remains of at least a dozen African American massacre victims. On June 1, our team

of archaeologists and forensic scientists will begin exhuming the remains. The scientists will study the bones for clues as to the age, gender and ethnicity of the victims, as well as to seek to determine the causes of death. The surrounding soil will be carefully sifted for bullet fragments and other artifacts, while DNA will likely be extracted in order to attempt to identify some of the victims by name. The remains will then be buried with honour, and an appropriate memorial will be constructed.

Ninety-nine years after the riot, also in May, the murder of George Floyd reignited debate around race and racism in America. Can better understanding the Tulsa Race Massacre lead to a better understanding of the issue today?

Yes, absolutely. The famous African American historian John Hope Franklin — who grew up in Tulsa and whose father was a survivor of the massacre — once remarked that in the aftermath of the tragedy, “Tulsa lost its sense of honesty.”

Well, even though there’s been real progress made in terms of Americans gaining a fuller sense of our past, we still have a long way to go. I know that the same is happening in the UK. It isn’t easy to do, especially after people have been taught one version of history all their lives to learn that, in fact, our past was significantly different. But it’s important that, as best as we can, we tell it like it was, the good and the bad and the in-between, without pulling any punches.

A century on, is there a way to pay a fitting tribute to the victims?

There are many ways to do so. The first is to learn about, and tell, their stories. The second will be to properly honor the dead, which is what we are doing now. And the third way, in my opinion, is to pay some form of restitution to the remaining survivors and their descendants. There is no doubt whatsoever that the citizens of Greenwood in 1921 were let down by their city, their state, and their country. Even the insurance companies refused to honor their claims. We need to do something to right this wrong.

Courtesy of INSP.ngo / The Big Issue UK bigissue.com @BigIssue

8 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A // J U N E 1 6 - 2 2 , 2021

NEWS

June 8 Dupont encampment cleanup downgraded to trash-only following criticism from activists

BY SARAH WATSON sarah.watson@streetsensemedia.org

T

he Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services (DMHHS) coordinated a trashonly cleanup on June 8 at two encampments located on a bridge at the intersection of Q Street NW and Connecticut Avenue NW near Dupont Circle.

DMHHS originally scheduled a full cleanup for one of the encampments, rather than a trash-only one, but downgraded it the day before it was set to take place. Before this change, advocates criticized the proposed cleanup — through testimony at a D.C. Council hearing and on social media — for forcing homeless residents out of the area to make room for a “streatery,” or outdoor dining space for a nearby cafe.

The permit applicants have pushed back against that criticism, saying they filed for the permit to use the space before the encampment residents were living there. The question is on hold for now because no full cleanup was carried out. But the dispute briefly made it the center of a larger conversation about who has the right to public spaces like streets.

An encampment is considered a residence of one or more people on public property that is present even when an individual may not be, according to DMHHS. Full cleanups, or encampment protocol “engagements,” give residents two weeks’ notice before city workers and volunteers throw away any garbage or belongings within 200 feet of posted notices, sometimes also powerwashing the sidewalks. During trash-only engagements, residents do not need to move their belongings and city workers only remove trash or any property residents identify as garbage.

Sean Thomas and his neighbor Mike (who asked not to use his last name), two homeless residents of the area, said they

received hand-delivered notice of a Public Space Occupancy permit for the area in March. The permit filed by Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets, a non-profit organization that maintains the Dupont Circle area, offers nearby restaurants the right to temporary sidewalk table service from March 27 to June 25.

According to Thomas, the installation of “streateries” are forcing people experiencing homelessness out of unused public space at the Dupont encampment. Thomas pointed out that there is no way to block off the open area, where delivery trucks stop daily, from homeless residents returning to re-set up their tents and belongings. “The problem is they don’t want us here. They’re using them to force us to leave.” After the cleanup, Thomas moved his belongings across the street to a park bench.

“They said they are going to put tables right here for a restaurant. They can’t do that. You want us gone that bad?”

Mike said. “A person shouldn’t have to worry about being put out on the street. We already have that problem, that’s where we are already at, having to worry about demolition on the street, that’s stressful.”

Bill McLeod, executive director of Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets, filed the permit on behalf of Zeleno’s Cafe on Connecticut Avenue NW. “Zeleno spoke to me about three months ago — wanting more café seating,” McLeod wrote in an email. “This little coffee shop is barely making it and trying to expand, which is why they wanted to have more tables on the street.”

Alexander Gotzev, co-owner of Zeleno’s Cafe, explained that Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets applied for a permit for general outdoor seating, not the cafe itself. “It shouldn’t even be in our name. Of course we would take advantage of

City employees load trash and a tent into a garbage truck during the June 8 trash-only encampment protocol engagement. PHOTO BY JOHN WOOLLEY

extra seating, but we would never want to inconvenience others or have it if it had other intentions,” he said of the seating stopping encampment residents from returning. “I would hate to be associated with it,” Gotzev added. Gotzev said the cafe is not equipped with the service or funds for seating across the street. The groups of encamped tents are approximately 150 and 400 feet from the cafe respectively.

According to the deputy mayor’s office, the engagement was changed to a trash-only engagement because the permit holder was not ready to use the space. “While they had a permit, they did not have the supplies to occupy the space immediately.

Therefore, we ​determined that this should be a trash-only engagement,” said a DMHHS spokesperson.

“A person shouldn’t have to worry about being put out on the street. We already have that problem, that’s where we are already at.”

Mike Community advocates spoke against the replacement of the encampment with a streatery during a D.C. Council Committee on Health budget oversight hearing the day the cleanup was downgraded. Before the engagement was downgraded to a trash clean-up, Jesse Rabinowitz, senior manager of policy and advocacy at Miriam’s Kitchen, explained in the hearing that the engagement would coincide with the placement of tables and chairs and prevent residents from returning.

“Why is it possible to apply for permits for streateries but not survival?” Rabinowitz asked in the hearing led by Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent Gray. “Because D.C. has prioritized catering to rich, white people’s ambiance, preferences, without ensuring people are not dying without housing.”

Thomas, who has been living in his tent near Dupont Circle since January, said he is forced to miss work during encampment cleanups like this one to ensure his belongings are not thrown away by city workers. Thomas has a large tent, a Moped scooter, and cooking supplies that he shares with others in a small community of residents. When encampment sweeps occur, he moves his belongings temporarily across the street and returns once city workers are gone.

According to Thomas, no full cleanups had been conducted in the area since he’d been living there, but a notice for an engagement appeared soon after he moved into a larger tent that allowed him to have seating inside off the ground. “I was in prison for 15 years. I don’t want to live in something smaller than a prison cell,” Thomas said. “I have to have standing room.”

Mike likewise moved from a smaller “dog house” tent to a larger tent. Mike thinks that the larger tents that take up more space are one of the reasons for the engagement. “It was cool when I was in a dog house but once I got this tent, they said, ‘Oh, he’s too self efficient [sic],’” Mike said.

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

Mike's standing-room tent and scooter on June 7, the day before the encampment engagement. PHOTO BY JOHN WOOLLEY

The originally-scheduled cleanup marks an uptick in full engagements following the COVID-19 pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommended a pause in encampment cleanups in March 2020 to avoid encouraging people to crowd into congregate shelters, where the risk of contracting COVID was higher than outdoors. The CDC also advised that uprooting individuals’ homes could spread the coronavirus as people experiencing homelessness moved elsewhere in the city.

Early on in the pandemic, the District initially continued encampment cleanups despite the CDC recommendations.

City engagements of the encampment protocol then shifted to majority trash cleanups that did not require the relocation of tents and property. Since Jan. 1, D.C. has conducted 16 full cleanups, half of which took place in May and June. Another 20 trash-only cleanups were carried out from January through March.

One consequence of the last-minute change in the cleanup was that the start time changed. “We were going to move so they could power wash,” Fabian, another resident of the encampment, said. “I was told 10 a.m. originally but it started early because it was just trash cleanup.” According to Fabian, the cleanup began around 8:30 a.m. A few critics of the cleanup who did not trust that the engagement had been downgraded showed up to observe the activity that morning.

One tent was removed and trashed at the Dupont encampment on the morning of the engagement with the permission of the resident who abandoned his tent, according to DMHHS. In an email to Street Sense Media, Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto emphasized her commitment to establishing long-term shelter resources beyond encampments for those experiencing homelessness. There are no low-barrier shelters for men in Ward 2. There is one for women, located in Chinatown, that was opened instead of a family shelter as part of Mayor Bowser’s plan to replace the shelter at D.C. General with a new family facility in all eight wards.

Advocates from The Way Home Campaign, a campaign to end chronic homelessness locally, called for Bowser to set aside $100 million toward permanent supportive housing (PSH) vouchers to establish long-term housing for 3,100 households.

Bowser’s 2021 budget proposal includes funding to end homelessness for between 598-758 individuals and 280-347 families through PSH, a maximum of 1,105 households or approximately one third of what the advocates say is needed.

Pinto supported The Way Home’s $100 million request for vouchers in her budget priorities letter to Bowser in March.

“My priority remains to move our unhoused neighbors into housing as quickly as possible,” Pinto wrote. “I asked the Mayor for significant funding in the budget for permanent supportive housing vouchers and will be working with my colleagues to increase funding for this housing-first approach.”

Thomas and Mike moved their belongings in advance of the cleanup, even though it was trash-only. Still, Thomas plans on returning home. “As long as they don’t touch me or my

// 9

A notice posted at Q St. and Massachussetts Ave. NW announcing a full cleanup encampment engagement for June 8. The engagement was later downgraded to trash-only.

PHOTO BY SARAH WATSON

belongings they’re going to need Congress to pass a bill to get me to leave,” Thomas said. “I was born in the park right there.

How are you going to get me to leave my own neighborhood?

My own home?”

DMHHS said it has no plans to reschedule an engagement at the Dupont encampment. The next engagement is a full cleanup scheduled for 10 a.m. on June 17 at 198 Virginia Ave SE. John Woolley contributed to this report.

Encampment residents return to their tents after the trash-only cleanup ended. PHOTO BY JOHN WOOLLEY

1 0 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A // J U N E 1 6 - 2 2 , 2021

OPINION

Ode to Franklin Square Park

Who is Franklin Square Park being renovated for?

BY JACKIE TURNER

BY COLLY DENNIS

This long-time District resident remembers when Franklin Square Park was a beautiful, desirable park to which people came from all over to sit, meet their friends, and socialize. It had grass and flowers. It was clean. People wanted to visit it.

Then people either forgot to or refused to pick up after each other and began treating the fountains like bathtubs. So the city cut the water off. Then the rats came. Then the more the park personnel cleaned the park, the more people thought of it as a hotel.

I want the new Franklin Square Park to be as beautiful as its predecessor. I want the flowers, the trees, the grass, and the fountains. I also think the city should consider closing the park after dark. That would help everyone respect the new park like we did the old one for so long.

Let's be honest: Franklin Square Park is just going to be another Smithsonian museum once all the redevelopment is done.

There is no doubt in my mind that this was not done in the interest of the homeless population that used to spend time there.

The purpose of the renovation is to impose restrictions that prevent homeless and people suffering from mental health and addiction problems from being visible in downtown D.C. — from having a safe haven where they can congregate and get basic human services from local outreach workers.

Although the renovation of Franklin Park is highly appreciated and may be well overdue, we need to take into consideration the people who called it home for years. Does the city have any plans for those who were kicked out of Franklin Park due to the renovations?

This might turn into the Franklin School across from the park, which for many years sheltered homeless men.

Unfortunately, it was turned into a museum, after being left vacant for years. Many residents from that shelter decided

Jackie Turner is an artist and vendor for Street Sense Media.

instead to take shelter in the park, because it was the nearest place of rest they could find.

In many D.C. public institutions, security or police officers can use their own judgement to deny access or service to certain types of people who don’t seem like the right client.

For example, the D.C. Public Library — which is funded by taxpayers — instituted a new rule on how many bags you can carry into the library. All these restrictions are meant to prevent people going through hardship from accessing certain services because of what they are carrying, or saying, or the way they look. This also goes for the “customers only” policy on using restrooms at certain locations, like restaurants. It only applies to people who don’t look like they should be there.

Hopefully Franklin Park will not enforce these same fake rules, because the homeless community will be the one most affected.

Colly Dennis is an artist and vendor with Street Sense Media.

Why it’s better to put people who’ve experienced poverty in charge

BY STEPHEN LILIENTHAL

Ayanna Pressley’s “The 1 Bus” video aired in 2018, when she was seeking election to the U.S. House. Its message remains relevant.

As the bus travels from wealthy areas to much poorer ones where household median income and life expectancies drop, Pressley says, “It is my fundamental belief that the people closest to the pain should be the closest to the power, driving and informing the policy making.”

Pressley experienced hardships growing up. When her mother lost her job, Pressley left college to help support her family. Now she serves in the U.S. House of Representatives.

We know what happened when people like Pressley didn’t walk the halls of Congress.

A half-century ago, within the lifetimes of many Americans, power was apportioned quite differently on Capitol Hill.

White men predominated. Many committee chairmanships in Congress were held by southern Democrats with beliefs rooted in a still-lingering segregationist past, despite recent enactment of federal legislation guaranteeing civil rights and voting rights. In 1967, only six African-Americans served in the U.S. House and Senate.

Reactionary white people dominated the deep South’s state governments.

This imbalance becomes clear in Ellen B. Meacham’s “Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy In Mississippi,” which recounts the April 1967 trip taken by Senators Joseph Clark (D-Pa.) and Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) to the Mississippi Delta.

The genesis for the trip came when a young NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorney, Marian Wright, who later took the name Edelman and founded the Children’s Defense Fund, testified before a subcommittee Clark chaired overseeing implementation of the Johnson administration’s War on Poverty. At the time, Wright, a Yale Law School graduate, was one of only five African-American lawyers in the state;

two never attended law school.

Wright and others informed the subcommittee that changes fostered by the Johnson administration’s War on Poverty unexpectedly hurt many Mississippi agricultural workers, many of whom suffered displacement by automation.

Many could not afford food stamps, which in many counties replaced the federal government’s “free food” commodity distribution program. (Purchase requirements for food stamps ended in 1977.) Wright told the senators that $12 spent for food stamps brought a family of 6 “seventy-two dollars’ worth of food.” Yet, many poor Mississippians could not afford the $12.

Some actually had no or practically no income.

Visiting Jackson for an April 10 field hearing were senators Clark and Kennedy and two others. Dr. A. B. Britton, an African-American physician, testified that an unemployed field hand, his income of $3 a day gone, was unlikely to find work, even through new federal job training programs, because Mississippi employers discriminated based on race. Too young and not disabled, if he remained with his family, they could not qualify for welfare. Finding work up north and sending money home would eliminate the family’s welfare payments, if discovered.

The next day Kennedy and Clark visited Cleveland, Mississippi. They encountered African-American children who lived in sub-standard housing; whose diet often consisted of starches (i.e., bread and molasses). Many children had distended stomachs; legs weakened by rickets. (At that point, Meacham writes Mississippi declined participation in Medicaid.) Their housing and clothing were sub-standard. Unlike the north, where welfare payments helped families, Kennedy noted that in Mississippi, “children, as well as grownups, are suffering.”

Clearly shaken, Kennedy and Clark, upon returning from Mississippi, told an incredulous Secretary of Agriculture

Orville Freeman that some people in the state were surviving with “no income.” Subsequent investigations by Agriculture Department nutritionists and The Field Foundation reinforced the finding of the senators. The Field Foundation report insisted it was surprising that, given the “primitive conditions…we were examining American children of the Twentieth Century.”

Kennedy made calls to charities and affluent friends for assistance to the Delta. Getting federal action was much tougher, but the Agriculture Department did revise some guidelines to help impoverished people get food stamps and Congress did appropriate some “emergency” aid that came to the state one year after the Clark-Kennedy tour.

US Rep. Jamie Whitten (D.-Miss.), whose district encompassed much of the Delta and who chaired the House Agriculture Committee’s subcommittee on appropriations, proved unresponsive to the needs of his newly enfranchised African-American constituents but solicitous of his district’s agricultural growers. He and others of Mississippi’s whitedominated political establishment insisted the misery in the Delta was overblown.

However, after Kennedy’s untimely death on June 6, 1968, Sen. George McGovern (D-SD) succeeded in forming the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition, which helped shed light on hunger in America and its underlying causes. Over the next decade, Congress passed legislation ensuring food stamps became more accessible and no longer required purchase.

The fact that Wright Edelman, Kennedy, and Clark worked to counter extreme poverty in the Delta reminds us that making America great starts by electing representatives who do not purposefully blind themselves to the unfair realities of life experienced by lower-income Americans.

Stephen Lilienthal is a freelance writer living in Washington, D.C.

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

// 11

ART

Mirror Me Birds

BY SYBIL TAYLOR Artist/Vendor

The birds chirping, full of joy, turn a sad day into a good day, an upsetting day into happiness. They’re happy all day long. They sing soulful and joyful songs. There are all kinds of birds singing gospel songs, flying into destiny with fresh air, blue clear skies, the trees where they lay their eggs in a nest and wait for them to hatch. The bird family is so cheerful everyday.

There are so many beautiful birds to fill any sad day.

Birds love to sing and sometimes talk. Here is a list of our friends. We have sparrows, pigeons, parrot, ducks, crows, hummingbirds, owls, hawks, hens, swans, doves, peacocks, robins, eagles, woodpeckers, turkeys, penguins, ostriches, seagulls, flamingos, cranes, mynas, nightingales, kingfishers, kiwis, cuckoos, ravens, geese, and blue jays.

All these birds have a soul meaning they all have a special place in our hearts. Some birds. sing and make different sounds and noises. They make the world a better place to live. They are all beautiful in their own way.

Listen to each bird whether you’re having a bad or a good day. They will bring a smile to your face and laughter to your heart and soul. There are all kinds of birds to make the world go round.

Here is a song to lighten your day: • “Lovely Day,” by Bill Withers. It’s a beautiful early summer day for the birds chirping brings sunshine and joy to us each and every day of our lives.

RON “POOKANU” DUDLEY // Artist/Vendor

My life story: Ages 5-10

BY TONY WEST Artist/Vendor

I remember when I was 5 years old as if it was yesterday. I lived in fear. My dad was an angry man and an alcoholic.

He would yell at me, my sisters and my mom all the time. My dad would whip us all the time and he had control issues. My dad would make us take off our clothes and put us in the bathtub and beat us with a whip while we were wet. Most of all I feared for my mother.

It made me sad when my dad would beat on my mother. I remember seeing my mother’s eyes and looking at her and the fear she had in her eyes. My mother told me that she will never have another man ever again in her life to tell her what to do or try to control her.

To be continued.

Mirror mirror on the wall Time to make the narcissist fall She came around and she looked just like me Acting like she like me, but she ain’t really like me She just wanna be me She would rather be the me in her memory They say a picture is worth a photo I say the image she took is a no-no Mirror mirror on the wall My narcissist faked actin’ like she like baseball She came around and she look just like a Nats fan She saw my picture and imitated all my facts man Mirror mirror on the wall I was on the phone when the narcissist crawl Through my window and tried to harass me Then she tried to smear me and drag me Mirror mirror on the wall I was lost for words when she cut her hair bald I was at work when she called to have me arrested Then she tried to lie and get me killed, then rearrested Mirror mirror on the wall COVID-19 made the narcissist stall Came back around when she saw my picture in the Post She’s still got monkeys flying around doing the most You are a narcissist, the devil Even the tree of life couldn't help you.

The Struggle

BY VENNIE HILL Artist/Vendor

COVID-19 has caused all kinds of problems with the world. People dying all around us, losing friends and relatives. It’s a pretty hurtful thing. But it’s happening and there’s nothing we can do about it but pray for ourselves and others.

I just heard on the news this morning that people are stuck overseas and cannot return to the United States because their passports have expired. And the embassies are closed due to the pandemic. I surely feel sorry for people that want to go home and can’t get there.

Then we got the passengers on the airplanes that don’t want comply with the rules and regulations of flying.

These people don’t want to wear their masks on a plane with others. I think that’s just crazy. Why wouldn’t you want to protect yourself? Then they have the nerve to fight and beat up on the flight attendants. Now we got people scared to go to work.

Then we got the schools that are using virtual classes that don’t really work for the families that are trying to use it. The internet is always down and the kids can’t get no work done. They are only going to school for a couple of days a week.

Everybody is going through something during these troubling times including me. These are very hard times

and it’s cause for us to be stronger than we ever thought that we could be. The hard part is almost over with. But returning to normal is nowhere in sight.

Me and my husband are really struggling. He hasn’t received an unemployment check in 5 months. He can’t find a job and all he has is side work. Me, I’m looking for a job but can’t find one, trying to get disability but can’t get no kind of help with that. And I’m a struggling alcoholic. But I got Street Sense, it always helped me out in times of need.

The things that we’re going through are very depressing and sometimes I just don’t wanna get out of bed to keep struggling so hard. But somehow I manage to get up and try again.

Applying for Social Security benefits is the hardest thing I ever went through besides getting off of crack cocaine. They don’t care if you can barely walk, are mentally disabled or nothing. And I have documents to prove this. It’s very frustrating but others keep telling me not to give up, to fight for my benefits because I earned them.

Unmanageable things keep on happening to me yet I keep fighting. I know there is someone out there that’s struggling with me. My advice to you is to hold on

because help is on the way.

Somehow things seem to work out for me. It’s because I don’t give up. Sometimes I am so tired I just don’t feel like fighting anymore because it seems like I can’t win.

But I say to myself, it’s not over till the fat lady sings.

There are times when I get mad and I take it out on my husband because he’s not helping as much as he used to because he’s unemployed too. But I realized he can’t make these people send him our money until they are ready to. It just don’t make no sense how they can hold someone’s money that long.

He never let me down no matter what kind of situation I’m in. If I continue to fight, he fights right with me.

It’s upsetting to keep fighting when you can see it’s not getting any easier or getting no better. But this is a world of wonder. We have to fight to survive in it. Somehow I feel I’m not alone in the hardship. All I can say is keep your head up and these days when you want to give up and throw in the towel, don’t. Because help is on the way. Your’re not alone, you’re not the only one that’s struggling to get through this. I’m with you and believe me, we will make it through together one day at a time.

So until next time, stay safe and stay clean.

1 2 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A // J U N E 1 6 - 2 2 , 2021

ART

The intersection at 8th and I streets NW in March 2020. The street was empty due to the quarantine at the time. The National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art museum is visible in the distance.

PHOTO BY SHEILA WHITE

The making of “Street Reporter:” a collaborative documentary project

BY SHEILA WHITE Artist/Vendor

I recently had the privilege of working on a documentary film called Street Reporter with reporter Reginald Black. The film follows Reginald and me as we report on a homeless encampment in the NoMa area here in Washington, D.C. I filmed interviews and photographed a man who lived in this encampment named Mike Harris, and my media became a part of the film. The interesting thing about Mike is that he is paralyzed and must use a wheelchair while sleeping in a tent under a bridge. His story about how hard it was to go to the restroom, shower, and eat a well-balanced meal was hard to listen to. Mike has been homeless for many years. He was one of many people living in this encampment. Many of them are suffering from mental illness, substance abuse or economic issues. These are just a few barriers a homeless person faces every day. Thankfully, Mike has since moved into his new apartment.

Having a voice Being a journalist means a lot to me. I am a living witness to the truth about homelessness due to my personal experience with homelessness. I am still living through the process. As such, community journalism is very important to me. The community needs to know what is going on in each neighborhood when it comes to this issue. We must educate ourselves and then let our government officials know that this is unacceptable.

Collaborative filmmaking My experience working with the collaborative filmmaking team (Laura, Bryan, and Kasey) gave me the opportunity to share

Michael Harris preparing for the next day’s permanent eviction from the K Street encampment in NoMa on Jan. 15, 2020. PHOTO BY RODNEY CHOICE / CHOICEPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

// 1 3

my story about being homeless. I also got the chance to film and photograph other people. The hands-on experience taught me a lot about filming, photography, editing and recording. I am new at being a photojournalist, but I am excited to learn all about it.

In particular, I have learned how to be patient with others and let them tell their story no matter how hard it is to hear.

Learning how to properly use a camera is so much fun for me.

My toughest challenge was editing. I have not quite mastered this skill yet, but I will soon. A good journalist goes after stories that may be sensitive to others, but the story must be told. The best part about journalism for me is I get to tell someone else’s story. These stories about homelessness need to be told every day until we can bring an end to homelessness.

Street Sense Media My passion for photojournalism came from working with Street Sense, a newspaper that publishes articles written by members from the homeless community in D.C. Street Sense offers educational workshops such as writers groups and courses in photography, filmmaking, illustration, editing, and much more.

My experience with homelessness Being homeless for seven years was a sad time in my life.

Living on the street for three years, not knowing where I could find a safe place to sleep, eat or even shower was challenging.

Stores wouldn’t let me use the restroom. Instead, I had to purchase something first. Eating a well balanced meal was hard to come by. Martha’s Table would bring food to us once a day, but by nightfall I was hungry again. There were places to take a shower but they let only around 10 people shower per day.

Food lines and shower lines are very long. You might have to wait a week or so before your name came up to take a shower.

This experience forced me to move into the women’s shelter.

I spent the next four years living in a shelter which came with its own challenges. We had to leave the shelter at 7 a.m. and return at 4 p.m. If you didn’t return on time, you would lose your bed. You had to carry your belongings with you all the time. Worst of all, sleeping was extremely difficult at the shelter and the food was awful. We ate the same thing, day after day. While at the shelter, I also started an associate’s degree program at the UDC. Shelter life while going to school was a major challenge.

In 2020, just as the pandemic hit, I finally received a housing voucher after waiting for nearly eight years. It was a great relief. I now can study in a quiet place, feed myself healthy meals and just relax.

The challenges to getting housing It is estimated that there are 9,000 homeless people in the D.C. metropolitan area. Many people who are homeless suffer from addiction, depression, and also have eviction notices on their records, or felony records, which stop them from getting housed. The laws need to change so people can obtain housing. Landlords need to give second chances to people with these kinds of problems. I was given the chance because my record was clean, but what about people who lost their homes due to fire, flood or just lost their jobs? It’s expected that homelessness will grow due to the pandemic as related eviction prohibitions expire.

ABOVE: A man living on the streets and selling items in Chinatown in early 2020. I took this picture to show everyone how a homeless person works and makes a living. We talked about how hard it is living on the streets of D.C. BELOW: A man standing near a construction site not far from Union Station. I photographed him because biking is fun and I wanted to show that the quarantine didn’t stop some people from riding their bikes downtown. PHOTOS BY SHEILA WHITE

14

8 4 9 2 7 6 1 3 5 9 6 1 7 4 8 5 2 3 3 5 7 9 6 2 8 4 1 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A // 4 2 8 3 5 1 7 9 6

FUN &#4 Sudoku 3 7 GAMES 1 5

9 7 2 8 6 3

Sudoku #1 8

9 6 Sudoku 1 #6 4

7 6 9 1 3 8 5 2 6 9 8 4

7 8

4

9

1

8 7 1 9 6 2

3 Novice 6 Sudoku by KrazyDad, Volume 2, Book 1 5 2 2 5 4 8 7 3 8 9 6 4 1 7

9 4 2 5 4 3 8 5

3

3 1

4 3 6 5 1 7 9 5 2 8 9 1 4 6 1

2 9 4 5 6 8 4 7 2 7 8 9 1 3 5 3 2 1 2 7 6 5 3 4 5 9 1 7 1 3 8 4 6

5 1 8 3 3 2 4 7 1 5 9 6 6 4 3 1 4 7 2 8 7 6 5 9 9 8 1 4 8 3 6 2 2 9 7 5

6 9 2

© 2013 KrazyDad.com

Fill in the blank squares so that each row, each column and each Sudoku #8 all of the digits 1 thru 9.

3-by-3 block contain

Find this crossword

7 use 5 logic 9 you 1 can8solve 2 the6 puzzle 4 without 3 If you guesswork. puzzle’s answers at: 5 page 1 shows 2 a4 3 6 The9hints 8 7 Need little help? a logicaltinyurl.com/06-02order to solve the puzzle.

Use it to identify the next square you should solve.crossword-solution Or use the answers page 1 really 8 get 6 stuck.

3 4 7 5 2 9 if you

8 9 6 2 5 3

7 2 7 9 1 4 3 5 8 4 2 7 8 9 1 6 3 7 5 4 2 9 8 6 1 9 1 8 7 5 6 2 3 4 4 6 2 8 3 1 7 9 5 1

5

6

3

This is the Daily Crossword Puzzle #7 for May 27, 2021

4

<< LAST EDITION’S PUZZLE SOLUTION

The older I get, the smarter my parents were.

-- Twain

2 8 2 7 4 5 9 8 4 1 3 6 6 3 9 8 4 5 1 6 7 3 4 9 5 1 2 1 5 3 4 7 7 2 8 9 1 9 8 2 6 5 6

OnlineCrosswords.net

J U N E 1 6 - 2 2, 2021

Across Across 1. Mold 1. Mold 6. Gorillas Gorillasup 10.6.Brought 14.10.

More wan up Brought 15.14.

Former More wan 16.15.

Great affection Former 17.16.

Absolute Great affection 18.17.

Division word Absolute 19.18.

Portent Division word 20.19.

Unsealed Portent again 22.20.

Surly Unsealed again 24.22.

ArtSurly ____ 25.24.

Cushion Art ____ 26.25.

Slipped Cushion 30.26.

Part of speech Slipped 32.30.

Comes close Part of speech 36.32.

Fiesta item Comes close 38.36.

Positive Fiesta votes item 40. Feather scarf 38. Positive votes 41. With ice cream (3 wds.)

40. Feather scarf 43. Eating away 41. With ice cream (3 wds.)

45. Basker's desire 43. Eating away 46. Girl 45. Basker's desire 48. Among 46. Girl 49. Play part 48. Among 51. Cooking vessels 49. Play part 53. Alpha's follower 51. Cooking vessels 54. Peculiar 53. Alpha's follower 56. Pare 54. Peculiar 58. Not wide Pare 61.56.

Brightness Not wide 66.58.

Customer Brightness 67.61.

Distinct times 66.

Customer 69. Honolulu greeting Distinct times 70.67.

Skirt length Honolulu greeting 71.69. ____ wolf Skirtuser length 72.70.

Lariat ____fish wolf 73.71.

Game 72.

Lariat 74. Deuces user Game fish 75.73.

Severe 74. Deuces 75. Severe

Down 1. Prod

2. Dislike strongly Down 3. Chorus voice Prod 4.1.Chick’s sound 2. Dislike strongly 5. Miscalculated 3. Chorus voice 6. Each 4. Chick's sound 7. Curious woman of myth 5. Miscalculated 8. Superlative ending 6. Each 9. Small porch 7. Curious woman of 10.

Fair-haired myth 11.

Italian city 8. Superlative ending 12.

Constantly 9. Small porch 13.

10.Refuse Fair-haired 21.

Vegas’s 11.Las Italian city state 23.

Kidnapper’s 12. Constantly demand 26. disagreements 13.Minor Refuse 27.

Pale purple 21. Las Vegas's state 28. Ridiculous 29. Beaver project 31. Farewell!

33. Remain

Find the solution at https://onlinecrosswords.net/71419

34. Bird’s perch 35. Mr. Claus 23. Kidnapper's demand 50. Martial artist Chuck 37. Ohio port ____ 26. Minor 39. Deleted 52. Taunts disagreements 42. Psychic ability (abbr.)

55. Resided 27. Pale purple 44. Bro or sis 57. Those who fib 28. Ridiculous 47. High voice 58. Without feeling 29. Beaver project 50. Martial artist Chuck ____ 59. China's continent 31. Farewell!

52.

Taunts 60. Cincinnati baseballe 33. Remain 55. Resided 62. Very much (2 wds.)

34. Bird's perch 57. Those who fib 63. Negative reply 35. Mr. Claus 58. Without feeling64. "Moonstruck" actres 37. Ohio port 59. China’s continent 65. Deserve 39. Deleted 60.ability Cincinnati baseballers 68. Line 42. Psychic (abbr.) 62. Very much (2 wds.)

44. Bro or63. sisNegative reply 64. “Moonstruck” actress 47. High voice 65. Deserve 68. Line

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

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

COMMUNITY SERVICES

SHELTER HOTLINE Línea directa de alojamiento

(202) 399-7093

YOUTH HOTLINE Línea de juventud

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE Línea directa de violencia doméstica

(202) 547-7777

1-800-799-7233

Housing/Shelter Vivienda/alojamiento

Education Educación

Health Care Seguro

Clothing Ropa

Legal Assistance Assistencia Legal

Case Management Coordinación de Servicios

Food Comida

Employment Assistance Assitencia con Empleo

Transportation Transportación

Showers Duchas

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

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

Calvary Women’s Services // 202-678-2341 1217 Good Hope Rd., SE calvaryservices.org

Food and Friends // 202-269-2277 (home delivery for those suffering from HIV, cancer, etc) 219 Riggs Rd., NE foodandfriends.org

Foundry Methodist Church // 202-332-4010 1500 16th St., NW ID (Friday 9am–12pm only) foundryumc.org/ministry-opportunities

Friendship Place // 202-364-1419 4713 Wisconsin Ave., NW friendshipplace.org

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

Georgetown Ministry Center // 202-338-8301 1041 Wisconsin Ave., NW georgetownministrycenter.org

Central Union Mission // 202-745-7118 65 Massachusetts Ave., NW missiondc.org

Jobs Have Priority // 202-544-9128 425 2nd St., NW jobshavepriority.org

Charlie’s Place // 202-232-3066 1830 Connecticut Ave., NW charliesplacedc.org

Loaves & Fishes // 202-232-0900 1525 Newton St., NW loavesandfishesdc.org

Christ House // 202-328-1100 1717 Columbia Rd., NW christhouse.org

Martha’s Table // 202-328-6608 marthastable.org

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

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

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

Covenant House Washington 202-610-9600 // 2001 Mississippi Ave., SE covenanthousedc.org

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

Father McKenna Center // 202-842-1112 19 Eye St., NW fathermckennacenter.org

2375 Elvans Road SE 2204 Martin Luther King Ave. SE

Miriam’s Kitchen // 202-452-8926 2401 Virginia Ave., NW miriamskitchen.org

My Sister’s Place // 202-529-5991 (24-hr hotline) mysistersplacedc.org

N Street Village // 202-939-2060 1333 N St., NW nstreetvillage.org

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

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH HOTLINE Línea de salud del comportamiento

1-888-793-4357

Laundry Lavandería

Samaritan Ministry 202-722-2280 // 1516 Hamilton St., NW 202-889-7702 // 1345 U St., SE samaritanministry.org

Sasha Bruce Youthwork // 202-675-9340 741 8th St., SE sashabruce.org

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

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

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

Unity Health Care 3020 14th St., NW // unityhealthcare.org - Healthcare for the Homeless Health Center: 202-508-0500 - Community Health Centers: 202-469-4699 1500 Galen Street SE, 1500 Galen Street SE, 1251-B Saratoga Ave NE, 1660 Columbia Road NW, 4414 Benning Road NE, 3924 Minnesota Avenue NE, 765 Kenilworth Terrace NE, 555 L Street SE, 3240 Stanton Road SE, 3020 14th Street NW, 2700 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, 1717 Columbia Road NW, 1313 New York Avenue, NW BSMT Suite, 425 2nd Street NW, 4713 Wisconsin Avenue NW, 2100 New York Avenue NE, 2100 New York Avenue NE, 1333 N Street NW, 1355 New York Avenue NE, 828 Evarts Place, NE, 810 5th Street NW

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

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

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

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

Samaritan Inns // 202-667-8831 2523 14th St., NW samaritaninns.org

// 1 5

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

HELP! WE’RE LOOKING FOR

volunteers Become a Street Sense Media volunteer and help further our mission to empower people experiencing homelessness.

Get to know the vendors and make a difference in their lives and yours!

You’ll support hard-working newspaper vendors by volunteering your time, four hours a week, distributing newspapers at the Street Sense Media office.

If interested, please contact Thomas Ratliff thomas@streetsensemedia.org 202-347-2006 (x103)

Look at This a

podcast

Listen NOW at streetsensedc.podbean.com "Look at This," a new weekly podcast series, debuted this month. Vendor/artists share their stories, struggles, and triumphs in their own words and voices. In the first episode, Brian Carome, Street Sense Media's chief executive officer, said a valuable resource the newspaper provides for its vendors is an opportunity for self-expression. "Look at This" is also your opportunity to hear directly from our vendors about their lives.

"I used to walk around and see people ... and, I would ask them, 'Would you like a tent?' So that’s how I started off buying tents.”

"I call it street slamming...

They'll see what I see but they'll hear what I'm feeling.”

– Carlton Johnson, Episode 3

– Rita Sauls, Episode 4

“My HIV is not what makes me as a person. That’s not what defines me as a person.

I’m still a human being at the end of the day.”

"I think I found myself traumatized more than anything. I just found myself out of a home. I found myself wandering the streets."

– Darleesha Joyner, Episode 3

– Shelia White, Episode 2

“I’m out there and I’m in the street. I’m connecting with people and I have the people read my poem to me.”

"It's a very horrible feeling.

It's a feeling that makes you feel like no tomorrow, depressing, demotivating."

– Ayub Abdul, Episode 3

– Marcellus Phillips, Episode 1

"I now am writing poetry for Street Sense, and I’m so, it’s just so mind-boggling to me."

– Queenie Featherstone, Episode 1

Thank you for reading Street Sense!

From your vendor