09 22 2021

VOL. 18 ISSUE 34

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How universities in DC are spending their higher education emergency relief funds STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

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EVENTS

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NEWS IN BRIEF DC Medicaid patients wait on MedStar contract resolution

PHOTO BY SARAH WATSON

ANC 2A Forum on DC Encampment Pilot Program Wed, Sept. 22, 5:00 PM Online/Virtual via Zoom: bit.ly/ANCPilotForum // Or dial (301) 715-8592, then 837 8186 7140 #

All are welcome to the ANC Forum on the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services’ (DMHHS) Encampment Pilot Program on Wednesday, September 22nd at 5:00 pm. Come ask questions and learn more about the DMHHS encampment pilot program, which proposes moving individuals living in large encampments into temporary housing before closing down their encampments. DMHHS representatives will be on hand to explain the program and answer questions. The forum will be hosted by Commissioners in affected single member districts: Yannik Omictin (2A01), Alex Lopez (6E02), and Drew Courtney (6C06).

SATURDAY, SEPT. 25

UPDATES ONLINE AT ICH.DC.GOV

Mutual Aid Picnic 1 p.m. // Franklin Square Park 1332 I Street NW Food Not Bombs D.C., which distributes meals downtown weekly is encouraging people to bring “vegan and vegetarian food (potluck style), drinks, blankets, donations, and your smiling faces” to the newly renovated Franklin Park.

D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness Meetings Emergency Response Committee Sept. 22, 1:00 pm // Virtual Youth Committee Sept 23, 1:30 pm // Virtual ***For call-in information, as well as meeting info for unlisted working groups, contact: ich.dmhhs@dc.gov

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 29

Painting Out Addiction 2 - 6 p.m. // Columbus Circle (In front of Union Station) Join The h3 Project and the D.C. Dept. of Behavioral Health for a resource fair, DJ, food, raffle giveaways and free swag, art creation and Naloxone certification training to “make an impact on D.C.’s opioid crisis.”

MORE INFO: linktr.ee/FoodNotBombsDC

Two hundred and fifty thousand D.C. residents on Medicaid are waiting for resolution of a dispute between Mayor Muriel Bowser and D.C. Council regarding Medicaid contract renewals. If a deal isn’t reached by Sept. 30, those low-income residents may not have the same access to doctors within the large MedStar care provider network.

D.C. contracts with MedStar, AmeriHealth, and CareFirst to provide three choices of health insurance — called “managed care plans” — to Medicaid enrollees. D.C. residents with low-income health coverage can choose MedStar as their insurance company and then access the same company’s doctors. Medicaid enrollees choosing the other two managed care plans have also been able to access MedStar-affiliated providers. However, that access is now under threat.

Since at least as far back as 2017, Bowser and D.C. Council have fought over lucrative contracts for Medicaid managed care. In December 2020, a review board of government contracting ruled that D.C. improperly awarded MedStar one of those three slots during the most recent bidding. However, during 2021, the mayor’s administration did not perform the courtordered review of that contract.

This summer, the council passed a law requiring that contract reevaluation and booting MedStar’s insurer off the menu for Medicaid recipients October 1. Even though D.C. would be able to move MedStar enrollees to the other two managed care plans, only CareFirst members would get access to MedStar doctors. MedStar threatened this summer to exclude AmeriHealth members if the former lost its managed care contract, according to the Washington Post.

Mayor Bowser and councilmembers have exchanged additional rebuttals in recent weeks. If nothing is resolved, the status quo places 65,000 AmeriHealth members at risk of losing their doctors and some additional residents — more than 160,000 — in limbo as they get transferred from the MedStar insurer out to either AmeriHealth or CareFirst.

Street Sense Media Deputy Editor Gordon Chaffin was a Medicaid recipient enrolled with MedStar’s managed care plan until last week. In calls to the company’s customer service representatives, those officials did not promise that Medicaid patients would have continued access to MedStar care providers.

Representatives said that MedStar physicians would do their best to refer Medicaid patients to other providers.

—Gordon Chaffin, gordon@streetsensemedia.org

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9:58 AM · SEP 16, 2021

6:36 PM · SEP 16, 2021

CORRECTIONS In last week’s Sept. 15 edition, in the memorial essay “Anthony Crawford: My colleague, my friend,” we published that Mr. Crawford had previously worked as a vendor of the “Real Change” street paper in Seattle and purchased a Seattle Seahawks jacket. We have since learned that Mr. Crawford never lived in Seattle or strayed from rooting for his beloved Pittsburgh Steelers. The essay will be updated before it is published online.

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NEWS

How universities in DC are spending their higher education emergency relief funds

BY WILL SCHICK will@streetsensemedia.org

C

OVID-19 upended life in D.C. and across the country in ways that no one had ever imagined.

It changed the way people went to work, how they shopped, when and where they went out to eat, and how they attended school. When the global pandemic was first declared in March 2020, D.C.’s institutions of higher education — just like their counterparts across the country — scrambled to adjust to online learning. And students, faced with an unexpected public health crisis at a scale they had never seen before, did their best to continue to pay for their classes.

Congress passed the Coronavirus, Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) at the end of March 2020.

The bill, the biggest economic stimulus package Congress has ever passed, gave $2.2 trillion to people and businesses that were struggling because of the changes wrought by the pandemic. It also distributed $14 billion of higher education emergency relief funds (HEERF) to schools across the country. The stated goal of HEERF was twofold: to help schools recoup lost revenues and to provide struggling students with the financial help they needed.

The federal government has since distributed two more iterations of HEERF. The second, dubbed HEERF II, provided $23 billion in relief aid via legislation passed by Congress in December 2020. The American Rescue Plan, approved in March 2021 at the behest of the new Biden administration, added $39.6 billion in academic relief funds under HEERF III. This third round also incorporated several changes that allowed more flexibility in how schools could use the money.

Particularly given that D.C. has the highest student loan debt per capita in the U.S., Street Sense Media and The DC Line analyzed the financial disclosures of the eight main universities in the District to determine how they directed the federal money obtained via HEERF. Based on available information, most of them have used the bulk of their funds to provide additional financial aid to students, expanding on one required use for the HEERF funds. The local universities also used part of the money to pay for air filtration systems and additional training for teachers who had to pivot to teaching online.

Private universities in D.C. — which vary greatly in size, overall budget and student population — received between $2.2 million and $12.5 million in quarterly funding in the latest round of HEERF under the American Rescue Plan, according to available information. Once schools meet their spending obligations under HEERF, which includes directing at least 50% of their institutional funds toward student aid, they have up to a year to spend the rest of the money they receive, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Moreover, schools are also entitled to one-year extensions to determine how to spend any remaining funds.

Deciding to use funding for universities to pay off student tuition balances Trinity Washington University made headlines several months ago when it decided to apply most of the institutional funds it received under HEERF to close out student tuition balances.

As of July, the school had paid off $1.8 million in account

Trinity Washington University PHOTO BY GORDON CHAFFIN

balances for nearly 400 of its full-time undergraduate students.

The school decided the best way to ensure that its students would continue with their studies would be to remove balances from their accounts.

“There’s almost no student at Trinity who’s just a carefree full-time undergraduate doing what typical collegiate undergrads do,” Pat McGuire, the university’s longtime president, explained in an interview with Street Sense Media and The DC Line.

Many of the students who attend the school do not have the same financial safety nets as students at other schools might, according to McGuire.

The vast majority of students at Trinity Washington University are low-income female students of color — a big difference from when McGuire attended the school decades ago, she said.

During the District’s pre-Metro, pre-home rule days, McGuire studied at what was then Trinity College on a fulltuition scholarship of $2,000. In the early ’70s, annual tuition at four-year colleges still ranged between several hundred and several thousand dollars — far from today’s sums that top $81,531 at some institutions.

When McGuire became president of her alma mater in 1989, she asked how many local students from the District were admitted into the incoming freshman class. An admissions official looked at her quizzically and said that no students from D.C. were enrolled, McGuire recalled When she pressed for the reason no students from D.C.’s predominantly Black public schools were admitted, the official said she didn’t believe they would be able to succeed in such a rigorous academic rigorous program. The official’s statement stunned McGuire, who said she believed the idea was “frankly racist” and stemmed from a mistaken belief that D.C. students did not have the skills to succeed at the university.

In the decades since then, McGuire has helped shape Trinity’s transformation from a “very white, very Catholic” school into a much more diverse institution composed predominantly of female students of color, many of whom are D.C. residents who work low-wage jobs trying to support their families in addition to attending class. Many of these students, McGuire said, were hard hit by the pandemic — making it particularly important to help them wipe out their bills while also enabling them to continue their education.

The relaxing of the restrictions on HEERF dollars in the latest round of funding created the opportunity for schools across the country to do so: They could now apply federal aid designated as “institutional funds” to a variety of uses that would directly help students.

The federal government determines an institution’s HEERF allocation based on a formula that takes into account the percentage and number of Pell grant recipients who attend the school. Pell grants are annual awards ranging up to $6,495 that are given to students “who display exceptional financial need and have not earned a bachelor’s, graduate, or professional degree,” according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Under HEERF, schools receive funding under two categories — “student” and “institutional” funding. Previous iterations of HEERF restricted eligible spending within both categories. While the more recent legislation eased many of those conditions, the American Rescue Plan does require that 50% of institutional funds received under HEERF be spent on student grants, according to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA).

Not all of D.C.’s universities have yet posted HEERF quarterly reports for the most recent period, which ended June 30. The latest information available from Howard University and the University of the District of Columbia, for instance, is for the period ending Dec. 31, 2020. For this article, Street

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

Sense Media and The DC Line examined the latest HEERF quarterly report available from each of the eight universities located in the District:

Line, Robert Specter, vice president for finance and treasurer at Catholic University, said the funds “were allocated to general expenses required to operate the University.”

American University

Gallaudet University

American University received $6.3 million in HEERF institutional funds last quarter and has applied all of it to recover lost revenue from auxiliary sources such as dorms and food-service providers. For the quarter ending September 2020, the university spent approximately $6.2 million of the $6.3 million of its HEERF institutional funds on emergency financial aid grants, tuition reimbursements, and other expenses related to subsidizing the cost of attendance for students.

In a statement to Street Sense Media and The DC Line, American University said it planned to use half of the institutional funds available under the American Rescue Plan to distribute to students in emergency student aid, the minimum legal requirement. A spokesperson for the university added that part of its institutional funds “will be used to offset COVID-related health and safety expenses, including COVID testing, contact tracing, PPE, expanded cleaning, etc., as well as to meet other American Rescue Plan requirements such as conducting ‘direct outreach to financial aid applicants about the opportunity to receive a financial aid adjustment due to the recent unemployment of a family member or independent student, or other circumstances.’”

Gallaudet University spent $1 million of the $4.8 million institutional funds it received last quarter on emergency financial aid, according to its latest report. In its report, the school says it spent $3,000 to cover an unpaid account balance so the affected student could register for future classes.

In an August email to Street Sense Media and The DC Line, Lisa Clarke, the interim chief financial officer for Gallaudet University said the school was “reviewing student accounts, including those of recent graduates, to determine other opportunities to reduce balances as appropriate and legally compliant.” Clarke said that in addition to providing more financial aid to students, “we are using significant funding on campus infrastructure, such as air ventilation systems throughout campus, including classrooms and residence halls, to ensure that students and staff can safely return to campus.”

As of June 30, Gallaudet reported having just over $3.1 million in available HEERF funds.

Catholic University Catholic University spent most of its HEERF dollars on its students, close to half of the $2.2 million it received in the last quarter replaced lost revenue from “academic sources,” according to its most recent report. The U.S. Department of Education says the “academic sources” category can include money for tuition and fees, as well as unpaid student accounts. Catholic University applied the remaining $1.3 million it received last quarter to another category titled “other uses of institutional portion funds,” which can include providing additional student grants and reducing costs brought on by COVID-19, according to NASFAA. In a statement to Street Sense Media and The DC

George Washington University George Washington University received close to $12.5 million in institutional funds in the quarter ending June 30, according to its latest report. The money replaced lost revenue from academic and auxiliary sources. The school reported having a $59 million loss in revenue from student tuition and fees, and an additional $72 million loss in summer housing revenue.

“In addition, GWU spent and continues to spend a reasonable and necessary portion to monitor and suppress coronavirusrelated expenses (i.e., sanitary facilities and cleaning, costs associated with COVID vaccine administration and tests, other prevention, and mitigation-related capital expenses, etc.),” the report says.

In an email statement to Street Sense Media and The DC Line, George Washington University said it plans to share midway through the fall semester how it will distribute additional funds

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to students. The June 30 report said only: “Per the federal guidance, GWU is actively pursuing to identify eligible financial aid recipients using various communication channels, including mails, e‐mails, newsletters, GWU website, etc.”

Georgetown University Georgetown University reported spending all of the $3 million in institutional funds it received in the quarter ending March 31 on “campus safety and operations,” which includes “expenses incurred by the university with respect to COVID19, testing necessary to enable on-campus academic, research, and operational activities,” according to its latest report. The university did not respond to email or phone requests to comment for this story.

Howard University The latest quarterly report available from Howard University is for the period ending Dec. 31. The report shows the university applied approximately $2.6 million of the about $8.7 million in institutional funds it received during that quarter to provide tuition reimbursements and discounts to students. Additionally, the report shows the school spent $355,476 on purchasing “technological hardware,” which includes laptops and tablets for students.

The school also spent $3.5 million in “subsidizing offcampus housing costs due to dormitory closures or decisions to limit one student per room” as well as “paying travel expenses for students who need to leave campus early due to coronavirus infections or campus interruptions.”

Howard University also spent $32,598 on extra teaching materials such as computers and lab equipment to reduce the number of shared supplies used during class, according to the quarterly report. An additional $441,495 was used to purchase software and other technological materials to help with distance learning and upgrading Wi-Fi access. Howard University did not respond to email or phone requests for comment.

Trinity Washington University According to its latest report, Trinity Washington University received $3.3 million in institutional funding for the quarter ending June 30. At the time of the report, the school had spent about $114,000 of that amount. Allocations included $14,370 to provide emergency financial aid grants to students, $4,450 to cover the cost of wireless access for students in the dorms, $42,000 to subscribe to online services such as Zoom and e-signature, $22,813 to buy air purifiers, $7,737 to replace lost academic revenue, and $22,750 to help pay for faculty training in online instruction.

University of the District of Columbia The University of the District of Columbia did not respond to email or phone requests for comment. Its last disclosure report available online covers the period ending Dec. 31, 2020; it says the university received approximately $1.8 million in federal funding but does not show any expenditures during that quarter.

On its CARES Act disclosures page, the school reports that the funds received for emergency financial aid were distributed among 5,734 students. It is unclear whether the school received funding under HEERF III. This article was co-published with The DC Line.

American University PHOTO BY WILL SHICK

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NEWS

DC residents receive more emergency rental assistance than most across region

BY JOSHUA MONTGOMERY-PRATT Greater Greater Washington

This article was first published on Sept. 13

by Greater Greater Washington.

Rental assistance programs have provided crucial support to residents throughout the region this year, but the programs of different states, districts, and counties have had mixed effectiveness, which could jeopardize the funding of some of those areas.

Under the Consolidated Appropriations Act that was enacted in December 2020, the federal government provided $25 billion in emergency rental assistance (ERA1) to aid households during the pandemic. Through it, households are eligible for rental assistance if they meet the following conditions: 1. One or more individuals within the household has qualified for unemployment benefits or experienced a reduction in household income, incurred significant costs, or experienced other financial hardship due, directly or indirectly, to the COVID-19 outbreak.

2. One or more individuals within the household can demonstrate a risk of experiencing homelessness or housing instability.

3. The household has a household income at or below 80% of area median income.

ERA1 funds were distributed through states and localities with populations greater than 200,000, which has led to differing levels of effectiveness across the Washington region.

In the District D.C. has distributed federal emergency rental assistance funding through its STAY D.C. program, which is administered by the Department of Human Services. The District received $200 million in ERA1 funds, plus an additional $152 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, totaling $352 million in funds, which it has had increasing success at distributing.

On August 9, just 27.5% of its ERA1 funds had been distributed to its residents. By August 25, that number had jumped to 47.3%.

Through STAY D.C., the District has provided assistance to 15,069 households.

While the federal requirements for what was considered facing housing instability are somewhat vague, D.C. has defined them more clearly, limiting access to its program to households that are past due on rent or utilities or that pay at least 50% of their income on rent.

This is not to say D.C. has not had its share

of challenges. Evictions are starting back up again in D.C.; according to DCist, D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson is casting blame on Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration in light of delays in the rollout of STAY D.C. funds (critics point out, however, that Mendelson supported ending the eviction moratorium in the first place). .

In Virginia

Virginia has been exceptionally successful at distributing ERA1 funds. As of August 9, 42.6% of its $569.7 million in ERA1 funding had been distributed to residents. Unlike Maryland, Virginia is largely distributing its funds statewide, even for its populous counties. This decision was made by the individual counties.

For example, the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors decided to have the county’s aid handled by the state for a few reasons. One, there aren’t enough staff at the county’s Department of Family Services to effectively manage the program alongside its existing aid programs.

Loudoun officials also didn’t expect enough people to participate in the program to warrant the costs. Finally, Loudoun officials concluded that allowing the state to manage the program would allow landlords who owned properties in multiple jurisdictions to more easily apply for aid on behalf of residents.

There are two counties in Virginia, Chesterfield County and Fairfax, that chose to seek funds directly from the federal government. Fairfax County received $34.5 million in ERA1 funds for its program. This an increase from its initial funding, as the Department of the Treasury increased its grant from $27.3 million after designating it as a “high-need” destination. As of August 11, 29.3% of these funds had been distributed.

In Virginia, “prioritization is given to households who are currently facing eviction, whose income is at or below 50% Area Median Income (AMI), and/or include an adult who has been unemployed more than 90 days.”

This has resulted in Virginia being able to reach its residents who have the greatest need, providing funds to more than 70% of households with area median incomes at or below 30% as of July 1.

In Maryland In Maryland, the funds have been distributed by a combination of state and county funding. Under ERA1, Maryland directly received $258.1 million, while counties like Montgomery and Prince George’s received $31.4 million and $27.1 million respectively.

Maryland has been severely struggling to get money to renters in need. As of August 9, only

This map shows areas in Montgomery County where emergency rental assistance will be prioritized, according to DHHS's Priority Index. IMAGE BY MONTGOMERY COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES.

14.9% of Maryland’s ERA1 funding had been distributed to residents. While this is more than most states in the country, it is far worse than D.C. or Virginia. Montgomery County has been more successful than Maryland, as it had used 70% of its allocation as of Sept. 13, but both have been outperformed by Prince George’s, which had distributed 83% of its ERA1 funding as of August 18.

In Maryland, “local jurisdictions will operate rental assistance programs independently,” and for all of its counties, assistance can only be accessed through county departments. In Montgomery County, the program is administered by its Department of Health and Human Services, while in Prince George’s County, the program is administered by its Department of Housing and Community Development.

Both county departments developed their own independent criteria by which they judge who should receive funds first. Both were based on a combination of COVID-19 impact, housing stress, and social factors.

The future of emergency rental assistance in the region Failure to distribute a large amount of

ERA1 funds has more consequences than just preventing people from getting the aid they need. Beginning on Sept. 30, the Department of the Treasury will withdraw any excess funding from states and localities and reallocate it to ones that have obligated at least 65% of their initial funds. In our region, the state of Maryland and Fairfax County have not yet met the 65% threshold.

As of September 8, “Treasury has not issued any guidance regarding how it will define “excess” unobligated funds held by grantees and when they plan to conduct the recapture and reallocation,” but it still presents a deadline that lagging states and localities may fail to meet. The Department of the Treasury has also “not yet clarified whether ‘obligated’ means funding is spent, committed, or allocated.”

While the goal of this reallocation is to give additional funds to the places that need them the most, if Maryland and Fairfax County are unable to meet that deadline, it could deprive them of the resources to aid their residents. In order to hold onto ERA1 funding, their rental assistance programs will have to distribute at least as much aid as they distributed up to July by the end of this month, which could pose a significant challenge for them.

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

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AT A GLANCE

A nonprofit and a group of realtors teamed up to help low-income DMV residents buy homes

BY CLAUDIA LEVENS Editorial Intern

A

local realtor association and a nonprofit recently cemented a three-year partnership to support low-income residents in the D.C. metro region seeking to own their own homes.

Joseph Leitmann-Santa Cruz, CEO and executive director of the nonprofit, Capital Area Asset Builders (CAAB), said the primary vision for the partnership is to make homeownership accessible to members of low-income communities of color by sharing information and resources. CAAB has disseminated information on homeownership and access to capital for almost 25 years, helping more than 900 people buy their first homes, according to its website. LeitmannSanta Cruz said the nonprofit is committed to intentionally minimizing the racial wealth gap in D.C. “We’ve long been concerned about housing affordability in the area,” he said. “It’s part of the intentionality on our part to ensure that Black and brown individuals and families have access to financial stability so they can eventually achieve financial prosperity and leave a legacy for the next generation.”

According to a 2018 D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute report, racially-biased policies and practices in hiring, homeownership, and education have generated a significant wealth imbalance in the District. The report showed that the median household income for Black D.C. residents — $38,000 in 2016 — was less than one third of the median household income for white residents during that period, $126,000. Similarly, the median income for Latino families at the time, $65,000, was half the median white income.

Wealth and income inequality is also reflected in disproportionate homeownership rates. A 2018 Urban Institute report found that about 50% of Black households own their homes, compared to more than 70% of white households.

Jan Brito, president of the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors (GCAAR), which promotes real estate professionals in D.C. and Montgomery County, said that homeownership is one of the most impactful ways to build wealth and end generational poverty.

“If you buy a house and stay in it long enough, you’re going to build equity, which is important to be able to take care of basic needs. It can also pay for college education or medical

Darlesha Joyner

BIRTHDAYS Carlos Carolina Sept. 23 ARTIST/VENDOR

Romald E. Armstrong attended a week-long series of homeownership classes hosted by Capital Area Asset Builders and the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors. IMAGE COURTESY OF GCAAR

needs and leave a legacy for heirs. Not to mention the sense of pride it can bring to people’s lives,” Brito said.

For five consecutive nights in June, GCAAR and CAAB hosted a series of one-hour online workshops on homeownership. Three hundred and seventeen people attended, according to a GCAAR factsheet. Each class touched on a different subject, including budgeting, understanding your financial rights, and taking charge of your credit.

The series will be repeated again next month, the week of Oct. 18 - 22.

Brito emphasized that only the last of the five classes presents regionally specific information. She believes the workshops will be enlightening for participants, regardless of region. The June series focused on D.C. in the last session. The regional class in the October curriculum will focus on financing options in Montgomery County.

A joint press release from the organizations quotes Ronald Armstrong, one of the 317 who attended the workshops in June, as saying the information was “very helpful” to get him on track to save more, navigate the real estate market, and set reasonable goals. Armstrong, 58, is a peer specialist with the nonprofit HIPS, previously overcame homelessness in the D.C., and is seeking to buy a home with his wife.

According to Leitmann-Santa Cruz, the partnership between his nonprofit and the realtors’ association started at the end of Spring 2020 as the pandemic was worsening and GCAAR wanted to launch an emergency relief fund for its members facing financial hardship due to COVID. CAAAB was selected to review applications and manage that fund. The partnership evolved from there.

“You always hear that phrase ‘The dream of homeownership,’” Brito said. Even though homeownership is one of the most impactful ways of building wealth, she said, “for so many people it really is still a dream.”

Further details about workshop registration can be found on CAAB’s website (tinyurl.com/caab-gcaar-2021) or are available by emailing info@CAAB.org. The full five-day curriculum is Lesson 1: Understanding Your Financial Relationship, Lesson 2: The Art of Budgeting, Lesson 3: Take Charge of Your Credit, Lesson 4: Understanding Your Financial Rights, and Lesson 5: Pay Yourself First.

Chad Jackson Sept. 26 ARTIST/VENDOR

Darlesha Joyner Sept. 27 ARTIST/VENDOR

Andrew Anderson Sept. 28 ARTIST/VENDOR

L. Morrow Sept. 28 ARTIST/VENDOR

VENDOR PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENTS • The next Vendor Meeting will be Friday, Sept. 24, at 2 p.m.

• Out of caution and concern for the health and wellbeing of our community, Street Sense Media will no longer be hosting an in-person Celebration event on Oct. 14. We are considering other options to showcase the artistic work of our vendor/artists and celebrate the work we are doing for a future where no one is without a home.

• Moving forward, there will be a 2-day delay on all Vendor App payouts.

8 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A // S E P T. 2 2 - 2 8 , 2021

NEWS

Eating chicken kills the rainforest: how disasters affect more people, in more ways

BY LAURIE GOERING Reuters

When powerful Cyclone Amphan roared into the low-lying coastal Sundarbans region of Bangladesh and India last year, families trying to stay safe faced a dilemma.

Many storm shelters were already occupied by quarantined migrant workers who had returned home as the COVID19 pandemic shut their workplaces, leaving local people a choice between facing the cyclone at home or braving the virus in shelters.

From Arctic heat and wildfires to Texas cold-weather power outages and Amazon deforestation, threats around the world that may seem unrelated are increasingly compounding each other, United Nations researchers said in a report.

The underlying causes of the rising risks —from climate change to lack of cooperation among governments and ignoring the value of nature in economic decision-making — are common across many of them, researchers said.

For instance, putting a price on timber but not on the services forests provide when left standing to absorb carbon and regulate rainfall helps drive everything from climate change to species extinctions, droughts, and pandemics, the report noted.

Reworking how economic benefits are measured could help reduce a wide swathe of disaster risks, said Jack O’Connor, a senior scientist at the United Nations University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security.

“The disaster is the tip of the iceberg and there’s a whole mass of things behind it. And the base of the iceberg is the same thing shared across all the events,” said O’Connor, a lead author of the report.

Many everyday individual choices, like eating a chicken sandwich for lunch, have direct links to threats ranging from forest and species loss to climate change, researchers noted.

A major driver of Amazon deforestation in Brazil is expansion of soybean fields - and 77 percent of the soy grown goes to feed animals, especially chickens, the report noted.

With meat-eating on the rise around the world, particularly in Europe and China, the researchers wrote that even when not directly produced in the Amazon, “through the interconnections of global supply chains, meat consumption is the root cause of the destruction of the Amazon”.

O’Connor, an Australian ecologist, said researchers hoped that looking at fast-surging disasters as something other than unconnected crises would drive stronger action on them.

A large rainstorm on Sept. 10, 2020 flooded Rhode Island Avenue NE, leaving cars and constrrruction workers stranded.

PHOTO BY GORDON CHAFFIN

A blanket that reads “Ida please have mercy on Louisiana” hangs outside a house, following Hurricane Ida landfall in Louisiana, in Jean Lafitte, Louisiana, U.S. September 2, 2021. REUTERS/MARCO BELLO

“They’re happening more frequently, all over the world, and when you see them in the news every day you can get a little overwhelmed,” he said. “We’re saying, ‘This is not just a fire in Brazil. It’s connected to you and to other disasters.’”

Busy governments Recognizing the linkages between risks — and their common drivers — remains a challenge for most individuals and governments, said Mami Mizutori, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction.

As the pace of threats picks up, many governments are too busy responding to current crises to work on avoiding future ones, and those that try often focus on just the most serious local risk, whether it is a flood, pandemic, or fire, she said.

Budgets and expertise are also limited, she added, handicapping efforts to deepen understanding of interconnected risks and join up efforts to reduce them.

Without acknowledging that biodiversity loss threatens to ignite future pandemics, “no matter how much you make your hospital system resilient or develop better vaccines or get better prepared, you won’t prevent” health crises, she said.

“Avoiding biodiversity losses is not only about making sure that animal doesn’t go extinct. It really directly relates to our lives and livelihoods,” she said in a phone interview.

While effectively reducing risks depends on recognizing and tackling the root causes of disasters, that is proving hard in practice, researchers admitted.

Stronger international cooperation, for instance, could supercharge responses to pandemics, climate change or nature loss. But the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated how crises often spur competition among governments, researchers said.

Still, there are signs of progress. The World Health Organization last week launched a new global hub to boost collection and sharing of pandemic and epidemic intelligence.

G20 countries and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, meanwhile, plan to set a minimum global corporate tax rate of 15 pepercentto limit tax avoidance and provide more government revenue to address growing challenges.

Face complexity Helping government leaders — and others — understand that the growing drum-beat of disasters in the headlines is not about individual crises but a symptom of wider structural problems is crucial to reducing those threats, the report noted.

“The way we understand and perceive risks influences our ability to respond to them,” it said.

“Since the risks associated with these disastrous events are interconnected, thinking in fragmented, isolated and, insular ways is no longer tenable.”

Berlin-based O’Connor said Germany’s catastrophic floods in July would likely spur efforts there to improve flood prevention infrastructure and early warning systems.

But “if we don’t look at why there was such an extreme event in the first place, it won’t matter how well we prepare”, as climate change drives wilder weather, he warned.

“Politicians tend to shy away from tackling these very complex issues. But we’re getting to the stage where we can’t afford to do that anymore,” he added.

Courtesy of Reuters / Thomson Reuters Foundation / INSP.ngo

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

// 9

D.C. programs could use federal funds to support homeless youth The findings were highly encouraging, said David B. Howard, who oversees research for the nonprofit: nearly three-quarters moved into stable housing, and 69 percent were employed or in school.

Such findings suggest the approach can be an important “runway” to independence, he said.

“It’s giving breathing room for that young person to know they’re going to have the time to dig in and figure things out,” he said.

That can be particularly important for those who have been in the traditional foster care system and who typically “age out” at 18, Howard noted.

In the Covenant House study, the average length of stay was about seven months, but Howard said the data suggests that even shorter stints can be significant.

The constricted timeframe also encourages more concerted effort than a permanent model, he said.

“It’s meant to be part of a transition, so let’s use the time to really focus in on what the issues are that need to be addressed.”

‘Seismic’ shift

People camp out on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to highlight the upcoming expiration of the pandemic-related federal moratorium on residential evictions, in Washington, U.S., July 31, 2021. REUTERS/ELIZABETH FRANTZ

BY CAREY L. BIRON Reuters

Dash left home when she was a teenager, after a rough patch with her parents when she came out as gay, eventually landing in the shelter system in Anchorage, Alaska.

The shelter was a safe and helpful space, she said, but it was also chaotic and difficult to study as a first-year college student — with three people to a room and constant coming and going, everyone kept their personal belongings in lockers.

So after a few months, she applied to a program that felt tailored to her needs: time-limited “transitional” housing where she would have her own living space, along with help preparing for a more permanent housing situation and a stable life.

“Having that quiet space and a little desk in my room, I was really able to focus,” Dash, who asked to use her first name to protect her identity, said in a phone interview.

“It was helpful to just think and reflect on life but still have the option to communicate with other young people and the staff.”

Transitional housing programs are seen by backers as critical, filling a gap at a key point in the lives of the country’s 4.2 million unaccompanied homeless youth.

But the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) began to deprioritize such programs in 2012, said Barbara Duffield, executive director of SchoolHouse Connection, which advocates for homeless young people.

The agency instead shifted focus to shorter- and longer-term housing, Duffield said, leaving out the many homeless youths who need more help than can be offered through emergency programs but do not have the chronic problems that would require permanent housing.

“There’s a slogan ‘housing ends homelessness,’ but it doesn’t reall, if young people don’t have what they need to stay in housing and be economically independent,” she said.

The pandemic has redoubled that need, Duffield said, pointing to a rise in young people being separated from their families due to lack of employment, evictions and other economic factors.

A spokesperson for HUD did not respond to requests for comment.

The department has previously pointed to research finding that transitional housing is “generally more expensive and achieves similar or worse outcomes than other housing models serving similar populations.”

‘Breathing room’ Duffield and others are hopeful they can turn federal policy on the issue under the new Biden administration, including through proposed legislation that would give local authorities greater flexibility in supporting homeless youths.

“The effects of homelessness on a child can last a lifetime,” said Democratic Senator Tammy Baldwin, a co-sponsor of the bill, the Homeless Children and Youth Act, in a statement.

“It is in all of our interests to ensure that vulnerable kids get a roof over their heads in a safe and stable environment.

Common sense reforms, like offering more transitional housing, will help do just that.”

That position is backed by new data published in June that examined all young people who exited the US transitional housing programs run by Covenant House International in 15 cities over a year.

Covenant House has been able to maintain its transitional programs since the 2012 policy change with additional effort, Howard said.

Yet many homeless service organizations rely on HUD funding for some 60 percent of their budgets, according to the June report.

It quoted one Virginia provider as characterizing the change as “seismic”, prompting a quick shift away from transitional programs, eliminating case managers and more.

The change made it “very challenging” to keep transitional programs alive, said Deborah Shore, founder and executive director of Sasha Bruce Youthwork, which runs six such programs in Washington, D.C. and Prince George’s County, MD. The move has also hurt youth homeless services more broadly, said Shore, who has worked in the field for 45 years: “Youth programs, which were having trouble competing anyway with the adult system, have had a much harder time competing for any funds.”

She said the Covenant House findings comport with their own internal assessments.

“If you stay in homelessness for long ... you transition into a long-term way of life. We’re doing everything we can to avoid that,” she said.

Today in Anchorage, Dash is doing the same: Five years on, she is back at Covenant House, now working with teens seeking safety and stability.

Her time in the transitional program was key in helping her learn how to be on her own, she said — how to budget money, purchase a vehicle and eventually move into an apartment.

“I know a lot of other young people who went through the program (and are) becoming better versions of themselves,” she said.

“Prior circumstances don’t define who we are.”

Courtesy of Reuters / Thomson Reuters Foundation / INSP.ngo

1 0 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A / / S E P T. 2 2 - 2 8 , 2021

OPINION

Preparing citizen leaders to solve housing problems

BY ERIN RICHARDS, CASCADIA COLLEGE, AND JOANNA KENTY, THE CITIZENS CAMPAIGN

A

s the pandemic has driven more people to live on the streets, America’s urban residents see encampments — and political battles over homelessness — in the news every day. The debate has gotten so heated that it sometimes seems impossible to find practical solutions.

That’s why we find a recent experiment in Seattle to be so promising.

In March, students in professor Erin Richards’ course on state and local government at Cascadia College presented a proposal for the Seattle City Council to buy shuttered motels to house the homeless. Government officials in attendance were impressed by the students’ respectful approach and persuasive use of statistics, as well as by the passion they showed in tackling a seemingly intractable problem. The 10-step method of “No-Blame Problem Solving” empowered the students to advance a realistic solution that could help their city and its unhoused residents. We believe the approach can help other cities, too.

This method comes from the Citizens Campaign, a nonprofit that trains people to get in the game of government decision-making, beginning on the local level.

It asks users to identify sources of concern in their own communities, research current policies, find solutions with a record of success in other regions, and shape the solution for adoption in their own city. It has three criteria: that a solution be evidence-based, budget-neutral or cost-saving, and beneficial to all sides in the community.

This method offers all citizens the knowledge and skills they need to become problem-solvers for their communities, working alongside local government officials as citizen leaders. At each step, trainees learn to “do the doable” and break down public issues like housing, which seem overwhelming or even unsolvable, into manageable parts. Evidence-based, cost-effective solutions that benefit all sides of the community are hard for government officials to argue against, and those criteria tend to act as guardrails against partisan ideologies that can distract from solutions.

The Citizens Campaign is now offering a free, selfpaced online training course in “Leadership and No-Blame Problem Solving” to empower citizen leaders across the country. By taking the course, citizens can take the next step in addressing homelessness and other public issues.

They have the power to go beyond voting, protesting, and assigning blame by advancing practical solutions.

The story of the community college students is an example of the power of citizen leadership training to get people involved in local problem-solving, and it can be replicated in communities throughout the country.

The students chose to work on the issue of housing in Seattle, and drilled down to a specific aspect of the issue:

PHOTO COURTESY OF DIEGO PH ON UNSPLASH.COM

chronic homelessness, defined as a condition of being without housing for an extended period of time due to a disability, mental or physical. Living on the street is dangerous and unhealthy, as well as undesirable for other residents and the city’s tourism industry. Seattle allocated more than $160 million to addressing homelessness in 2021, trying to provide medical services and shelters for this population, and on policing unhoused people.

The students began their presentation by thanking the city council for their previous efforts to address this problem.

The students proposed to build on them with the purchase of two to four motels, currently empty and out of business due to COVID — and thus not generating tax revenue — and turn them into permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals. The students provided evidence of success from similar programs in Salt Lake City and Columbus, Ohio.

In permanent supportive housing, individuals receive medical care, food, addiction treatment, and other services along with a place to stay. While that may sound expensive, the students cited a cost analysis to prove that supportive housing is much less expensive than the city’s patchwork of shelters, clinics, and other services. In fact, supportive housing actually saves money for the city in the long term, according to the team of researchers, business leaders and advocates at the Third Door Coalition: the city spends $30,000 to $50,000 per homeless person now, while permanent supportive housing would cost $16,000 to $22,000 per person. Only 4% of individuals provided with supportive housing go back to living on the street.

The students’ solution would save Seattle between $4 million and $10 million per year.

Former Mayor Tim Burgess, who attended the presentation, got excited about this solution. The abandoned motels had become centers for crime, he

said, and so the solution was a win for everyone in the city. Their focus on the costs of current services provided by the city for unhoused individuals was a powerful approach. A councilwoman also attended the presentation and praised the students for complementing moral arguments with rigorous cost-analysis to persuade even unsympathetic officials.

If they had pitched the proposal to local officials, the students might have found an even more sympathetic audience than they expected. As it turned out, in 2020 King County had dedicated a small fraction of its sales tax to purchasing hotels and nursing homes for emergency and permanent supportive housing, resulting in the conversion of several facilities so far in and around Seattle.

But perhaps the most promising outcome was teaching a new generation of leaders how they can start to create change in their communities. After making their presentation, the students said that they felt empowered to work with government officials, to get involved in government problem-solving in their own hometowns and even to consider serving in the government, whether as employees or as elected or appointed officials. Knowing about local power centers like planning boards, local political parties, and appointed boards and commissions will help citizens to navigate local government more effectively, or even to serve in those positions themselves.

The Citizens Campaign believes that empowering principled citizen leaders will infuse our political culture with much-needed mutual respect and a focus on solutions. This will also increase our country’s overall problem-solving capacity, enabling our democracy to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The 10-step method of “No-Blame Problem Solving” empowered the students to advance a realistic solution that could help their city and its unhoused residents.

Erin Richards teaches political science at Cascadia College, and Joanna Kenty is a team member of the Citizens Campaign.

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

- Want to share firsthand experience?

- Interested in responding to what someone else has written?

Street Sense Media has maintained an open submission policy since our founding.

We aim to elevate voices from across the housing spectrum and foster healthy debate.

Please send submissions to opinion@streetsensemedia.org.

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

// 11

ART

Rest in Peace, Tent City

BY LATICIA BROCK, A.K.A. “PWEZZY” Artist/Vendor

Bugs and rats, blankets and vents All surrounded by our pop-up tents

MPD are being defunded Kids dying daily It takes for a body to drop before we get attention

Look up to the sky, I see the rain Will the government help our tent again?

They hop visitors coming off the train They see homeless all around Union Station The body remains

Violence is major, how do we eat?

Amtrak harass us finding secluded places to sleep Begging for money sleeping in a tunnel Condos being built with our government capital

Bye bye, L St. and M St. Rest in Peace, Tent City due to the violence and trash under the bridge

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT LINDER ON UNSPLASH.COM

Starting around the bend

BY JACKIE TURNER Artist/Vendor

It seems that just yesterday I got married, had a baby.

I drifted on to another day.

Now grandchildren are adults.

The baby is a teen.

Where? What?

When did this happen?

It just was a continuum.

Little faces once looking up, now look down, taller than I. Husband gone, passing through time Life in a hurry, foreseeing The difficulties ahead.

God keeps me going, In pursuit of happiness.

An encampment on L Street NE. PHOTO BY SPENCER DONOVAN

1 2 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A / / S E P T. 2 2 - 2 8 , 2021

ART

e v a h I y o j s i Th

AM IS G R A H

BY MORR r do Artist/Ven

We are living in a day and time where many people do not have joy. This pandemic has been very depressing for many. What do you love to do when you are bored? For me, it’s watching old movies and sitcoms.

During this pandemic you have to do something that you enjoy and will bring you joy. Staying away from negativity is key also. There is no joy in negativity. Joy only lives in positivity.

Being around positive people is important to your peace and happiness.

It will allow you to be emotionally and mentally well and healthy.

Also, trying new things is good because you never know what joy you may find in doing them. So remember, having joy is a gift we all deserve to have.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ZAC DURANT ON UNSPLASH.COM

Real friends STILL

BY QUEENIE FEATHERSTONE Artist/Vendor

Still no home to call my own.

Still I roam, I’m all alone.

Still can’t cook in my breakfast nook.

Don’t need a king bed on which to lay; a twin one will make my day.

Still I’ll keep being positive and have great faith, as I WAIT, WAIT, WAIT for this home to be my own!!!

Regret

BY DANIEL BALL Artist/Vendor

Friends, now a Real Friend will be there with you for life today.

And a Real Friend will come to your birthday party every year.

And a Real Friend will share God’s holy scriptures with you on Sunday.

And a Real Friend will stick to you like a good brother does on the streets.

And a Real Friend will

never stop saying, “I love you Daniel Ball.”

N o w, d o y o u k n o w Sybil was my best friend for nine years at our Street Sense office?

And Thomas was my good friend for two years here at Street Sense Media?

I thank all my teachers and sisters and brothers every day here at Street Sense’s offices.

BY AYUB ABDUL Artist/Vendor

Live today as you never lived before Don’t look back and wish that you would have done it different Live today with no regrets

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

AFTER KATRINA, Part 41

My invention:

BY GERALD ANDERSON Artist/Vendor

Artist/Vendor

When we were last with Gerald in New Orleans, he was in a club in a rival area with his two best friends, Greg and Minew...

Red was a young boy, but Red go hard.

Little Red got more heart than Muskrat.

God bless Muskra’. Rest in peace, Muskrat.

Muskrat was a good hustler.

So Red lookin’ at us. Red say, “Hey, what’s up Third Ward?” I say, “Ain’t nothin’ too much.”

Greg standing by the door. I’m like, “D***”.

So they went to pull out money and stuff.”

First thing Minew say, “Third Ward, I gotta use the bathroom.” When he say that, then you gotta watch Minew. Minew see money, you see death.

Me and Minew can be in a bank, and the lady can be trying to put that check in to see that money, and he gonna want to get her.

Dude just don’t have no mercy.

But me and Greg and him kickin’ it. We won a few hundred dollars. And Minew didn’t stick up the club.

He wanted to. But he told the owner we won’t go back there with no drama. Sometime he say fuck the owner, he’ll take the owner down. But we left the club.

So we comin’ out the club, we dab, we roll.

As we ridin’ …

Remember, Sarge, the police in New Orleans. He know all the hood in n****s, but he don’t get at ‘em.

Wolf get at ‘em. Most likely, y’all should be familiar with Wolf because he was the Chief of Police in D.C. He came from New Orleans to D.C. Wolf was Warren Mayes’ uncle. And Wolf was a dirty man. Crooked cop.

Wolf was on the force back then, in the street. He spotted us.

// 1 3

The Fly Stick

BY IVORY WILSON

I sprained my left hip in August. I was riding the bus and when the driver stopped, he didn’t lower the bus.

I stepped down with my right leg and an old injury caught fire as soon as my foot hit the d*** concrete.

It was an old rodeo injury from when a bull fell on me back in ‘83 in Texas. All cowboys who lived that life has some broken bones. As you get older, stuff like this is a guarantee. But h***, if I was young, I’d do it all over again.

For days I just lay in bed. And for a whole month, I had to walk on a cane. But sitting at home, staring at that cane all the time brought an ideal design to my mind.

I thought, “D*** that’s an ugly cane. Can I give it some flavor? Some bling bling?” I still sell a few copies of my first book, “So You Want PHOTOS BY IVORY WILSON to Be a Pimp?” here and there. Looking at the cover, I remembered the car I used to have back in Kansas City, The Pimpmobile.

The guy that designed the first chrome chopper did the work on my car when I was young. It had the big whitewall donuts with spokes. It had a Superfly grill that was all chrome, as was the fifth wheel on the back. I even had chrome buckles on the trunk. That stuff had me on the cops’ radar everywhere I went.

So, sitting there in my apartment with nothing but my imagination, aluminum foil, and some glue - I modified that cane. I made the fly grill upfront and put a Flying Goddess hood ornament (also out of foil) on the handle. I named it “Fly Stick.”

Now that I have the mockup, pictured here, I’ve sent ABC’s “Shark Tank” my description and these two photos. I also met with InventHelp — but they wanted $12,000 upfront. And their competitors are just the same. No way I can swing that.

So I figure I have to make the finished metal prototype myself.

I’m planning to go to Lowe’s right here in D.C., get everything I need, and do it all right at my kitchen table. I figure I’ll take it to Philly to get it all welded together.

Then I’ll grind it down myself — we call it polishing — before sending it to Detroit to have them dip it in chrome. So in the end, I can manufacture these things from my apartment. Then I’ll put it online and if someone wants one, custom, it will cost $300.

I don’t do metalwork myself, but I know a lot about it from my buddies back in Texas.

I’ve got a couple of people interested in investing. I just need to get this prototype made. And I have some more inspiration, too! Nothing I can share yet. But at age 66, these new ideas are a wonderful thing. I feel alive.

We stop at the red light. We rocking with the tops off our IROC-Z Camaro. We listening to Run, to LL Cool J. We bumpin’.

I look at him. I say, “Man, look at Wolf.”

Minew say, “Fuck Wolf.” We peel out as we pull out with the red light.

He wanted to. He leaned. But he seen what we were driving and he say, “I can’t catch them son-of-a-bitch.”

Minew hit it. We went up to Interstate I-10.

The I-10 lead you to the Superdome when you go up in New Orleans.

When we hit that... Anybody know the city know when you go up Claiborne bridge and you come down, you in the Third Ward. You in the neck of our hood. This our town.

You come off, you pass the Charity Hospital where the crazy people are. You come off the bridge, you enter right into the Third Ward.

Claiborne and Martin Luther King.

When we hit there, we look back for Wolf.

Wolf was nowhere to be found.

We peeled out. We went on back up to the Magnolia Project which is on Washington and Claiborne. We cut into Magnolia Project, we hit the Sixth Street cove where everybody be at.

N**** say, “What’s up, man? Y’all boys still out here? D***, what? Y’all retire from the game?”

“Nah, man, we just coolin’.”

Everybody light up that side when we hit the project. You know when cash money in the project.

Get your eyes on us when we hit the project.

To be continued. Gerald Anderson’s first book, “Still Standing: how an ex-con found salvation in the floodwaters of Katrina,” is available on Amazon.com.

Back to school

BY MARCUS MCCALL // Artist/Vendor

G

oing back to school this year, some kids that I know from the Petworth area are very excited to see friends they could not see because of COVID. Some teachers I

know are looking forward to classrooms with filled seats and hands raised with questions to answer.

If there is any problem with sending your child to school because of COVID, I recommend the parent try ABC Mouse. It’s

everything a homeschooling parent needs.

I, myself, am looking to go back to education. For me it would be the Academy of Hope adult learning center to take my GED. Learning is fun. I love learning new things every day about life or myself.

1 4 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A / / S E P T. 2 2 - 2 8, 2021

FUN &#2 Sudoku 1 2 GAMES 9 6 3

Challenging Sudoku by KrazyDad, Volume 17, Book 49

OnlineCrosswords.net This is the Daily Crossword Puzzle #1 for Sep 21, 2021

Find the solution at https://onlinecrosswords.net/2265

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you

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.

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Paradise

BY ANTHONY CARNEY Artist/Vendor

If I speak of paradise.

There would be sunshine, sand, and blue water.

I would pour the water on my desk, And hang the sunshine in my room, With the sand between my toes.

ABOVE: PHOTO COUTESY OF VITALII USTYMENKO ON UNSPLASH.COM BELOW: PHOTO COUTESY OF PETE NOWICKI ON UNSPLASH.COM

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When it rain, I pray

BY CARLOS D. CAROLINA // Artist/Vendor

When it rain, I pray I’m sitting back while in the rain, God please help me heal this pain, When we talk, you understand, That’s why I come to you and pray, Everyday I’m feeling glad, Thankful for this life I have.

You guide me when I’m feeling mad, You bless me when I’m doing bad, I really feel you working on me, That’s how I know you working for me, When windows close, you open doors— That give me strength o carry on.

I’m feeling grateful every day, Especially on your rainy days.

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