11 15 2017

VOL. 15 ISSUE 1

$2

NOV. 15-28, 2017

Real Stories

Real People

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The Cover One man was arrested during a Nov. 2 camp cleanup when he purposefully placed himself between the law and a tent.

PHOTO BY

BEN BURGESS KStreetPhotographyDC.com

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

VENDORS Aaron Colbert, Adam van Deusen, Aida Basnight, Alvin Dixon-El, Amy Modica, Andre Brinson, Angela Pounds, Angela Richardson, Angie Whitehurst, Anneka Wickham, Anthony Crawford, Anthony Gist-El, Antoinette Calloway, Archie Thomas, Barbara Pollard, Barron Hall, Betty Everett, Beverly Sutton, Brandon Eades, Brianna Butler, Carl Turner, Chad Jackson, Charles Armstrong, Charles Davis, Charles Woods, Charlton Battle, Chon Gotti, Chris Shaw, Christine Wong, Clarence Branch, Clarence Williams, Collins Mukasa, Conrad Cheek, Darlesha Joyner, David Denny, David James, David Snyder, Debora Brantley, Deborah Brantley, Denise Hall, Dennis Diggs, Derian Hickman, Donald Brown, Doris Robinson, Duane Foster, Dwayne Butler, Dwight Harris, Earl Parker, Elizabeth Bryant, Emily Bowe, Eric Thompson-Bey, Evelyn Nnam, Floyd Carter, Franklin Sterling, Geneva McDaniel, Gerald Anderson, Glenn Washington, Gwynette Smith, Henrieese Roberts, Ivory Wilson, Jacqueline Turner, Jacquelyn Porter, James Davis, James Hughes, James Stewart, Jeanette Richardson, Jeffery McNeil, Jemel Fleming, Jennifer McLaughlin, Jermale McKnight, Jewell Lean, John Littlejohn, Johnnie Ford, Joseph Jackson, Joseph Walker, Juliene Kengnie, Kanon Brown, Katrina Arninge, Ken Martin, Kenneth Middleton, Kenneth Middleton, Kwayera Dakari, L. Morrow, Larry Kelley, Lashawn Butler, Latishia Graham, Lawrence Autry, Lawrence Brown, Leonard Hyater, Levester Green, Linda Jones, Lori Bettinger, Lorrie Hayes, Louise Davenport, Marcellus Phillips, Marcus Green, Mark Jones, Martin Walker, Maryann Blackmon, Melissa Allen, Melody Byrd, Michael Craig, Michael Lyons, Michael Warner, Mildred Hall, Morgan Jones, Moyo Onibuje, Ollie Alston, Ollie Alston, Patricia Henry, Patty Smith, Phillip Black, Reginald Black, Reginald Denny, Ricardo Dickerson, Ricardo Meriedy, Rita Sauls, Robert Warren, Robert Williams, Ronald Dudley, Ronald Turner, Samuel Fullwood, Sasha Williams, Scott Lovell, Sheila White, Shernell Thomas, Shuhratjon Ahamadjonov, Sybil Taylor, Tyrone Hall, Veana Hanes, Vennie Hill, Vennie Hill, Wanda Alexander, Warren Stevens, Wendell Williams, William Mack BOARD OF DIRECTORS

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

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Brian Carome

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Eric Falquero

COMMUNICATIONS & SALES MANAGER

Jeff Gray

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Maysa Elsarag

EVENTS & ADMINISTRATION MANAGER

Dani Gilmour

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Colleen Cosgriff

WRITERS GROUP ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE

Willie Schatz

OPINION EDITORS (VOLUNTEER)

Rachel Brody, Arthur Delaney, Britt Peterson

EDITORIAL INTERNS

Lilah Burke, James Marshall, Emma Rizk, Nick Shedd, Bethany Tuel

EDITORIAL VOLUNTEERS

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

OFFICE SALES VOLUNTEERS

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

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

EVENTS

// 3

NEWS IN BRIEF employment & income

Labor organizers say DREAMers should be allowed to stay

BY REGINALD BLACK // Vendor/Artist

Street Sense Media photographers share stories of our communities as part of #FotoWeekDC Nov. 14 - 19 // Hillyer Art Space // 9 Hillyer Court NW For years, this citywide celebration has featured hundreds of exhibitions, programs and events highlighting worldclass photography, and providing exposure for photographers. Street Sense Media is honored by our artists’ inclusion.

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 15

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20

A staged reading of

“Timone of DC”

at GWU Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week

7pm - 8:30 pm Studio XX, Building XX 814 20th St NW (Repurposed Church)

The George Washington University welcomes you for a special performance from the Street Sense Media theater group. Free! RSVP at GWSERVES@GWU.EDU

D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness meetings Medicaid Work Group (WG) Nov 15, 2 pm // 64 New York Ave NE Tenant Barriers Work Group Nov 22, 10 am // 441 4th St NW Shelter Capacity Monitoring WG Nov 22, 12 pm // 441 4th St NW Emergency Response WG Nov 22, 1 pm // 441 4th St NW Strategic Planning Committee Nov 28, 2:30 pm // 441 4th St NW

“Mr. Nobody” 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm Spooky Action Theater 1810 16TH ST NW The Actors’ Center presents “Mr. Nobody,” which explores the importance of dignity and respect while experiencing homelessness, through the story of Tommy – a street newspaper vendor with amnesia. There will be an audience discussion following the reading. $10 suggested donation.

Keep up with community events, at StreetSenseMedia.org/Calendar

THE EXCHANGE Holley Simmons @HolleyUnedited

No cash for Street Sense vendors? No problem. www.streetsensemedia.org/app … Bravo, @streetsensedc!

5:26 PM - 23 Oct 2017

Piestar

@PiestarInc

Listening to @streetsensedc with over 4,000 members of @aeaweb at #Eval17 in #WashingtonDC talk about #SocialChange

On Sept. 20, Dreamers from around the area — people brought to the United States illegally as children who are now enrolled in school or military service — joined with the The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations to protest cuts to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

DACA allowed these young people, once vetted through their application for the program, to stay in the country for a period of two years, with option for renewal.

Participants are also eligible for work authorization and a driver’s license for a certain period of time. The program allows immigrant youth to pursue school and development with no clear path toward citizenship.

Proposed cuts by the Trump Administration started a ripple effect of protests across the country. Ralliers ended up front and center at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to demand change at the White House. Leading the charge was Richard Louis Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO. “The rallies this week have been powerful,” Trumka said. “We’ll change America for the better, we’re taking America back for every worker out there. They wanna keep us poor, they wanna separate us so they can keep us down.”

Trumka shared that his family’s story also began with immigration and that he is proud to be the son and grandson of immigrants.

President Trump is taking legal avenues away from hardworking, aspiring Americans who want nothing more than to live under, and abide by, the constitution of the United States, according to Trumka. “They work hard, they pay taxes, they give their all to this country every single day,” he said.

Trumka vowed that the American labor movement would stand with Dreamers every single day until the young immigrants got the protections and citizenship that they worked hard for.

“The American labor movement rejects racism and discrimination in all forms,” Trumka said. “They violate our core values. They destroy the fabric of our community, they terrorize law-abiding, upstanding people, and degrade our nation.”

Since the rally, President Trump moved forward with suspending the DACA program. Congress now has until March to craft any new legislation that would protect the nearly 700,000 young people that were enrolled in DACA from deportation. Advocates are calling for a new iteration of the DREAM act to provide pathways to citizenship.

Opponents claim this would be akin to granting amnesty to people who broke the law. Protests continue, most recently several hundred people flooded the Hart Senate office building on Nov. 9 and 15 protesters were arrested.

“The labor movement won’t back down or back up,” Trumpka said at the close of the rally outside of the White House.. “We’ll stand together, we’ll fight together, we’ll vote together and we’ll win together, we’re taking our country back for all of us.”

Keep reading at StreetSenseMedia.org/news

3:34 PM - 8 Nov 2017

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NEWS

Controversial HSRA bill passes first vote

BY BETHANY TUEL // bethany.tuel@streetsensemedia.org

T

he Homeless Services Reform Act Amendment of 2017 was drafted by the Bowser administration and partially informed by a year-long series of community meetings. During that process, it was debated by homeless service providers, government agencies, advocates and people the bill will affect on a personal level.

At a Nov. 7 meeting of the D.C. Council, all but two councilmembers voted in support of the HSRA legislation. The members who opposed the bill were Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White and At-Large Councilmember David Grosso, both of whom are members of the Human Services Committee that marked up the bill last month. Before it becomes law, the HSRA amendment must pass a second reading in D.C. Council, be signed by the mayor and undergo Congressional review.

Edith Glasco, a formerly homeless 61-year-old woman, wearing a sticker that said, “Vote no to HSRA,” skipped a doctor’s appointment to ask councilmembers to vote against the bill. She said she currently is sheltered but would likely become homeless again if the bill becomes law.

“It’s cold out there now,” Glasco said. “I’m too old to be dealing with this.”

“They don’t care nothing about us,” Glasco said of D.C. Council and the D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness. “We pay taxes. We don’t have that much, but when we buy food and clothes, we pay taxes. We deserve just as much as they do.”

After the bill was voted on, Ward 1 Councilmember Nadeau introduced an amendment to change the definition of “at-risk of homelessness” to include applicants who are on the verge of eviction but cannot provide documentation from their landlord showing they will be evicted within 21 days. The initial bill required applicants show formal proof of impending eviction to qualify for assistance. The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless had fought for this definition change, pointing out that in D.C., a landlord is often not required to provide a tenant with such documentation. With Nadeau’s amendment, an individual or family now needs only to demonstrate that they were “somehow notified” of such termination. Nadeau’s amendment also changed the language in the definition of homelessness so that individuals or families who have not yet spent a night on the streets will not be excluded from receiving services. In addition, Nadeau’s amendment clarified that a client whose program eligibility is being re-determined has a right to maintain uninterrupted service during the transition and aligned program exits with other termination processes. Nadeau’s amendment passed unanimously.

Chairman Phil Mendelson then introduced an amendment to “ensure that those who have access to safe housing are not considered homeless for the purpose of accessing emergency shelter.” Mendelson’s amendment also ensured that there is protection for individuals or families fleeing domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking. Mendelson added that “if the individual or family provides ‘credible evidence’ that it is impossible to return to such housing, then that overcomes the determination.”

Grosso noted that Mendelson’s amendment “added language ‘to require an individual or family to prove that they do not own or lease safe housing,’” reminding his colleagues that members of the Human Services Committee had agreed to remove this language because it would create another barrier for people to receive services that they desperately need. After expressing his deep disappointment that there was an effort to add this language back in, he asked Mendelson, “Would the credible evidence standard include a credible oral statement?” Grosso explained that his understanding of the Federal HEARTH Act was that an oral statement from an individual or family may help establish credible evidence of a person’s homeless status.

Mendelson said that the standard would permit oral evidence, and such evidence would meet the standard if it was “credible,” but did not say how the word “credible” was being defined in the amendment. Grosso then asked his colleagues to not support the amendment, which he believed would be harmful.

At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman asked Mendelson for clarity on what “credible evidence” is. His answers included “The lowest standard that’s available,” “Worthy of belief,” and “It has to be credible.” He did not provide any of sort of definition, which led Silverman to finally ask him what the intent of the bill was, as well as what would be considered credible evidence and what would not be. She then noted that the Council had a conversation at breakfast and she was surprised by the amendment now because it had not been discussed then. Mendelson replied, “Yeah, I thought it was funny, because there’s a value to having this discussion here, rather than at the breakfast. The public doesn’t get to sit and watch.”

Again, Mendelson avoided directly answering Silverman’s questions. Finally, he said, “Think of a scale, say, 50-100. 50 being more than every number below that. Between 50 and a 100 are different levels of evidence. Credible evidence is about as close to 50 as you can get.”

Ward 3 Councilmember Mary M. Cheh also attempted to clarify what “credible evidence” means. “If you are on a lease, and it looks like you are on a lease, but someone offers credible, i.e. believable, evidence that you cannot, in fact, use that apartment, for whatever reason, that’s enough. It doesn’t mean that I have to convince you, clear and convincing, or beyond a reasonable doubt, or even a preponderance, all I have to do is present some credible evidence that negates the fact that you are on someone’s lease.”

Silverman said the question of the intent behind this amendment gets to the heart of the issues, because the Department of Human Services has told her that some families are taking up space in emergency overflow shelter placements at hotels, when they could be staying with family or friends.

Advocates, homeless people, and formerly homeless people, including Edith Glasco, gather to oppose the HSRA bill in the Wilson building PHOTO BY BETHANY TUEL

Mendelson said that the intent of the amendment is to “enable the administration to deny eligibility for someone who has safe housing.”

At-Large Councilmember Robert White also opposed Mendelson’s amendment, saying that this was a difficult bill, and this new amendment threw off the balance it had achieved. “If you look at the difficulty, of us on the dais, defining what this is, then I’m not sure how we can expect the people, who are supposed to implement this for people coming in seeking homeless services, to define it,” he said. He noted that without a solid definition, there would be arbitrary decision-making depending “on whose desk you sit down at.” He also said that a person showing up and seeking homeless services should be an admission that day if they do not have a place to go, and that they need to be taken at their word.

Nadeau voiced her support for the amendment, saying that “credible evidence” was the lowest legal standard that gave the administration some room for interpretation. She said she hoped that they moved the bill forward so it could do what it was intended to do, “which is to allow as many people who need to avail themselves of emergency homeless services to do so.”

The amendment passed 8-5 with Grosso, At-Large Councilmember Robert White, Trayon White, Ward 7 Councilmember Vincent C. Gray, and Silverman in opposition.

Grosso then introduced an amendment to exempt individuals and families fleeing domestic violence, human trafficking victims, those seeking asylum, and refugees from having to demonstrate residency in order to be eligible for emergency shelter. The amendment passed unanimously.

Grosso also introduced another amendment to replace an itemized list of documents the HSRA said would be accepted to prove D.C. residency and qualify for benefits with the phrase, “Any evidence that indicates the individual or family is living in the District voluntarily and not for a temporary purpose and who has no intention of presently moving from the District.” The amendment was rejected, with only Grosso supporting it.

Next, Trayon White introduced an amendment on Rapid Re-Housing that would make a onetime extension of housing support from 12 to 18 months mandatory if the provider could not demonstrate that the individual or family had had consistent case management services, had been referred to other housing programs, and would be able to stay in housing without further help. This would mean that an individual or family who is still struggling financially and has not been able to get back on their feet would have an additional 6 months to do so if they had not yet received the services described above. Without the extension, families who cannot financially recover in 12 months may find themselves unable to pay rent and eventually be evicted.

Nadeau opposed the amendment. “I understand your compassion,” she said, “but at some point, we have to draw the line. This is a short-term program. We have other programs.”

The fiscal impact was called into question, and Grosso felt that Mendelson was holding White’s amendment to a different standard of financial evaluation than the amendments previously discussed and voted on at the meeting. White agreed. It failed to pass 6-7 when, at the last minute, Bonds, the Chair of the Housing Committee, stated: “I have been asked to vote no.”

She was asked to do so by Nadeau. Trayon White, Robert White, Grosso, McDuffie, Silverman, and Gray voted yes, with Nadeau, Mendelson, Bonds, Cheh, Evans, Todd, and Allen voting no.

This legislation covers short-term emergency programs such as Rapid Re-Housing, and longterm medically necessary programs, also known as medical respite. It does not, and will not, fix the affordable housing crisis in its entirety.

Silverman summed up the meeting best when debating a bill earlier in the meeting, when she said that the hundreds of thousands of dollars they were trying to put toward parking in the Union Market area could be put toward affordable housing. She stated: “We need to put our money where our mouth is.”

A homeless man, who asked to remain anonymous, said, “They say they don’t have any money to put towards services for us. They throw money at other places, then turn around and say that to us.”

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

// 5

D.C. residents with a criminal record struggle to find work and housing.

This nonprofit is trying to change that.

BY NICK SHEDD // nick.shedd@streetsense.org

There are still hurdles for citizens returning from prison and seeking employment, despite a 2014 law designed to make the job search easier for those with a criminal history. The law, commonly known as “ban the box”, intended to help returning citizens find work and avoid re-offending, prohibits employers from asking about criminal history until after extending a conditional offer of employment. But barriers to employment have not fallen for many, including more than 300 people that registered for an Oct. 23 expungement fair to seal their criminal records, and 100 others that were put on a waitlist.

That fair, held by D.C. Law Students in Court (LSIC)at the Department of Employment Services building near the Minnesota Ave. Metro stop, was also attended by numerous walk-ins. The expungement fair was the largest yet held by LSIC, but its organizers acknowledged that need in the District still exceeds capacity.

Clearing records is about “keeping someone out of a cage,” according to Moses Cook, Executive Director of LSIC. Without stable work or shelter, many people end up re-offending. Even without a conviction, a record showing only charges or arrests is often enough to put off potential employers and landlords.

Kathryn Boothe, Director of LSIC’s Criminal Division, explained that while the vast majority of those coming to the fair could be helped, those with a felony conviction can never have that or anything else on their record sealed.

The demographics of residents in need of expungement service do not reflect those of D.C. as a whole. Blackidentifying people composed 89.2 percent of inmates in local jails last year, per LSIC press documents. By contrast, the latest census numbers report that D.C. is only 47.7 percent Black.

Arrests, LSIC claims, are similarly skewed.

According to a 2016 Michigan School of Law study by Amanda Agan and Sonja Starr, “ban the box” legislation has unintentionally made the situation even worse for Black applicants. Although intended to help the disproportionately Black population of citizens with records, the legislation has instead, according to the study, led employers to make racial assumptions about criminal

records. “It is white applicants with records who appear to benefit far more substantially,” concluded the authors.

The racial disparity in criminal records was immediately clear upon looking around the waiting room of the expungement fair. Mostly white attorneys and volunteers surrounded largely black clients waiting in rows of folding chairs in the center of the room. Various social service providers were also in attendance to offer their assistance.

Fair attendees interviewed as they were leaving reported that they were able to receive at least preliminary help.

Since the purpose of the fair was to keep criminal information private, all requested anonymity out of fear that potential or current employers and landlords would discriminate against them.

One woman came to the fair to seal a charge of assaulting a police officer. The charge was trumped up, she said, and the male officer had in fact struck and bruised her.

Without the means to afford a private lawyer, however, she had to resort to a public defender who she said “might as well have been the prosecutor.” She was convicted and only narrowly escaped being fired after testifying before the board of her organization and writing numerous statements. Still, she feared that she might lose her job and be unable to find another.

“Working with kids, it’s not a good look,” she explained.

Another woman at the fair said she was struggling to advance past the interview stage of the hiring process. Her record “pops up everywhere,” she explained. Still, she had better luck than another woman who complained that she rarely even receives an interview once people look into her background.

One man named Charles said he was escorted off a job site two months ago after his employer submitted him to a background check. Seventeen years ago, he pleaded guilty to a weapons-related charge. Now, he has lost clearance for many job sites. He is still employed doing electrical work, but it has become much more difficult.

A woman named Diane reported no serious obstacles as a

result of her record. She has housing and employment, she said, but attributes her situation to the lack of anything remotely recent on her record. However, she theorized that her record may have prolonged the application process.

“You have people who can’t find meaningful work, that can’t find housing, and that’s not good for society either,” argued Boothe, the attorney from LSIC’s criminal division.

Mike Barfield, supervising attorney at LSIC, pointed out that there is a serious inconsistency between the ostensible goal of rehabilitation in prisons and the massive barriers to work placed in the path of returning citizens. “Somebody’s lying somewhere,” he said.

Of course, it is not only those who are convicted and go to prison that struggle to find work. As pointed out previously, a mere arrest on a record can be enough to cause problems. In the search for employment as well as in general, Boothe said, “Innocent until proven guilty is a fallacy. Everyone gets labeled.”

Returning citizens share their success in support of new legislation

BY ORION DONOVAN-SMITH // Volunteer

When Charles Thornton returned home to the District from Lorton prison in 1990, he was not prepared for the world that awaited him.

“Although I knew that my family loved me, I did not know how to accept that love.

I got released in March, and by June I was homeless, and I didn’t have to be,” said Thornton, the former director of the the Mayor’s Office on Returning Citizen Affairs.

“I stood across the street from my aunt’s house — who loved me — and I put my hand in a trash can to get something to eat. And all I had to do was knock on my aunt’s door and say I was home.”

Today, Thornton serves as chair of the D.C. Corrections Information Council and as special assistant to the D.C. Office of Human Rights. He attributes his successful turnaround to eventually finding a system of temporary housing, job training, and mentoring services. But not all returning citizens are so fortunate. A 2012 University of Maryland study found that among people released by the Department of Corrections in fiscal year 2007, approximately 62 percent were rearrested and 36 percent were reconvicted within three years. A 2011 survey by the Council for Court Excellence found the unemployment rate among returning citizens

to be as high as 46 percent.

Thornton spoke on Nov. 2 at the R.I.S.E. Demonstration Center in Congress Heights as part of a panel that included other successful returnees Lashonia Thompson-El, Britteny Floyd, and Eric Weaver, all of whom work with the D.C. government on reentry issues. The event was organized by D.C. Councilmember Robert White, a co-sponsor of two bills introduced to the council that aim to ease the transition back into society after incarceration.

The Returning Citizens Opportunity to Succeed Amendment Act would require the Mayor’s Office on Returning Citizen Affairs to establish contact with inmates six months before they return home to the District to connect them to resources to support the transition process, and would help returning citizens get government identification documents before returning home and a $100-per-month transportation stipend to help them find jobs and housing.

A second bill, the Criminal Record Accuracy Assurance Act, would prevent sealed or expunged offenses and arrests without convictions from appearing on background searches, where they can impede efforts to obtain housing and employment.

The panelists reflected on the challenges they each faced when returning to their

communities. The need for specialized mental health services was a consistent theme. Weaver compared prison to a war zone. “After being locked up for so long, you shut down all of your emotions.”

Reentry is a personal issue for Councilmember White, whose brother served time in the D.C. jail. “What you learn when you talk to returning citizens is that these are folks who just want an opportunity,” White said when introducing the panel. “If we can just crack the door open for our returning citizens, they will run through it and they will succeed.”

Several city officials were in attendance, including Metropolitan Police Chief Peter Newsham, who expressed his support for these efforts. “We cannot arrest our way out of the crime problem that we have in the District of Columbia,” Newsham said in response to another audience member’s question. “The way you change the behavior of somebody who has a substance abuse or mental health issue is you treat that underlying condition.”

White emphasized the unique challenges facing formerly incarcerated District residents, citing a disjointed process that often includes federally managed agencies, along with the District’s persistent racial disparities

in household wealth and educational achievement — noting that more than 90 percent of D.C. inmates are Black.

Despite these challenges, Thornton was careful to point out that D.C. policy on returning citizens issues is relatively progressive in comparison to the rest of the United States, noting that the Mayor’s Office on Returning Citizen Affairs is the only legislatively mandated agency for reentry in the country. D.C. inmates also have their voting rights restored immediately upon release and those awaiting trial or with only misdemeanor convictions can cast their ballots even while jailed. Additionally, the city’s pre-trial system, unlike most of the U.S., does not require bail payments to release those awaiting their day in court.

A D.C. Council hearing on the Criminal Record Accuracy Assurance Act took place Nov. 9. and a hearing on the Returning Citizens Opportunity to Succeed Amendment Act is scheduled for Dec. 7.

The panelists and Councilmember White agreed that these two bills would represent important progress for returning citizens but that there is much more to be done. “This is redemption for us,” Thornton said. “We do this because we love and care for the next person to come out of these institutions.”

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Shelter guests feel unwelcome by city services and hotel staff

BY EMMA RIZK // emma.rizk@streetsensemedia.org

D

ays after her daughter was born, Candy, her newborn daughter and her daughter ’s father found themselves facing homelessness and moved into one of the D.C. hotels that operate as an overflow shelter.

The Virginia Williams Family Resource Center is the D.C. Department of Human Services’ entry point for all families experiencing homelessness. During the family’s first visit to Virginia Williams, they were told they did not qualify for assistance because they were not evicted or technically homeless.

Candy, who requested that we not publish her last name, said her family became homeless after arguments with her roommates of 14 years escalated to the point that she and her family were forced to leave. It was not until a contact at Child Protective Services could vouch for them that the family was placed in shelter. The family has been living out of a hotel room since February 2016.

Candy’s is not the only family to be denied services at Virginia Williams. Caitlin Cocilova, a staff attorney from the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, first started working with families in shelters when they would call from Virginia Williams after being denied during the intake process. According to Cocilova, if there is an unlawful denial, lawyers from the Legal Clinic advocate to DHS on behalf of the family and explain why they should be placed in temporary shelter so they do not experience homelessness while their application is reassessed, even if it is a questionable case.

This is called an interim emergency placement, or IEP, which DHS has made common practice over the past two years. The policy reform came straight from Director Laura Zeilinger, according to Dora TaylorLowe, public information officer for the Department of Human Services.

Both Cocilova and Candy described the intake process as extensive and intrusive.

“A lot of times the people that go in to seek shelter are not fully listened to or believed,” Cocilova said. “And that causes people to get denied for things.”

Clients must provide references to verify their homelessness and the Legal Clinic noted that the current intake process can result in clients

feeling judged for seeking shelter. challenges with her case managers, “What families perceive as who are supposed to assist her with resistance or a difficult intake finding housing and employment. process is because the process is According to Candy, they have been designed to exhaust every resource rude and are not helpful. before a family is placed in shelter,” “I’m continuously being Taylor-Lowe said. disrespected by case managers talking The city’s homeless services to me any way they want to. Case system is overwhelmed. The managers have said to me, ‘I don’t government will provide shelter care about what you’re saying to me, to families year-round, but wants you do what I tell you to do, the way to make sure limited resources I tell you to do it,’” Candy said. “I are meeting the needs of District am just supposed to go anywhere, residents with no other options. whether it’s safe for my daughter D.C. is one or safe for me, of only three it doesn’t matter “Whether it’s safe for b e c a u s e I ’ m jurisdictions in the United States and my daughter or safe for homeless that guarantees basically beggars shelter when me, it doesn’t matter s h o u l d n ’t b e temperatures choosey.” because I’m homeless dip dangerously Taylor-Lowe l o w, a r i g h t told a different and basically beggars s i d e o f t h e that the Bowser administration shouldn’t be choosey.” story. “It’s the extended to job of the case Candy, families yearmanager when a overflow shelter resident round, regardless family gets into of the weather. rapid rehousing The District or even when a g o v e r n m e n t e s t i m a t e s t h a t family gets into shelter, to instill a approximately 900 families will sense of urgency into the families. need shelter throughout the winter It’s been my observation that a months, according to the city’s winter family becomes frustrated and can plan. The capacity at D.C. General complain during the process. But family shelter is 258. Families are when they move out they become placed in hotels when there is no grateful for that push that the case room at a shelter. The District pays manager gives,” she said. “Now, roughly $80,000 per night for all the I’m not in any way excusing rude hotel rooms used as overflow family behavior, but I’m saying that’s the shelter and the security, meals and struggle between a family and a case managers that go with them, case manager.” according to Taylor-Lowe.

Candy has been accused of being In October, 469 families applied confrontational and insubordinate for emergency shelter, according with her case managers, but she says to a D.C. Interagency Council on they make her feel like a lower-class Homelessness committee report. citizen and she is afraid to speak up Once admitted, life in the to defend herself because she will hotel comes with its own set of have the consequences of being problems. Candy and other guests terminated and having her child are expected to comply with rules taken away once she is homeless. such as an early curfew. If shelter Kia Williams, an interim entry residents violate a rule, they receive coordinator at the Virginia Williams warning letters, then a notice of Family Resource Center, said that transfer, suspension, and eventually, they hold ongoing trainings with case termination from the program. management staff on skill building, “We are constantly telling people how to interact with clients, and how they should live and that as harm reduction at D.C. General, as an adult you should be home by 9 well as the hotels. o’clock. Why?” Cocilova said. “I In her experience in the shelter wasn’t home by 9 o’clock last night system, Candy said that she felt as because I was working. A lot of though none of the service providers people in the hotels are working. were adequately addressing the Are you going to put curfew on your barriers she encounters when seeking other hotel guests? No.” housing and employment. She said During her time in shelter, the system of constantly applying to Candy has encountered substantial apartments locks her and others into

a cycle of poverty. Each apartment she applies for requires a $50 to $100 application fee that the clients must pay themselves. According to Candy, the financial burden is debilitating, because landlords are willing to take their applications to collect the fees, but rarely approve them. “[The system] helping them rip off homeless families … they are collecting our money and getting rich off of the poor,” Candy said.

“We do require them to submit as many applications as they can,” said Minerva Labrador, a program manager for the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center. But only for placements that seem like a good fit and there is no quota or specifically required amount.

“The case managers and the housing navigators are there to assist them with those applications.

We do ask them to be ready to lease up, assist them with photo ID or social security,” Labrador said.

Taylor-Lowe added that the housing applications process is the same at D.C. General, and that families with severe hardship are eligible for help with application costs.

“All my fears are coming to fruition. They don’t want to help us. They don’t care about us. They don’t care about the fact that all of D.C. is expensive to live in. Most of us in the shelter don’t have high school diplomas. Some of us barely know how to read or write. We don’t have degrees, so what job we do get is minimum wage. Minimum wage does not pay for rent in D.C.,” Candy said.

The hotel is also not conducive to raising children. Monitors do nightly curfew checks to make sure everyone is in the room. Candy said they bang on doors and wake the children with noise and flashlights.

The curfew is continuous across the board and is in place to keep families safe and ensure children are where they are supposed to be, according to Williams. “If you maintain where you are supposed to be we don’t have to worry about crime.”

The shelter guests do not have access to kitchens. At Candy’s hotel, hot breakfast used to be provided daily, but she said that program was taken away due to bad behavior by some adults. Now they only receive hot breakfast on Sunday and continental breakfast the rest of the week, with no other meals. Because they rely on microwavable and nonperishable food, Candy said their

diets are not healthy or nutritious.

Since there is no recreation place, the children often resort to playing in hallways and parking lots. Although shelter guests were provided with D.C. One cards to access public DC recreation spaces, many parents are unable to afford transportation to make use of them.

The Homeless Children’s Playtime Project, which has had a presence at D.C. General for many years, is now available at some hotels to provide recreation for children. “If they have it at D.C. General, we try to make sure that’s across the board at the hotels also,” Williams said.

Candy said that she has witnessed domestic violence among shelter guests and heard that prostitution is also taking place. Cocilova was unaware of these crimes but said that the Legal Clinic has represented residents who have been violent toward neighboring residents, but that these incidents only give ammunition to DHS who claims that people aren’t properly using their services.

“I’m not going to deny that there are bad things happening in the hotels or maybe some people are doing things that they shouldn’t,” Cocilova said. “We have to figure out why that’s happening, we can’t just demonize that. That goes to people being put in close quarters, people not being served with dignity, people trying to get out but they can’t because they aren’t given any options that are realistic for them.”

Cocilova said that the root problem that needs addressed is the housing crisis. If there were affordable housing, these issues would not surface, according to her.

“As rooms open in D.C. General we move families there, not getting closer to housing necessarily, [but] in order to reduce costs …. [it’s] important to move families out of hotels as we move towards tourist season,” Taylor-Lowe said.

After facing a multitude of constant problems for the first ten months of her daughter’s life Candy has felt immensely discouraged, but her daughter is what keeps her going.

“Me being a mother now, I didn’t want to bring my daughter in to this, and that’s what is more heartbreaking for me than anything, that my daughter has to experience this. I wanted better for her than what she’s going through,” Candy said.

Bethany Tuel contributed reporting.

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

CELEBRATING SUCCESS

// 7

AT A GLANCE

Epileptic electrician, Marcellus Phillips, lights up basement apartment

BY JAMES MARSHALL // james.marshall@streetsensemedia.org

S

treet Sense Media Vendor Marcellus Phillips Today he is happy. He just got his first disability check. hawks newspapers on 14th Street NW. “Street Without a full-time job to balance with his involved health Sense for sale, help me help the homeless!” care regime, Phillips was able to focus his energy on applying. he hollers to entice would-be customers.

It took him one year to get approved for Supplemental Security What passersby don’t know about Philips is Income and Social Security Disability Insurance, which is no that he has a disability. It is not immediately small feat. Successfully applying for disability is a meticulous apparent — he is physically fit and a lucid and grueling process that can take years to bear fruit. That it conversationalist. However, the 38-year-old has been living took Phillips only a year is a testament to his determination. with epilepsy for 20 years.

He said that instead of waiting for other people to apply for His first bout with him, he took initiative. seizures took place on “I was telling my case worker and social worker the night of his high what to do at some points,” Phillips said. “I want school graduation. On out of my situation as soon as possible. I’m tired of the way home from being homeless. I’m tired of sleeping on the floor.” the ceremony, he tried, Despite his now-reliable disability income, Phillips unsuccessfully, to is more ambitious than ever. He sees his disability jump out of a moving and Street Sense Media income as stepping-stones vehicle traveling over on the way to his ultimate goal. a bridge. Phillips has “I want to have my own LED retrofitting no recollection of this company. I could wire this whole shock episode. He was building,” he said, looking up at told about it by his the lights in the Church of the family members who Epiphany’s community room. were in the car.

Phillips has done electrical Not long thereafter, work since he was 21 years he got a job at Kentucky old and talks about it Fried Chicken. His passionately. He shrugs supervisor took him off the suggestion that aside one evening being an epileptic and asked him why electrician is he was taking bites dangerous, out of the chicken and b e c a u s e putting it back into the “any master bucket. “I don’t know electrician will Marcellus decorates his new apartment with his work from Street Sense Media. PHOTO BY MARCELLUS PHILLIPS what you’re talking tell you that about,” Phillips told the you shouldn’t supervisor sincerely. work with live Phillips was not convinced he was justly accused until his electricity. Besides, when co-workers approached him about the incident too. The second I do my electrical work, time the supervisor caught Phillips snacking on the Colonel’s I’m not worried and I’m chicken on the clock, he was fired. focused,” Phillips said.

These two incidents led to Phillips’ epilepsy diagnosis, After a year of struggling and he has been living with the disorder in varying degrees through homelessness and ever since. When Phillips seizes, he loses consciousness for disability applications, Marcellus 10 seconds to a minute, and cannot remember what happens Phillips is the tenant of his own during that period. He has as many as eight seizures a day basement apartment as of Nov. during periods of high stress or as few as twice a week when 1. While he does not own his his medication works properly. own retrofitting company yet, “With my seizure disorder, it’s hard to maintain a job,” Phillips he will be hawking Street Sense said. “When you have a nine-to-five, they don’t want to hear that on 14th Street NW and seeking you’ve got a neurologist appointment once every other week.” other sales opportunities until His regular neurology, therapy and primary care appointments he does. overwhelmed him to the point where he became homeless more “I’ll never live a normal than a year ago — he has been sleeping on his sister’s floor. life with my seizure Philips is one of the 55 percent of homeless people nationwide disorder,” Phillips admitted, who self-report having a disability, according to University of “but I’m good as long as Pennsylvania social scientist Dennis Culhane.

I’m not going through Phillips, a D.C. native, is noticeably upbeat as he walks stress, which is where into the Church of the Epiphany for an interview. He stands I’m headed right now.” trim and tall with a smile that is much more cheerful than the PHOTO BY ominous music coming from the organ in the nearby sanctuary.

JAMES MARSHALL

Chon Gotti

After earning DCTV certification in producing, videography and editing with the rest of our homeless filmmakers cooperative, Chon Gotti has pursued more DCTV training independently. He just completed a DSLR class and has been doing so well that he was recently brought on by another crew as a floor prodcer for a taping at the DCTV studios.

BIRTHDAYS Eric Thompson-Bey NOV. 22 Artist/Vendor

Latishia Graham NOV. 28 Artist/Vendor

ACCOMPLISHMENTS Marcus Green

First day at a new job!

David Denny

Moved into housing!

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LAND GRAB:

the uncertainty of living in public space

BY BEN BURGESS, EMMA RIZK, ERIC FALQUERO // Staff

O

n a clear morning, Nov. 2, a homeless man was restrained by several Metropolitan Police Officers and arrested for simple assault after he jumped between an officer and a tent, and smacked the officer’s hand when she tried to open the tent.

MPD officers were assisting the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services with a Homeless Outreach Clean-Up Project, according to the police report.

The rest of the encampment cleanup appeared much calmer. The strip of E Street NW that sits between 20th and 21st Streets is highly trafficked by State Department employees that work in the former Red Cross headquarters and a mix of college students and tourists that ride a steady flow of “International Limousine” and “A La Carte” shuttle buses that drop off in the area.

The trash trucks, police cars, trucks used to block the street and the police tape surrounding the tents a dozen people had been living in on the tree-lined south side of the street had created a bit of spectacle.

A small group of George Washington University students had turned out to protest the eviction of homeless people from public land, but they too gave way to arrest warnings. and stuck around to help campers pack up their belongings.

“They put a police line up and said ‘step behind the line or you’ll get arrested,’” said Tom, a camp resident. “And just backed a dump truck, literally backed a trash truck up to our tent and started loading stuff in.”

Tom shares a large tent with his friend and

business partner Mark. They run a sidewalk vending business, selling bracelets and art.

Though much of their wares were recently gobbled by a trash truck, along with Tom’s birth certificate and Social Security card. He had just collected the two together so he could obtain a picture ID. Now he said he’ll have to work backwards from the ID to get his Social Security card and birth certificate again.

Mark thought the students could have done more.

“Half of GW should have been down here.

There should have been so many students down here that the cops would have had a problem,” Mark said. “They can’t even get their own friends to come down here and support us.”

Mark thinks everyone should do more.

Neighbors, lawyers, faith leaders, homeless service and advocacy organizations, and campers elsewhere in the city to name a few.

“Your people have to stand up with us too. You can’t just report. You gotta be active,” Mark challenged. “I get it, but when it’s that bad, you’ve gotta take a stand.”

The camp had become visibly established in recent weeks. There was a large blue canopy and a full-size gas grill. “You should have seen our setup a week ago,” Tom said. Mark described a woman from the area that stopped by and asked what the people in the camp needed. He told her it would be nice if they had something to cook with, imagining a small propane camp stove.

“It wasn’t the most usable grill, it had no wheels,” Mark said. “But we got it level and cooked on it. We really liked it.” Now the pair keeps everything packed up, in case they have to move again.

Encampment cleanups are an interagency effort — outreach from the Departments of Human Services and Behavioral Health, disposal via Public Works and security from MPD — all coordinated by the Office of the Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services.

Cleanups do not happen at random and they are not necessarily frequent. Eight cleanups were conducted in the month of October.

The deputy mayor’s office maintains a calendar of sites that may need to be cleaned.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are designated to carry out the task, when necessary. The whole operation is outlined in a document that was updated in November of last year, including how much notice camp resident should have before a cleanup, what property may be disposed of, what property may be stored and much more.

The city must post signs 14 days before a cleanup will take place. And if a site is added to the cleanup calendar, it has probably already been visited by outreach workers, according to Sean Barry, communication director for the deputy mayor’s office. “But certainly, if the location is added to that calendar, it will accelerate the outreach of people making those visits to warn people about the cleanup and have that conversation about what services are available and try to connect that individual to services.”

The city does not want to ambush people or take their belongings. It does want them to be prepared to move along, in accordance with the law.

Mark, Tom and the rest of the tent community were still caught off guard on Nov. 2. They had seen similar signs posted in August and September, but the city never followed through

on them. “So last Thursday we didn’t know what was going to happen until they showed up with trucks and started throwing people’s stuff away,” Mark said.

At a recent D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness committee meeting focused on emergency response, the need to clarify communication to residents surrounding encampment cleanups was on the agenda.

Storage space is not infinite, according to Barry, but the city provides up to two large tubs for storage by each camp resident that can then be kept at the Adam’s Place Daytime Service Center in Northeast for up to 60 days.

The eight-page policy, storage plans and other facets of the cleanup projects are relatively streamlined when compared to the 3-week series of cleanups contesting ground in Foggy Bottom during November 2015 near the Watergate complex, marking the Bowser administration’s commitment to encampment cleanups. Living in any “temporary abode” on public property in the District has been illegal since 1990. Confusion ran high during the 2015 cleanups, both among camp residents and seemingly among city personnel assigned to the scene. Now, at each cleanup, there is always a spokesperson for the public, a coordinator for the city workers and a uniform set of answers for the homeless community.

Many campers seem to have streamlined their own operation too. Earlier this year, online news outlets DCist and ThinkProgress both characterized the city as playing “wac-amole” with people living in tents — noticing that an area would be cleared on a Tuesday or Thursday morning and the tents would often return the same night.

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

That’s exactly what happened on Tuesday, Nov. 2 on E Street. A caveat in the notices posted for encampment cleanups provides that once an area is cleared, it may be cleaned again at any time. In practice, that meant the same interagency effort would reconvene on E Street the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 7.

That morning, a similar scene unfolded.

Some of the GW students returned and helped people dismantle their tents. They even rented a small U-Haul van to try and help people transport what they couldn’t store, move, or bear to throw away. Some campers took advantage of the city’s storage offer. Still no one elected to pursue connection to city shelters, according to Barry of the deputy mayor’s office.

The difference that morning was that it began to drizzle. The cleanup was eventually cut short as the rain picked up. The residents of one tent, down the hill from the others, saddled between the Eastbound and Westbound ramps of the E Street Expressway, were told they would not be forced to pack up in the rain. They were instead warned that another repeat cleanup effort would be held Thursday morning, Nov. 9 to make sure they area was clear.

Meanwhile, the city vehicles left and everyone who had taken their tents down was caught in an icy downpour that lasted for approximately one hour. When outreach workers visited the site the morning of the anticipated Nov. 9 cleanup, campers who had stuck around were asking for sweatpants, socks and gloves because their clothes were still soaked from two days prior. Near record lows were predicted for the weekend.

“We had to move all this stuff over there.

Then we moved it back,” said Simon, another camper across from the State Department, “Now it’s going to be winter time, and there’s no place to sleep. Then you gotta start sleeping on the freaking — anywhere you can possibly find.”

It appeared that the city still planned to return on the morning of Nov. 9. Two MPD units parked in front of the State Department and a public works truck pulled up at the end of the block.

However, when the first trash truck arrived, it continued beyond the camp. Several blocks farther down E Street, three different homeless men and women were having their temporary abodes cleaned up that day. Fortune continued to favor the folks between 20th and 21st Streets when a faith group based out of Maryland offered to put several, if not all, of the campers up in hotels to weather the cold for three days.

The optics of a homeless encampment cleanup are jarring. “I am very much aware that the Bowser administration is aggressive about removing homeless people and their tents,” said a District resident who works nearby and witnessed part of the Nov. 2 cleanup. “I do not know how aggressive they are about finding some housing for those individuals.”

But beneath the surface, the city continues to grapple, like many others, with intertwined housing and homelessness crises. D.C. Council just advanced a bill more than a year in the making that spends more than 30 pages codifying the rights of homeless people, and the rights of the programs and people that serve them. One of the most volatile debates between critics and supporters of the Homeless Services Reform Act Amendment of 2017 is whether the city will soon be asking for too much proof

of D.C. residency or proof of homelessness to qualify for assistance. The fear that drives this conversation is whether homeless people from outside of the District come here for better services and to take advantage of the city’s rare right to shelter. In a broader sense, the bill aims to acknowledge that homeless services must be more housing-oriented than they have been historically, but that the city’s emergency services for responding to homelessness cannot solve the housing crisis.

A number of the people at the E Street camp are not from the District. Mark, a veteran, prefers to say that he’s “from America” because he has lived in so many places, most recently Kingston, NY. The couple whose tent was saved by the rain, Jon and Maisha came here from Kentucky looking for a fresh start. But they didn’t come here for city services, they came to see Maisha’s uncle, who lives in the area They’ve been in a rough patch since.

A silver lining for them is the camp location’s proximity to both Miriam’s Kitchen and GWU Hospital. Maisha struggles with serious asthma, arthritis that can make her whole body lock up, and sickle cell anemia. Jon as hemophilia and was also recently diagnosed with some type of cancer.

Ultimately, on Nov. 9, the E Street campers between 20th and 21st Streets were told that there would be no more cleanup efforts until new 14-day notices were posted.

“When do you say ‘no’ to bad laws?” Mark said, still hoping to see students or injunctionbearing lawyers en masse the next time his camp is set to be shutdown. “I’m having nightmares now that they’re going to back up a truck and they’re just going to pick up our

// 9

tent with everything in it, us included.”

Simon, frustrated by months of fruitless efforts chasing employment, said that he didn’t want to hear about shelter. He suggested that the one thing the city could do is to focus on building more housing. The Bowser administration has made similar claims and, since January 2015, the District has invested more than $276 million in HPTF financing, which has funded the production or preservation of more than 3,300 affordable units that can house more than 7,200 residents, according to a release from the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development. Yet with “The encampment response is not the District’s strategy for homelessness,” Barry said on site at the Nov. 7 cleanup. “It is one piece of what we’re doing and it really is driven by both the fact that camping is illegal but more importantly that encampments as a housing solution are not a workable solution for the health and safety for either the inhabitants of those encampments or others who use that public space.”

The scale of the problem s daunting: 7,400 people experiencing homelessness and more than 40,000 names on the closed waiting list for assistance from the D.C. Housing Authority.

“Where else are we supposed to go?” Simon asked in the meantime. “We don’t have a home.

Are you going to put every homeless person in D.C. in a shelter? Good luck with that. All of ‘em are not gonna fit.”

This topic will be discussed as part of a D.C. Council Committee on Health public oversight hearing on Wednesday, November 15 at 11 a.m. in the Wilson Building.

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OPINION Ai Weiwei’s “Human Flow” reimagines immigration

BY CHRISTINE WONG

Sculpturist and visual artist Ai Weiwei has made his reputation over recent decades as one of China’s most famous dissidents. He is best-known for his intricate “Bird’s Nest” Stadium built for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, and his “Trace” installation currently appears at the Hirshhorn Museum on the Mall. His latest art production is Human Flow, a documentary film, now playing at Parkway Theater in Baltimore, about what has been termed as the biggest mass human migration since World War II: 65 million people crossing borders in 2015-2016 alone.

The film’s central purpose is to shed light on the experience of being undocumented today. It is visually opulent and expansive, comprising a mixture of silent newsreels, facts taken from articles in major newspapers, and interviews with experts, refugees and officials. The narrative is less plotdriven than discursive, inviting the audience to think, feel and most of all, question. The film helps us to visualize the physical grandeur of the migration and experience the courage and tenacity of the human spirit. Ai himself experienced extended periods of exile and homelessness, and his film shows people laughing, singing and crying — not deeply angry and murderous, as anti-immigration politicians can make them seem.

If there is a political message at all, it is that much more needs to be done, even if it amounts to setting up permanent UNICEF camps such as in Lebanon, where at least a fraction of the refugee children are allowed the opportunity to attend school regularly and to experience a place called home.

In an interview with Smithsonian Magazine in 2012, Ai described his inspiration: “My work is always dealing with real or fake, authenticity, what the value is, and how the value relates to current political and social understandings and misunderstandings.”

Indeed Human Flow’s magic is its overt realism. Ai shows refugees arriving in open boats, lining up for hours for food, spending weeks trekking through sleet and mud. They are the heroes and heroines of the film. The footage includes intimate scenes such as people picking grasses to cook in camp pots, sharing cat pictures on cell phones, and salvaging materials from buildings. Even when the refugees appear to be housed, for instance in one of Jordan’s grand camp-cities, they may be subject to political pressure. For some, the final humiliation comes when, after waiting for months at border camps, they are forcibly deported.

During the opening at the E Street Cinema in Washington,

D.C., on Sept. 25, Ai Weiwei said he wants to emphasize the homeless refugees’ desperation and humanity: “The real, real tragedy is on each person. A woman, a child, every second they’re in this reality. Do they have a future, you would ask?

And the answer is always quite sad.”

Christine Wong is a new vendor-artist with Street Sense Media.

Fears for Franklin Park

Violence against women

D.C.’s health system is not healthy

The D.C. government is going to turn Franklin School into a museum. I am appalled! The city does not need another museum. The city does need affordable housing. So why not transform the school into a housing complex that’s affordable for the homeless?

I also worry about what will happen to Franklin Park. Now people loiter, trash is everywhere, and the fountain reeks. The D.C. government must repair the park so

BY BETTY EVERETT

BY JENNIFER MCLAUGHLIN

I was riding the D4 bus a few weeks ago when a man who was probably homeless attacked two women. He sat next to me, but he didn’t seem threatening. Suddenly he got up and started calling women “bitches” and other words we can’t print here. Then he walked toward the back and tried to punch a fairly young white woman.

She had time to duck, so she only got a glancing blow. Then he walked to the front and hit an older black woman who had a cane, with his fist!

Thank God he didn’t have a knife or a gun.

The bus driver told him to get off the bus, which he did at the next stop. I think the driver should have called the police. Now nothing will happen to this man. He hit two women and got away with it.

A couple of days later I was walking outside the Walmart. When I stopped at the red light a man on a bicycle passed by and punched me in the back. I turned and glared at him, but he just kept riding. A little farther on he said, “Excuse me.” That was way too late.

I’ve noticed a lot more anger toward women lately. It’s so bad that two policemen have to patrol the X2 bus because of past violence and the potential for more.

For many years I struggled with depression and anxiety. After receiving mental health treatment in Maryland, I decided to get treatment in the District.

When I started going to mental health facilities there I had a blue-and-white Medicaid card. A few years later, the D.C. government sent my Qualified Medical Beneficiary (QMB) card. But no one at the Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) would accept my QMB card. This meant not receiving mental health services for a long time, which made me very unhappy.

The DBH refers people to the Core Service Agency. But that agency does not have to accept your medical insurance. This is a big problem. I spent months shuffling between agencies trying to get appointments. That happened so often I had no other choice but to leave the D.C. mental health system and seek help elsewhere. I found it at Andromeda, a community-based health care clinic in NW D.C. My experience shows that the District must improve its mental health system so that other citizens who need the services most don’t fall through the cracks.

BY SHEILA WHITE

people can go to it and enjoy its amenities without wondering about their safety. As long as the government keeps people on the streets with nowhere to go, they will cause problems by sleeping on benches and beneath overpasses. Making Franklin Park attractive will help put the D.C. government back on its feet.

Sheila White is an advocate and a Street Sense Media vendor and an artist.

Racism in America

BY BARRON HALL

I write about people of color because I am a person of color.

I was born and raised in poor black America. The American black man knows firsthand about terror and racism, imposed by the American white man. We are like the people in Syria, or the Jews who were terrorized by Hitler.

If we are not careful, what has happened in Syria will happen here. Mr. Trump is the perfect example of a real racist white man.

We have some black football players who could solve some of our poverty and homelessness problems, in one day’s time.

God tells us to be patient and trust him and I believe he will rescue us. The word of God says, “You reap what you sow.”

Killing each other and going to prison is not the answer. We have to love one another.

We are like the people in Syria, or the Jews who were terrorized

by Hitler.

Jennifer McLaughlin is a Street Sense Media Vendor Barron Hall is an author and Street Sense Media vendor.

Betty Everett is a Street Sense Media vendor.

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

The real cost of rising prices in D.C.

Bridging the Digital Divide

BY MONSOOR ALI

The world is evolving at speeds that many can’t keep up with. Computer technology is dominating all aspects of society from medicine and science to education and employment. And if anyone in a state of poverty and homelessness expects to climb out of that pit of despair, they will undoubtedly need access to much of that technology. The disheartening thing about that is that for the most part, computer technology costs lots of money and is basically a luxury for those who can afford it. Having little to no income is hard enough when you’re trying to just survive day to day, feeding and clothing yourself, securing transportation, paying for medicine, and all of the other little human necessities that middle-class and wealthy people take for granted. This basic daily survival process leaves little room for anything else beyond just maintaining, but there are those who want more for themselves and there are tools out there that can help them with their goals of reentering society to become productive and self-sufficient.

The question is: How does a depressed and impoverished homeless person with all odds against him find and secure the capital to acquire these tools?

As someone who has suffered from chronic homelessness myself from the age of 15, I can definitely relate to these problems. Homelessness does not discriminate against anyone. Everyone is a potential victim and can be thrust into a life of poverty overnight and without warning. The common factor in all cases of homelessness and poverty is that everyone who has experienced it is human. That is the only prerequisite. And many people tend to forget that about homeless people.

Regardless of our circumstances and appearances, we are human first. Despite what many uninformed people may believe, mental illness and drug addiction are not the only factors that lead to homelessness. Most would be quite surprised to hear the many different stories and tragedies people have suffered that led them into poverty and homelessness. Being injured on a job, losing a lawsuit, divorce, and child abandonment are just a few other examples of how everyday people without mental illness,

criminal backgrounds or addictions can easily have their lives spontaneously transformed from wealth and comfort to poverty and hopelessness. But everyone who does deal with the challenges of poverty and homelessness isn’t hopeless. Many of us haven’t completely been broken and are very strong-willed and motivated. No one wants to be or chooses to be poor and without a place to call home. No one asks for this lifestyle. But just like cancer or racism, homelessness can be unpredictable and should be treated as a condition that must be fought to overcome. What makes it such a difficult battle for so many is that they just don’t have the proper tools to fight with. Smartphones and laptops have the ability to help everyone in society stay in touch and find the resources they need to sustain and thrive. We search for jobs, type up resumes, and fill out applications online. We find directions and plan trips online.

We find contact information and make appointments online or by phone. We retrieve our messages and voicemail the same way. These tools seem to be indispensable and necessary for just a basic and decent quality of life. But for many if not most poor and homeless people, these resources are often unavailable and out of reach.

I’ve discussed with a number of homeless citizens of Washington, D.C., the effects that the “Digital Divide” plays upon their day to day life. In the following weeks, I plan to bring to you a diverse multitude of stories that touch on the experiences of a number of homeless residents who were brave enough to share how their lives have been negatively impacted from the lack of access to basic computer technology. I hope that these stories will inspire you to get involved and contribute to the few but gracious nonprofits in our area that are dedicated to bringing computer technology and education to the homeless community in our local cities.

Monsoor Ali is a freelance journalist, a homeless D.C. resident, and a homeless advocate and activist based in Washington, D.C.

Remembering Vincent Reed

BY ANGIE WHITEHURST

Vincent Reed, the former D.C. Schools Superintendent, was 89 when he died this October, a fixture for those of us who lived through this era of dynamic and challenging evolutions in Washington, DC. He was a leader, teacher, educator, principal; a corporate big wig at the Washington Post, a veteran, and an advocate for public education and excellence.

He was a doer and our local hero.

The younger generations, the regentrified newcomers, tourists, and temporary residents who come and go every four to eight years during each

presidential term have probably never heard of him. What is important to share with you is that Vincent Reed was a man who through education,

Vincent Reed is a D.C. hero, never to be forgotten

determination, compassion and ability survived the world of Jim Crow. He was a strong catalyst for

change, a well-respected visionary who earned support from the public and his professional peers.

Vincent Reed led students, teachers, parents and the community through the daunting challenges of desegregation, assuring his students of high-quality public education regardless of race, color or creed.

He was my high school principal, and he helped this Black child make it through!

Vincent Reed is a D.C. hero, never to be forgotten, at least not by me and the thousands of students who walked the path he cut through the briar patches across

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town decades ago. Thank you Vincent Reed. Your star shines the brightest.

Angie Whitehurst is a Street Sense Media Vendor.

BY AIDA BASNIGHT

Selling Street Sense supplements my income to buy food, pay rent, and pay for my cell phone. It’s not an easy task for any vendor. We struggle with rising prices in the District and so do our customers. Many of my customers have told me they moved out of the city because it is much cheaper to live elsewhere and commute. We all know the cost of rent is horrendous, but so are prices for other basic things we all need to survive, like food. When longtime customers move and are not spending as much time in the city, that trickles down to other stores and to your local Street Sense Media vendor. The difficulty of keeping a roof over your head, paying taxes and paying your bills all adds up. People just can’t stretch, let alone budget, on minimum wage any more than I can on $200 of food stamps.

In fact, my food stamps have already been cut by $3.

Food prices from farmers’ markets or supermarkets like Safeway, Giant, Walmart, Whole Foods or Aldi are pretty much the same. You would think that farmers’ markets would be cheaper to buy fruits and veggies, but they’re not, even though farmers’ markets do accept food stamps through matching programs. When a recipient with food stamps buys 10 “chips,” the market will match it with another free 10 chips. Farmers’ market meat prices can be slightly higher, charging 30 cents more per pound of meat than some conventional supermarkets.

The D.C. government is in the process of increasing minimum wage to $15 per hour. I don’t have a problem with paying a living wage, but I do have a problem with most employers. It is all about maximizing profit to them.

We’ll all end up paying out more for food, rent, and other necessities with a $15 minimum wage. It will actually make it harder for people get ahead.

What I propose is that our politicians freeze prices for at least ten years, especially on food, healthcare and pharmaceutical supplies/medicine; raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour; only make people pay one-third of their income for housing; and make it so that buying a car is no longer a luxury for some folks, because they need it to go to work and some cities don’t have adequate public transportation.

Prices need to come down if families, young adults and senior citizens are going to live stress-free lives and be able to save for one or two luxury items during their lifetimes. Also, we need more housing for people who have mental illnesses.

I don’t mean hospitals, but housing with adequate clinical social workers, doctors and nurses, Once people feel there is a change going on within themselves, they can have proper housing and resources, rather than having to be put out on the streets or living in shelters that strip them of their dignity and hope. Let’s have a movement to bring down prices for everyone. Prices are hurting the average Americans who simply want to live, enjoy life and raise a family.

Aida Basnight is a Street Sense Media vendor.

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ART

Random acts of kindness: Band-Aids

BY WENDELL WILLIAMS

Artist/Vendor

A musical experience, pt 2

BY CONRAD CHEEK JR // Artist/Vendor

Previously, I wrote about acquiring the album "Hot Buttered Soul" by Isaac Hayes, and the profound impact this innovative music had on me as a young man as I first heard it and soon shared the experience with my dad. Please see "A musical experience, part 1" in the Nov. 1 edition of Street Sense or on StreetSenseMedia.org...

The most memorable part of the Isaac Hayes concert for me was his introduction of the lovely and talented female background singers, Hot, Butter and Soul and Hayes's entrance to the stage. There I was, at Constitution Hall, in the mid '70s.

I believe the first song they played was "Walk On By." During the first two-minute intro, before he began to sing, Hayes slowly approached center stage, wearing a dark, gold-embossed hat and an ankle-length matching gold embossed robe that slowly swayed from side to side with the rhythm of the music. As he reached the center stage, a beautiful bald-headed woman first removed his hat, exposing his bald head.

The audience cheered.

Then she removed his robe, exposing his bare chest and an awesome thick-linked gold chain around his neck, meeting shortly below his collarbone and hanging down the middle of his stomach.

A roar of cheers and applause came from the audience.

ALBUM COVER COURTESY OF ITUNES

Then he began to sing, "If you see me walking down the street, and I start to cry, each time we meet.... Walk onnn byyy."

What an entrance! What a show and concert!

Just as this music took me back to a good time in my life, I've always thought that it would be a good idea to provide the veterans in the V.A. hospitals the music that will take them back to a good time in their lives.

I'd like to thank my former classmate and friend for exposing me to this extraordinary, original composer, Isaac Hayes, and the magnificent, stereophonic music he produced.

My dad and I enjoyed it immensely then, and I continue to enjoy it to this day! (to be continued)

Dear Lovely

BY JERMALE MCKNIGHT // Artist/Vendor

Dear lovely, merry be you As peace remains in uncertainty Let prosperity, truth and purpose sustain you Find yourself, get a grip in a place Like “Beam me up Scottie” For life is but a gamble Observing and serving can do justice for beyond a few But when the heat is on, may you know when to move Be us lovely, merry and compassionate to a Kool A king’s cool face we’ve known and knew May the love of your life put you where joy is heartfelt For games are dead where men are ready to be served and led

Myself

BY JOE JACKSON // Artist/Vendor

I'm trying to hold myself together and stay out of all the trouble out there while being homeless.

That means I've had to trust my case managers with every last bit of my personal information while they're trying to help me avoid sleeping on the ground.

A few years ago, as I began my journey to self-sufficiency, I worked to save what few dollars I made selling the paper and also some from other part-time work and I set out to change my life by buying an automobile.

I was able to purchase a 25-year-old Toyota Camry (I think it was like a '92), and the Camry served me well. For months I drove the Camry, until I started to experience a rash of repairs being needed. I took it from mechanic to mechanic to find a way of putting any Band-Aids, glue or duct tape on the car that I could to keep it running. I was told that it was simply a 25-year-old car and the frame was starting to wear out.

Nevertheless, I replaced the struts, the alternator and other various things — one after another. It limped along for a while. Then I started to have problems with the car overheating. Several times the car had broken down on me and I had to leave it on the side of the road and come back and get it after it cooled off. Once, it even overheated and broke down on me on 395 South of Lorton during rush hour! It took me almost four hours to get the car back to my Oxford House by driving five or 10 minutes until it overheated, pulling over to put water in, letting it cool down and repeating the process.

As I started to experience even more difficulties with the car, I shared it with one of my supporters at the Del Ray Farmers’ Market, where I distribute my newspaper.

She suggested that I take it to her mechanic. But I could not afford a real mechanic.

The mechanics I had been using up until that point are what we call in the city "shade-tree mechanics," y'know, those guys that hang out at the AutoZone or Advanced Auto and work on people's cars in the parking lot.

However, whatever was going on with my car was too complex for them to handle. So, at my supporter's suggestion, I took my Camry into a repair shop in Alexandria where she took her car, so that I could at least see if it was worth fixing or if I should get rid of it. The next morning I got a call from the repair shop saying they were finished looking it over. When I arrived and told the person who I was, they returned with the keys and told me that everything was fixed!

I said, "Wait a minute, I can't afford all of those repairs!" I almost blew a gasket when the guy told me, “Don't worry about it, it's all been paid for." When I asked him by whom, he refused to give me the person's name. He only told me that it was someone who knew me and my struggle from the Del Ray Farmers’ Market, and they would not want their name to be known. I respect this person's privacy. But I wanted to say, by sharing this story, that I am still incredibly thankful to this day!

You know who you are.

And even though I gave them everything, we're getting nowhere with housing and nowhere with my mental health provider.

I haven't heard anything new. I'm still homeless.

And I'm angry because people who work in the District government seem to lie to the homeless about the housing and voucher system. I don't know who to trust.

Labels

BY MILDRED M. HALL // Artist/Vendor

I was called "needy" and "poor" when I received my first Education Employment Work History Statement from the Social Security Administration on Nov. 17, 2008. Since then, I have become a "low-income person." My savings from working became my nest egg, and once I reached a certain age I got my monthly check. Without it, I wouldn't have enough money to take care of myself. I have to pay the insurance taken off the top, but the balance enables me to have at least a temporary income. And that is very important to me.

What I've Seen Downtown

BY GERALD ANDERSON // Artist/Vendor

Five years ago, where I sell the paper downtown was a nice place. You could walk around and enjoy the area. Now, so much has changed and so fast. So, the good and the bad.

The bad is seeing young kids doing a lot of things I didn't do when I was coming up. I try to talk with them.

Some listen. But others ask how I expect to give them advice. I told them about how I have been out of jail for five years now. I think that counts when it comes to being able to give advice to

certain people. I tell them to stay away from dope.

The good is that I want to thank everyone for the things they gave me for my birthday. I know I haven't been writing much lately, but I would still like to thank those people. One other thing is on my mind: I would like to ask people to keep Susan, who helped me publish my book, in your prayers. She is better now but is still going through some ups and downs.

Gerald's book, "Still Standing: how an ex-con found salvation in the floodwaters of Katrina" is available for purchase on Amazon.com.

STREETSENSEMEDIA.ORG

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Happy Thanksgiving!

BY EVELYN NNAM // Artist/Vendor

Thanksgiving is here and our minds are turning and focusing to what we are thankful for.

To what time has taught us, to what we have learned. We often focus on the not-so-important things that last for a moment, forgetting the important, forgetting the meaning of true friendship and love.

Being thankful for having a roof over your head while others don't have one. Being thankful for food on your

table, while others are out begging for spare change. Being thankful for the air you breath is easy for you, while others are having hard times.

Being thankful for rain, while the rain never or rarely comes to other areas. Being thankful for being able to see, while not having everything.

Being thankful for what you do have. The most important thing to be thankful for is being alive. Live every day being thankful, still on this Earth, making a difference and change.

Thank you and have a blessed Thanksgiving!

What to be thankful for:

BY LATISHIA GRAHAM // Artist/Vendor

As you know, it is November and I feel that what I am thankful for is I'm about to get my own place soon. I'm thankful I'm alive. I'm thankful for this year, 2017. This year is the year I really feel blessed, and hopefully down the line I’ll see more new changes in my life. I feel thankful that I have a birthday coming up soon! I pray that this year I make it through.

Priceless:

a noble thank you

BY ANGIE WHITEHURST // Artist/Vendor

Fall is Here

BY GWYNETTE SMITH

Artist/Vendor

The green, so full, is falling.

Brown, yellow, orange, and red will dot the land, Blowing pieces everywhere.

The days are shorter, cooler, The substance of autumn is here.

The wind that blows is no longer pleasant.

A chill is in the air.

I really miss the summer.

Vacations no longer here.

Eighty-nine days to forget, The warmth on shoulders bare.

In our part of the world The fall of the year is here.

The commitment of the brave Is something to protect To keep To cherish And to come back home to Gratefully, thanks go to you The strong and the honored Our front-line responders Who rock hard, stand, rise And hold-back the perilous, unwanted Harmful reverse tides Assuring humanity that The grasp on peace And saving of untold numbers of lives At the highest cost Without hesitancy for your own life There is no “thank you" great enough So, I thank you from my heart and I sincerely also thank you For sparing our freedom Our history and democracy From the thunder, lightening and blinding downpours That would erode, erase and utterly destroy Our great nation Now, because of your service We can move toward that more perfect union Without a doubt, you have served this nation And this world Well Above and beyond the call of duty.

You are priceless Never ever forget it Please give this poem to anyone you know in service: veterans, active military, National Guard, first responders, government employees, etc.

Animals shield themselves more.

Not or often are they seen.

Three months will end flowers and green.

With either a friend or a lover, Summer walks are at an end.

But happy, yet, my heart can be, The ice of winter I do not see But happy, yet, my heart can be, the wet snow Doesn't fall on me.

But happy, yet, my heart can be, The freezing winter, Just a memory.

A Thanksgiving Day prayer

BY TAMMY RICE // Volunteer

This is a Thanksgiving Day prayer Because we know that Jesus cares.

It's a time to be grateful, For our loved ones and friends, And to make amends!

It's a time to thank God, For all our blessings, And to thank God For the turkey dressing!

Donations

BY PHILLIP BLACK // Artist/Vendor // a.k.a. “The Cat in the Hat”

I wanted to give a shout out to big sister Eboni and celebrating the holidays with the new baby girl Onyx who will be 2 months on Nov. 17, 2017. More pix coming soon! PHOTO COURTESY OF SASHA WILLIAMS

I always tell people: The best nation in the world is a donation. So, when I talk to people about donations, I tell them to do more than just write a check. Do research to find out where your donation goes. There are a lot of organizations that people give money to and a lot of them are scams. Most people give donations just for a tax write-off. This is good, but most times they don't care where the money goes. So, to all my dear friends who want to donate, give a donation to Street Sense Media.

When you give to Street Sense Media, you can be assured of exactly where your money goes, and it is simply better.

1 4 // S T R E E T S E N S E M E D I A / / N O V. 1 5 - 2 8, 2017

FUN & GAMES

Novice Sudoku Puzzles, Volume 1, Book 1

Sudoku #5 5

7 4 1

9 8

3

4

6 6

3

6 3 5

4 2 4

9 2 5 3

5

2

3 7

8 6

1

© 2013 KrazyDad.com

Fill in the blank squares so that each row, each column and each 3-by-3 block contain all of the digits 1 thru 9.

SUDOKU: Fill in

If you logicsquares you can solve the puzzle without guesswork. the use blank

so that Need a littleeach help? row, The hints page shows a logical order to solve the puzzle. each columntheand Use it to identify next square you should solve. Or use the answers page if you really get stuck. each 3-by-3 block contain all of the digits 1-9.

LAST EDITION’S PUZZLE SOLUTION >>

It may be true that human beings make more mistakes than computers, but for a real foul up, give us a computer anytime.

1 2

ILLUSTRATION BY BARBARA POLLARD

The Monkey & The Microscope

BY MICHAEL CRAIG // Artist/Vendor

The Monkey was extremely fascinated with the unknown, from the smallest particle of existence to what would perhaps become the grandeur.

Serendipitously, it acquired a microscope to continue to explore its existence, starting with the smallest amoeba and iota. Its knowledge grew from there.

Suddenly the Monkey was studying all natural sciences. It realized that the many aspects of knowledge were intricately and infinitely connected.

The world was wild and beautiful.

The more that the Monkey’s brain increased with retention of knowledge, the more the microscope grew, as if the Monkey had planted a seed in the ground.

After a while, the Monkey realized there was more to see beyond the mircoscope.

It put the microscope down and said “I’m going to use my own eyes for a minute, my own common senses.” The monkey walked through the woods, sat by a stream. It even refused to answer the cell-phone.

It was a burgeoning autodidact!

The Monkey’s vision went from peripheral to panoramic. When it returned to the microscope, the Monkey saw that the device had kept growing, just like the Monkey’s knowledge. Its nozzle kept getting bigger, bigger, bigger.

The microscope got so big that the Monkey flipped it around and “It’s a telescope!!! Ain’t this something beautiful.” Now the Monkey was on another frontier, peering at all 13 constellations of our Milky Way Galaxy!

But its feet never left the ground. It took all the scientific knowledge it had acquired and thought about how to use that to better life for all creatures.

All this knowledge was so heartening, that it increased its capacity to love and respect all.

Maybe people could be the same way.

After spending hours, days and weeks staring at the stars, the Monkey realized that despite everything it could see far away, there was a wonderful banana tree right in front of it.

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

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(202) 749-8000

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Clothing Ropa

Legal Assistance Assistencia Legal

Case Management Coordinación de Servicios

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Martha’s Table // 202-328-6608 2114 14th St., NW marthastable.org

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

Patricia Handy Place for Women // 202-7335378 810 5th St., NW

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

// 1 5

JOB BOARD Overnight Residential Counselor Sasha Bruce Youthwork // 1022 Maryland Ave NE Full-time, Monday - Friday // 10:00 pm - 7:30 am This position plans and implements the weekend activity schedule; makes regular house check inspections; maintain records; respond to emergencies. REQUIRED: High school diploma or GED, 2-3 years experience working with youth or in human services, valid driver’s license. APPLY: tinyurl.com/SBY-overnight Medical Call Center Receptionist Community of Hope // District of Columbia Full-time

The position is responsible for answering telephone calls, scheduling patient appointments, and ensuring smooth and effective patient communication.

Verifies patients’ insurances and determines any charges/copayments at the time of appointment scheduling. R efers patients to an Enrollment Assister for insurance or sliding fee scale enrollment.

REQUIRED: High school diploma or GED, exceptional customer service skills; proficiency in written and oral communication; 2 years as a medical receptionist or medical administrator. APPLY: tinyurl.com/COH-calls

Peer Support Specialist Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless Rockville, MD // Full-time The Peer Support Specialist is an individual who has experienced homelessness and is now permanently housed. This individual should be able to engage and advocate for individuals who have or are experiencing homelessness.

REQUIRED: High school diploma or GED, lived experience with homelessness, valid driver’s license and own vehicle, Microsoft Word and Outlook proficiency, pre-employment criminal background check.

APPLY: tinyurl.com//MCCH-peer

Relief Resident Monitor Community of Hope // Washington, DC Casual/As-needed As a Resident Monitor, you will be essential staff by ensuring the safety of the building, enforcing resident rules, serving as a part of the emergency response team, and communicating with case managers to ensure that clients are receiving the case management services that they need. REQUIRED: High school diploma or GED, computer proficiency with programs such as Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Google Mail, ability to remain calm and able during emergencies; ability to act responsibly, professionally, and use good judgment under pressure.

APPLY: tinyurl.com///COH-relief

Apply for Discounts on Your Utility Bills Discounts are Subject to Income Eligibility Requirements

- Apply for Discounted Rates on Intergenerational Theatre

Natural Gas

Residential Essential Service (RES) Program

Potential savings up to $276 during the winter heating season.

Photo Credit: Rachel Dungan

Electric

Residential Aid Discount (RAD) Program

Performs in Washington, DC

Potential savings are between $300-$475 annually.

Monday 11.27 | 7 PM Church of the Epiphany 1317 G St NW, Washington, DC 20005 Free RSVP : www.dhdc.eventbrite.com Performs in Arlington, VA

Water

Customer Assistance Program (CAP)

Tuesday 11.28 | 7 PM HB Woodlawn 4100 Vacation Ln. Arlington, VA 22207

Potential discount could be over $450 annually.

Free RSVP : www.dhva.eventbrite.com

Telephone NOV. 15 - 28, 2017 VOL.15 ISSUE 1 Street Sense Media 1317 G Street, NW Washington, DC 20005

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Annual discount on one land line service per household.

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For more info call 311 or visit doee.dc.gov/udp

To apply for the telephone Lifeline Service (Economy II), call 800-253-0846.

These programs are for DC residents only.

From your vendor

“