DISTRICTLINE CITY DESK
Unsheltered in the Storm The coronavirus crisis didn’t stop an encampment clearing. The day afTer Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a state of emergency in the District of Columbia over the global coronavirus pandemic, D.C. government workers swept the homeless encampments around 17th and Corcoran streets NW. “You are not afraid of the coronavirus?” asked Stevie, 34, to no one in particular. Stevie’s friends and acquaintances were not concerned about the virus, but about her. They showed up to help her temporarily move. Stevie lives in a tent with her partner—or as she calls Savon, “my other half ”—in front of the Safeway at 1701 Corcoran Street NW. On Thursday, the D.C. Department of Human Services’ homeless outreach team was tasked with sweeping Stevie’s tent and another tent in front of McDonald’s on 17th Street NW for public safety and health reasons. “Are you keeping calm?” Stevie’s friend Tim asked her. Stevie, who declined to give her last name, replied, “Yes.” “Good. Keep calm and carry on, that’s what you got to do,” Tim said assuringly. More than 20 people—including DHS staff, sanitation workers, homeless outreach workers with Miriam’s Kitchen, a lawyer with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, police, and volunteers—gathered around 9 a.m. for a scheduled clearing of the Dupont encampments. By noon, Stevie and the other encamped residents had returned their tents and other personal belongings to their usual spots in front of the Safeway and McDonald’s. They moved back as soon as the sanitation workers finished removing any trash or debris that was left behind. The morning was an emotional one. The people that helped Stevie and others move their stuff from one part of the sidewalk to another did not heed the public health recommendation to practice “social distancing”— that is, to limit social interactions and stay at least six feet away from anyone you do encounter in order to slow the spread of the virus. J Bernick, a friend of Stevie’s, embraced her before leaving because they knew how emotionally taxing the day was. An elbow bump, in this case, wasn’t enough. The day became especially tense when Lawrence Sprowls, who lives in a nearby apartment building, confronted Stevie for
Photos by Amanda Michelle Gomez
By Amanda Michelle Gomez
Government workers sweeping a Dupont encampment
A volunteer helps an encamped resident temporarily move for a government clearing.
4 march 20, 2020 washingtoncitypaper.com
not leaving permanently and began taking photos of Stevie and her belongings on his cell phone. Sprowls told City Paper he has called and emailed the mayor’s office multiple times since January to complain about the Dupont encampments, and has gone as far as offering Stevie money so she would leave the neighborhood for good. Stevie says Sprowls has even pointed a finger gun at her, which Sprowls independently confirmed. It made her nervous but didn’t scare her off. “I want her to go away,” says Sprowls, a retired IT worker who’s lived in the area since the 1990s. When asked why the encampments irk him so much, Sprowls says “it is a degradation of the neighborhood. Every little thing that the city does to enable bad behavior makes it worse to live here.” At one point, Sprowls and another neighbor that declined to give his name got into a verbal altercation with volunteers that helped encamped residents temporarily move. “Move her into your backyard if you want to save the world,” yelled the neighbor. The altercation dissipated when the group of five realized no one was convincing anyone of anything. Before moving to Dupont Circle five months ago, Stevie used to stay at a tent in the K Street NE underpass in NoMa that was permanently cleared in January to make room for a pedestrian walkway. She’s been trying to move off the streets, but she and an outreach worker with Miriam’s Kitchen have had trouble proving that she’s been chronically homeless for at least a year, which could make her eligible for a housing voucher. The other tent that was temporarily cleared shelters Keith Richardson. He’s been living in the tent in front of the McDonald’s for nearly two months now, after he was kicked out of the 801 East Men’s Shelter in Southeast D.C. for getting into a physical altercation. He says he was enrolled in the shelter’s transitional rehabilitation program because he’s long struggled with substance misuse, but was recently asked to leave after he defended himself in a fight. “I left home at 13 years old,” Richardson tells City Paper, “and I was already addicted to drugs by that point.” Richardson has gone through a lot in his life, but he gets by with help from his church and friends. A new friend of his, Robert Williams, actually pitched the tent in front of McDonald’s and let Richardson stay there when he got kicked out of the shelter. The tent has become