On a cold afternoon during the 2024 holiday season, Melveon Harp and his congregation set up tables on an unassuming sidewalk in Silver Spring, Maryland. People lined the block, holding to-go boxes ready for a hot meal, a video of the event shows. Happy to be combining his passions of good food, religion, and helping others, Harp smiled as he filled someone’s plate.
Harp’s smile was almost ever-present on his face. It reached all the way up to his eyes, no matter if he was meeting new people or seeing old friends. That smile is the first thing many people mention when remembering Harp, who died from Stage III prostate cancer on May 23. He was 64.
“Everybody loved him. He kind of brightened up the congregation when he walked in,” Joyce Coffey, Harp’s pastor with The Change in Christ Hand Ministry, said. “He was there because he was excited.”
Originally from Atlanta, Harp moved to Washington, D.C. to look for his mother. While the search eventually fizzled out, he stayed in the District and later fathered two sons, Melveon Jones, his younger son, told Street Sense.
Jones said his father faced many “uphill battles” throughout his life, struggling with homelessness, alcoholism, and cancer. However, no matter what Harp was dealing with, he was determined to shoulder it alone. Though Harp was diagnosed with cancer in late 2023, Jones said his father didn’t share he was sick until this year.
“He was one of the people that, he would take everyone else’s burden, but keep his silent,” Jones said. For most of his life, Harp served others by working as a cook at various D.C. restaurants, including the Corner Bakery Cafe, a national chain. Jones said cooking was his father’s passion, and he was happiest in the kitchen. Harp always loved to make bacon cheeseburgers, and got his grandson “hooked,” Jones said.
Harp came to two of his biggest passions late in life. In 2020, after meeting Coffey at a rehab facility, Harp joined her congregation, eventually becoming a deacon in training and getting baptized in 2024. Harp believed Jesus had saved him and devoted the last years of his life to his religion, decorating his apartment with Bible verses and posters of Jesus.
“He was literally a completely different person. The man went to church every Sunday, refused to miss a Sunday. The man paid his tithes and offerings,” Jones said.
In addition to finding religion in his final years, Harp also found a new job. He became a vendor for Street Sense in early 2025. Jones said his father never had a bad day while selling the newspaper.
“Even on days that he didn’t really sell anything or make any money, my dad still came home with a smile on his face and was ready to go back out the next day,” Jones said.
Carlos Carolina, Harp’s friend and fellow Street Sense vendor, met Harp at Street Sense’s writers and poetry workshops. Carolina said Harp had a “vision” for the people of D.C. and the two spent time volunteering with the People for Fairness Coalition and advocating for tenants’ rights and equal opportunity in the District through conversations with D.C. lawmakers.
“He got a history with the homeless community, even though he has been housed for years,” Carolina said. “And I think that speaks to the passion that he has, still sticking in a fight and expressing his opinion and advocating for the betterment of the people who haven’t had the opportunity to be housed.”
of Melveon Jones
Carolina said the last time he went to D.C.’s John Wilson Building with Harp, they stopped for lunch after a frustrating day talking to councilmembers. Speaking to Harp at McDonald’s, he felt the tension of the day almost instantly eased by Harp and his laugh.
“This is where Melveon, his spirit, will be missed because that sitting, that lunch that we had after, it just eased everything,” Carolina remembered. “From the laughter, from the jokes, from the environment. He was definitely an environment changer.”
Despite his sociable nature, Jones said his father did not have a lot of close friends outside of coworkers for most of his life. Street Sense gave Harp a group of friends, like Carolina, who checked up on him. Jones said he is grateful for all of the Street Sense vendors who befriended his father and cared enough to look after him.
“Just to see how many people reached out and checked out, like the stories that they shared after he passed. I didn’t even know that my dad had so many friends, that this many people cared about him,” Jones said.
Harp’s penchant for connection didn’t just apply to humans. Almost everyone who met Harp also heard about his beloved dog Smokey, who is now living with Jones and his family. Harp loved Smokey and even refused to get chemotherapy because he didn’t want to leave Smokey alone to go to appointments.
Jones said he wished Harp had told him about his illness earlier because he thinks there was more he could have done to give Harp time. But he isn’t upset at his father for keeping the diagnosis secret. In Harp’s last few months, according to Jones, his father was “emotionally made up” and accepting.
“I don’t think my dad was so much of tired, more just so he just knew his time was coming, so I felt like he was just doing things to enjoy his last few months,” Jones said.
Without Harp, Street Sense, D.C., and the world misses his calming energy, which could “bring chill to a chaotic situation,” Carolina said.
“It’s like picking all the marshmallows out of a box of Lucky Charms. It’s not the same cereal,” Carolina said.
Harp died on May 23, 2026, at 64. He is preceded in death by his eldest son Marcus Jones. Harp is survived by his youngest son Melveon Jones, his three grandchildren, and his dog Smokey.
This article originally appeared in Street Sense’s July 15, 2026 edition.
