Street Sense continues to produce award-winning journalism! We were honored to be recognized by the D.C. chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). Founded over 100 years ago, the SPJ is one of the oldest organizations representing journalists in the United States. The newsroom won five categories at this year’s Dateline Awards, and two other stories were recognized as finalists. Nearly all of the stories recognized this year were written by Street Sense’s incredible group of interns, who volunteer their time and talent every semester. If you can, please consider making a donation to Street Sense to help us bring you more hard-hitting, inquisitive, compassionate journalism (While we love it when you buy papers from our vendors, that money is for them and does not help support our operations).
Winners
“The District is ready to start pulling back its migrant services — but migrants are still struggling to find homes in D.C.” by Samantha Monteiro. Published July 17, 2024
This story represents one of two times Street Sense broke the news the city was planning to close a migrant shelter with little fanfare. Reporters spoke to migrants, officials, and advocates about the system D.C. set up to welcome people bused to the city, and revealed some of the gaps that left them without a permanent place to stay. Here’s an excerpt:
Two years after thousands of migrants arrived in the District when governors bused them from Texas and Arizona, their access to vital housing and social services remains limited.
In April 2022, Texas Governor Greg Abbott started sending buses of migrants, who had recently arrived at the southern border, to sanctuary cities across the U.S. The decision was largely a political move meant to criticize Democrats’ policies on immigration and the border. Over the last two years, Abbott has bused over 100,000 migrants from Texas to places like D.C., New York, and Chicago.
In September 2022, the District created the Office of Migrant Services (OMS) within the Department of Human Services (DHS) to respond to the new migrants. OMS is tasked with providing respite, relocation, and case management services to migrants. The office was meant to “set up a system, distinct from the homeless services system, that is tailored to the needs of migrants and ensures the District’s response to this humanitarian crisis is consistent and well-coordinated,” according to a September 2022 press release.
However, that system has sometimes been unclear and unhelpful to migrants and their advocates, who say OMS has not done enough to ensure migrant families who stay in the city can find stable housing.
“Unionization in homeless services,” a series of articles by Nora Scully, Franziska Wild, and Tierra Cunningham published across 2024.
Throughout the year, Street Sense reported consistently on labor efforts at homeless shelters and health care clinics, following the bargaining negotiations at Unity Health Care, one of the city’s largest health care providers for low-income Washingtonians. We also provided the only coverage of unionization efforts at 801 East, one of the city’s largest low-barrier shelters. Here’s an excerpt from that story, published in October:
Security staff employed at 801 East Men’s Shelter voted to unionize in an election held on Sept. 9. Officers, including full-time and regular part-time security officers and special police officers, cited being underpaid and undertrained, as well as not receiving benefits or the necessary safety equipment for their roles, as major reasons for unionizing.
Ikeuri Onunaku, who works as a security officer at the shelter, said one of his biggest concerns is the lack of safety equipment and staff training. He told Street Sense USP does not give officers safety vests, which police and security officers commonly wear to protect their torso and vital organs in emergency situations. Onunaku and Danielle Campbell, another officer at the shelter, also told Street Sense they were frustrated by the lack of training they received for the role.
“We bring people back to life,” Onunaku said, referring to the many times he has had to use Narcan (a drug that is administered to reverse opioid overdoses) on residents. But Onunaku hasn’t always known how to administer Narcan — it’s something he learned on the job from other officers.
“Photos from NoMa encampment closed after fire,” taken by Madi Koesler. Published Dec. 4, 2024.
Throughout the fall, Madi, a Street Sense photographer, went with reporters to encampment closures to document the process. These photos, taken as winter begin to set in, show encampment residents with some of their most precious belongings.
“The fight to save affordable housing in Chinatown,” a series of articles by Andrea Ho and Franziska Wild published across 2024.
Street Sense reporters closely followed development efforts and community resistance in D.C.’s historic Chinatown neighborhood, reporting on changes affecting small businesses and affordable housing complexes. These three articles tell the story of a changing neighborhood focusing on the question one community organizer asked: “What does it actually mean to have a Chinatown without Chinese residents or small businesses? What does it mean to revitalize the area without taking into consideration the people who have been living there for decades and decades?”
Here’s an excerpt from the first story, published on April 10, 2024:
The last Chinese residents of Chinatown have long been mobilizing in an effort to preserve what remains of their neighborhood. However, a new proposal to build a nine-story lodging, intended to be somewhere between a hotel and an apartment building, threatens to decimate their already dwindling community.
During a public hearing on March 27, eight Chinatown residents urged the Board of Zoning Adjustment to reject the proposal by the developer, Rift Valley Partners. Residents had two main demands: first, that D.C. preserves Full Kee Restaurant and Gao Ya Hair Salon, the two small Chinese businesses that would be displaced by the project; and second, that D.C. supports the establishment of a mid-size Asian grocery store.
Lamenting the steady gentrification of D.C.’s Chinatown, witnesses voiced concerns that the proposed hotel between fifth and sixth streets on H Street Northwest would contribute to rising rent, declining employment, and further displacement. Many of Chinatown’s residents expressed that if this trend of displacement were to continue, “there would be no Chinatown in the future.”
“There used to be thousands of Chinese families, lively businesses, and prosperous communities here,” said See Ming Chan, a long-standing resident of Chinatown and the president of the Wah Luck House Tenants Association. “But the development of Chinatown has greatly reduced the number of residents.”
“Tracking D.C.’s homeless encampments,” a column by Margaret Hartigan, Franziska Wild, and other Street Sense Staff published across 2024.
In early 2024, Street Sense launched its Encampment Updates column, chronicling the city’s efforts to respond to unsheltered homelessness and the movements of residents who often say they have nowhere else to go. Reporters witnessed a pregnant woman being handcuffed by police, residents being involuntarily committed for refusing to move, the spate of closures in Foggy Bottom displacing over 50 people, and the end of an encampment built around one of the city’s homeless shelters.
Here’s an excerpt from a story about the increased closures, published on Sept. 11, 2024:
Salim didn’t actually believe they would destroy the home he had built. He told the officials and outreach worker there, he would only move if he saw the bulldozer make its first move.
He had lived on the corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Waterside Drive for over seven years in a structure he built himself. It wasn’t visible from the road — he had taken pains to camouflage it with tree branches and plants — and it was neat and clean with a stone walkway he built by hauling the stones up from the park himself.
Now, the National Parks Service (NPS) was forcing Salim to move, and he didn’t want to go.
“They can do whatever they want there. I have only this small spot here,” he said, trying to negotiate any way to stay. “If I leave, I lose everything.”
Salim is one of many D.C. residents experiencing homelessness who have been impacted by the rapid increase in encampment closures this year.
As of May 15 this year, NPS — which manages a great deal of available green space in the District — has begun strict reinforcement of its no-camping rule on all of its land, closing at least nine encampments in 2024 so far. But it’s not only NPS that has ramped up closures. The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, the agency responsible for encampments that are on land owned by D.C., has already closed more encampments this year than it did in all of 2023.
Advocates worry that this increase in closures is arbitrary, leads to increased instability and harmful situations, and does little to improve the underlying conditions of homelessness. And they worry that the situation will worsen for unhoused individuals, while doing very little to improve the city overall.
“It would be reasonable to believe that what we’re going to see is people in perpetuity being chased around the city until there’s a fence around everywhere you think you might put up a campsite,” Adam Rocap, the deputy director for Miriam’s Kitchen, said. “And that really is just ineffective and harmful.”
Finalists
“In the aftermath of shooting, a youth drop-in center navigates grief and hope” by Andrea Ho. Published April 24, 2024, this article goes inside DC Doors following a shooting at the facility that killed a long-time resident and staff member to understand the impact on the community and what the facility could do to increase safety.
“MLK Library bans sleeping outside building, threatening a refuge for people experiencing homelessness” by Franziska Wild. Published Aug. 28, 2024, this article examines the impact of shrinking public spaces on people experiencing homelessness as the city’s largest library began to enforce new rules against sleeping inside and outside the library.
