Georgetown Church Serves Dinner and Compassion on Sundays

Every Sunday evening, the Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Georgetown opens its doors to people experiencing homelessness for a family-style dinner.

Washington, D.C. has one of the highest rates of homelessness compared to other states in the country. The point-in-time (PIT) count conducted on a single night each January showed that 9,774 people in the region’s eight wards were either living on the street or in a temporary shelter.

2024 is the second consecutive year that the District saw an increase in homelessness. The issue is compounded by fewer investments in housing and other social services and the city’s move to close major encampments in May. 

The Holy Trinity is one among the network of institutions around Georgetown that have stepped in to help. It began serving hot meals from its stoop at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

By Sharon Xie | Full story

A BID Worker Put a Homeless Man in a Chokehold. It’s Symbolic of Deeper Issues Downtown.

Around 11 a.m. on Sept. 4, a fight broke out in the basement of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. 

The church is home to the Downtown Day Services Center, a key gathering place for homeless people managed by the neighborhood’s Business Improvement District, and things were getting heated in the center’s cafeteria. According to witness accounts forwarded to Loose Lips, a BID outreach worker punched one of the center’s clients in the face after an argument, prompting a brief wrestling match.

Just as these conflicts have escalated, the D.C. Public Library has launched a new push to more aggressively prevent people from sleeping in and around the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. This has overwhelmingly impacted the many homeless people who gather at the newly renovated downtown space, as library police officers are freshly charged with chasing off anyone resting, lying down, or camping in the building or on the sidewalk under its large overhang. Not coincidentally, LL hears the BID has worked closely with library officials on this effort, launched in mid-August, which has led to several homeless service organizations losing contact with their clients as those folks are pushed elsewhere. Service workers and advocates have complained to LL about the policy’s abrupt rollout.

By Alex Koma | Full story

Street Sense newspaper empowers the homeless through art

Open any tour book about Washington, DC and you’ll undoubtedly find world-class art institutions filling its pages. Descriptions of the Smithsonian museums, national galleries, the Kennedy Center, the Library of Congress and more will entice you to engage with art inside architecturally stunning buildings. But there’s another kind of art in DC rising from the ground up, in a place you’d least expect it–the street.

It’s the kind of art that isn’t meant to impress critics, but gives life to those exiled from our cultural feast. It embodies hope and faith. It reframes existential struggles. It comes from the heart of our unhoused neighbors who make meaning on the margins of society.

Wouldn’t this practice be deeply spiritual?

That’s what I pondered earlier this year after picking up my first copy of a biweekly newspaper called Street Sense from a sidewalk vendor in Cleveland Park. A vendor/artist, to be exact, which is the role that 97 current participants embrace in the street newspaper’s low-barrier income program to end homelessness in the DC area. My neighborhood vendor/artist, clad in a blue apron vest, pocketed $4.50 out of the $5 I gave him.

That’s the business part of Street Sense Media, which incorporated as an independent, nonprofit and nonpartisan news outlet in 2005. Today, the organization is part of the International Network of Street Papers, which consists of over 90 street papers in 35 countries–all of them sold by people experiencing poverty, homelessness or other forms of marginalization.

By Maria De Los Angeles | Full story

The worst time of the month: While experiencing homelessness, D.C. residents also struggle with period poverty

Last year, Leslie Boyd lost her steady job of three years. When her company downsized, it eliminated her department, and soon after, she lost her housing.

“I never thought I’d be experiencing [homelessness],” she said. 

Suddenly, Boyd had to learn how to sleep outside, where to find public restrooms, and ways to maintain her appearance. Something she didn’t anticipate? Not knowing what to do when her period came. 

“I had to go into a public bathroom, take a whole bunch of tissue, and use those,” Boyd said. “I ended up having to double up on pants, just in case blood got on one of them.”

Boyd is not alone. For people experiencing homelessness across D.C., period products can be inaccessible and costly. The National Organization for Women found that the average woman spends around $20 on menstrual products per cycle, meaning these products can be cost-prohibitive for those experiencing homelessness.

By Sydney Carroll | Full story

At one building, the fight for better housing conditions never ends

How many maintenance requests can go unanswered before a tenant should get the city involved, sue, or withhold rent? The process of making sure a building is up to D.C.’s housing code can be arduous, a fact the tenants of one Southwest building know all too well. 

Luis Macias-Montenegro has lived at Capital Park Tower on G Street for nine years, the last two with his husband, Bill Townsend. Since last year, Macias-Montenegro has tried to get the building management to address security concerns, rodent infestation, and issues with the fire alarms in the apartment complex, filing complaints with the D.C. Department of Buildings (DOB), the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission, and, eventually, D.C.’s Office of the Attorney General. The complaints, filed in 2023, led to a DOB inspector visiting the building and issuing a violation to the owners of Capital Park Tower, Macias-Montenegro said. 

In fact, the DOB database currently shows the property has 71 open violations of the housing code, dating back to 2018. The agency has issued 110 Notices of Infractions at the property since fiscal year 2020, including nearly 50 the building management has yet to pay the resulting fines for, totaling $66,000. These aren’t uniquely high numbers, and DOB says the number of outstanding infractions the building has doesn’t make it an outlier, but they represent an issue tenants across the city face. 

By Donte Kirby | Full story

What to know if you get an eviction notice in D.C.

Evictions are on the rise in D.C., with an estimated 1,493 people currently set to be forcibly removed from their rental homes — the highest number since the beginning of the pandemic, and close to pre-pandemic levels when much less emergency rental assistance was available. 

Housing and legal advocates fear the problem will deteriorate further after the D.C. Council unanimously passed a bill last week weakening the eviction protections of the city’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), an initiative designed to help low-income residents pay their rent in an emergency.

With just 33 available affordable rentals for every 100 extremely low income rental households and a waitlist for housing vouchers that has been closed for the better part of the last decade, D.C. renters are struggling more than ever to keep up with rent payments. An estimated 14 percent of tenants are behind on rent, the primary reason for evictions in D.C.

But D.C. has some of the most robust eviction protections in the country. If tenants know what their rights are, they can better use them to stay housed – or at least get a more favorable outcome. We’re not lawyers and this isn’t legal advice, but we rounded up tips from lawyers, tenant organizers, and housing advocates for when you or a neighbor are facing an eviction.

By Abigail Higgins | Full story

DC’s public housing agency is making halting progress, but much more needs to be done

In October 2022, a damning audit of DC’s Housing Authority identified 82 violations of federal policies. Two years later, the DCHA is making only halting progress.

The agency’s mismanagement has had real world consequences. Two-thirds of the unhoused people who died in DC last year had a housing voucher, but were still waiting for an apartment at the time of their death. Housing may not have prevented these deaths, but they would have occurred under more dignified circumstances.

The Mayor’s decision to use a DCHA program (vouchers) to bailout a Department of Human Services program (Rapid Rehousing) speaks to a wider set of problems facing DCHA. One is HUD’s decision to adopt repositioning, a policy that stabilizes housing authorities primarily by allowing them to downsize. Indeed, even though HUD requires housing authorities to find alternatives for tenants dislocated by repositioning, it doesn’t require them to maintain the size of their housing stock over time. This means when there’s an emergency, like the one the city faced when funding dried up for Rapid Rehousing recipients, there’s no give in the system to absorb them. A second, related dynamic is a lack of political will to cover the true cost of the city’s homelessness and low-income housing problem. The city’s political establishment seems to have largely reconciled itself to reduced services, with most arguments happening around the edges of existing programs.

By Carolyn Gallaher | Full story

D.C. approves winter plan, adding shelter beds amid high shelter occupancy 

The D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) finalized the city’s winter plan last month as the District heads into hypothermia season with shelters nearly full. 

ICH voted Sept. 10 to approve the city’s winter plan for fiscal year 2025. The plan will be in effect from Nov. 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025 and outlines additional resources and expanded shelter capacities intended to keep people experiencing homelessness safe during hypothermia alerts and cold weather emergencies. As the city does each year, D.C. will increase access to shelters and transportation services. This year, the city also hopes to improve communication about the location and transportation schedules for warming buses and sites. 

The additional shelter beds are especially crucial this year as D.C. is heading into hypothermia season amid continued reports of shelters nearing or reaching capacity. On the night of Oct. 1, for instance, only five beds for men were vacant, and only two for women. Hundreds of people who don’t rely on shelter year-round seek beds each winter to escape the cold, so the city is expected to need an additional 726 overflow beds this winter. 

By Fiona Riley | Full story

Opinion: The Covid relief cliff is real, and it’s here

Residents of the Greater Washington region are struggling to catch up and keep up financially. New data gives us a window into the lives of our region’s residents, and the precarity they face at a time we all hoped would be more prosperous.

While nearly a third of the region’s residents worried about being able to pay their rent or mortgage in early 2020, that number has now increased to 52%. This comes at a time when the Covid relief programs and policies that helped many weather the worst of the pandemic are being significantly scaled back or eliminated entirely. The erosion of these relief programs combined with other factors such as inflation have led us to a Covid relief cliff — a point in time where individuals are standing at a precipice without the ability to rely on supports that helped many survive these last few years.

While the entire region is struggling to keep up with costs, precarity continues to be concentrated in certain parts of the region. 20% of residents across the region reported struggling to buy food or medicine–a high figure in and of itself–but among Washington, DC residents, that number increases to 30%. DC residents also struggle to pay for housing. 17% of DC residents experienced times in the past twelve months when they did not have enough money for adequate housing, compared to 11% of residents across the region.

By Darius Graham | Full story

Encampment Update: Nine encampments closed so far this fall

D.C. closed nine encampments, did “full-clean ups” at six others, and postponed two scheduled closures due to bad weather between Aug. 27 and Oct. 8. This is an increase from the same period in 2023, during which D.C. closed two encampments and did five clean-ups. 

On Oct. 2, Leon, the only resident of an encampment on the corner of 16th and New York Avenue NE, moved his belongings across the street before The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services (DMHHS) closed his encampment. That morning, Leon called the upcoming encampment closure “a form of oppression.” 

The next day, Oct. 3, DMHHS closed an encampment along a fenced-off hill in Eckington behind a high-rise apartment building with signs advertising it was “now leasing.” Andre, 43, was the only resident present and protested the clearing. He told Street Sense the city had closed the encampment once before in 2022, and he lost all his possessions, “lost everything.”

The city did not remove Andre’s belongings during this closure, however, as they were the furthest from the fence under the highway tunnel and fell beyond the perimeter of the engagement, according to DMHHS employees. City workers did remove the tent, mattress, and belongings of another resident, who Andre said worked from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and thus wasn’t present. 

By Carolina Bomney and Tierra Cunningham | Full story

Security officers at men’s homeless shelter vote to unionize, citing low pay and no training

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. 

801 East Men’s Shelter in Ward 8 is one of the city’s largest low-barrier shelters for men experiencing homelessness, with 396 beds and a daytime service center. It’s located on St. Elizabeth’s East Campus, owned by the District, and managed by D.C.’s Department of Human Services (DHS), which contracts out to various service providers. 

The security staff at the shelter are not directly employed by DHS, but by a third-party company known for parking management, USP Holdings.

According to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) website, officers generally voted in favor of unionization, with 39 of the 60 staff who voted supporting the effort. However, the NLRB has not yet certified the outcome of the election. USP has also filed an objection to the union vote, the grounds for the objection aren’t publicly available.

By Franziska Wild | Full story

Why Housing in DC Is So Unaffordable

DC is facing a multitude of housing issues, from affordability to lawsuits against “bad” landlords. DC Councilmember Robert White, who leads the Council’s housing committee, joins us to talk about whether anyone can afford to live in DC, what’s going on with the city’s homeless programs, and what the government ought to be doing to create more housing in general. 

By Micheal Schaffer | Full episode

DCPS Uses Connected Schools Model to Tackle Homelessness

With less than half of the school year completed, D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) has already received notifications from 2,600 public school students who are experiencing some form of housing insecurity — including stints at a local shelter or doubling up with other family members. 

Some school leaders, like Nikia Harrod, said they expect the numbers of self-reporting families to increase in the coming weeks and months, especially as she and other DCPS Connected Schools managers help families overcome fear of D.C. Child and Family Services Agency involvement. 

“We prioritize building those relationships. Once we do that, families’ housing status comes out,” said Harrod, the Connected Schools manager at John Hayden Johnson Middle School in Southeast. “From there, we’re able to reach out to families to see the resources they need.”   

DCPS Connected Schools, a program that has turned public schools into community resource hubs since 2019, has a presence in 20 District public schools, including several within the Anacostia High School and Ballou High School feeder patterns. This is thanks to a combination of local dollars and grant funding from the U.S. Department of Education. 

Read the full story for D.C. Council, DHS & D.C. Housing Authority Different Takes on Voucher Snafu

By Sam P.K. Collins | Full story

In D.C., 28 percent of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ

The LGBTQ operated and LGBTQ supportive homeless shelters and transitional housing facilities in D.C. are operating at full capacity this year as the number of homeless city residents, including LGBTQ homeless residents, continues to increase, according to the latest information available.

The annual 2024 Point-In-Time (PIT) count of homeless people in the District of Columbia conducted in January, shows that 12 percent of the homeless adults and 28 percent of homeless youth between the age of 18 and 24 identify as LGBTQ.

Representatives of the LGBTQ organizations that provide services for homeless LGBTQ people have said the actual number of LGBTQ homeless people, especially LGBTQ youth, are most likely significantly higher than the annual PIT counts.

Among other things, officials with LGBTQ organizations, including the D.C. LGBTQ+ Budget Coalition, are calling on the city to expand its funding for LGBTQ homeless programs to keep up with the need to address the increasing number of LGBTQ homeless people in the city.

By Lou Chibbaro Jr. | Full story

How the benefits cliff traps people in poverty

Imagine two single parents raising toddlers in D.C. One makes an annual salary of $65,000, while the other earns $11,000 a year by working part-time. Their financial situations seem quite different; the parent paid more has much more money at their disposal, right?

Financial analysts say not necessarily. These Washingtonians likely have similar amounts to spend each month, and not because one uses their dollars more judiciously. Experts chalk it up to a phenomenon known as the benefits cliff.

In the United States, many public assistance resources — like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) — are based on income. For people with the greatest financial need, public benefits programs make it possible to pay grocery bills, child care costs, and even rent.

Generally speaking, the less someone earns, the more resources they receive. But these programs also come with income restrictions, which cut residents off from benefits as their salaries rise. For a person earning $65,000 a year, this gap in coverage can stall their spending power at nearly one-eighth of their actual salary, making the road to higher earnings rocky.

By Jack Walker | Full story

The Aston is ‘precedent’ in combating DC’s unhoused crisis: local advocates

Wesley Thomas said he opted to sleep on the streets of Foggy Bottom and West End for 29 years because he didn’t want to enter the District’s congregate shelter system, where he’d be required to share a room with strangers.

Thomas, who moved off the streets in 2017 and now helps people experiencing homelessness access temporary and permanent housing, said he avoided shelters because he was uncomfortable staying and storing his belongings in a room that lacked privacy. The Aston — a former GW residence hall on New Hampshire Avenue — is slated to open this year as the District’s first of its kind noncongregate shelter, which Thomas said will offer residents seclusion and security that he couldn’t access in shelters when he was experiencing homelessness.

District officials purchased The Aston from GW in August 2023 for $27.5 million with the intent of converting the space into a shelter that offers private living spaces to medically vulnerable people, mixed-gender couples, families with adult children and people waiting to move into permanent housing. D.C. kept the former residence hall’s roughly 100 single “studio-style” rooms with en-suite bathrooms, kitchens and air conditioning, and replaced its flooring, upgraded security and IT infrastructure, added administrative spaces and repaired the underground garage.

Officials initially slated The Aston’s opening for November 2023, but a slew of complications — including challenges securing a provider, two lawsuits attempting to halt the shelter’s opening, months of repairs and building code violations — delayed the shelter’s opening five times. Officials most recently projected its opening for Oct. 1 and selected the shelter’s inaugural 50-person cohort but postponed the debut indefinitely late last month after the building failed an inspection due to insufficient fire exits and “door closers.”

By Ella Mitchell and Fiona Bork | Full story

Foggy Bottom encampment clearings foil residents’ ‘last resort,’ advocates say

People experiencing homelessness come to Foggy Bottom for its safety and local support resources, though an influx in community complaints over the last year have led to more encampment evictions, advocates say.

Advocates from D.C. homelessness nonprofit organizations said unhoused people often settle in Foggy Bottom after city and National Park Service officials evict them from encampments in other parts of the District because the neighborhood is safe and has a community of unhoused individuals. But advocates said complaints from Foggy Bottom residents about a lack of encampment cleanliness over the last year and a new no-camping rule in D.C. have led to more encampment clearings, which pose safety risks for many unhoused people who lose their community, belongings and connection to outreach workers when they’re forced to relocate. 

“The encampments in Foggy Bottom are, for many people, the encampments of last resort in D.C.,” said Jesse Rabinowitz, the campaign and communications director at the National Homelessness Law Center and a former outreach worker for Miriam’s Kitchen, a Foggy Bottom-based homelessness nonprofit.

By Rory Quealy and Shea Carlburg | Full story

Advocates provide voting resources to support homeless populations

Housing and shelter advocates across D.C. are working to close the voting gap for homeless individuals in the month leading up to the presidential election, ensuring that everyone has a chance to fill out a ballot. 

Those who live in D.C. do not need a “permanent residence” to vote. Instead, those without permanent housing can list P.O. boxes, homeless and other advocacy shelters or a friend or family member’s home when registering. According to the District of Columbia Board of Elections, citizens can use an occupancy statement from a homeless shelter as proof of address if they utilize same day voting and registration. 

Despite these laws, only 10 percent of homeless people vote in elections each year, partially due to a lack of resources and attention from politicians, says Courtney Cooperman, manager of the Our Homes, Our Votes campaign for the National Low Income Housing Coalition. 

By Cara Halford | Full story