Homelessness

At its last meeting before the summer recess, the DC Council voted unanimously to pass two bills related to housing. The first reforms a major housing program for people exiting homelessness. The second builds on existing tenant…

DC’s plan to eliminate homelessness for single adults appears to be faltering. Prior to the start of fiscal year 2022, the District did something unprecedented. In a bid to end homelessness for single adults, the DC government funded a…

The tent Chris Cole lived in was a sauna. It wasn’t even 7 a.m. and she could already feel the sun. Her thin roof offered little protection as the temperature outside climbed to 95 degrees. She could hardly breathe. She had to get indoors.…

Doug had a housing voucher, but he was still sleeping outside.  Three days after the Jan. 6 insurrection, he boarded a train to DC on the promise of a job. When he arrived, he learned his start date was delayed. The place he had…

DC’s voucher waitlist is 37,000 people long, but the city government is only planning to fund 20 new vouchers for the residents on it.

Yulyia Demetria needed a job. She didn’t need training, having worked in customer service before. She didn’t need to spend a year learning hard skills. She just needed a steady income to move herself and her son out of a domestic…

Summary: The Legal Counsel for the Elderly received a grant from the AARP Foundation to help it expand its veterans advocacy project. New outreach efforts will include setting up assistance clinics throughout the city targeted to veterans…

More than 1,000 families who have stayed in the rapid rehousing program (RRH) beyond its usual time limit due to the pandemic are receiving an official extension — and some may get an extra reprieve along with job training. No one in…

Keith Pollard, the deputy director of youth housing programs at SMYAL (pronounced “smile”), knows just what it’s like to come face to face with discrimination. He began his advocacy work with the organization in 2015 because he “always…

At a quarter past 3 on a recent weekday afternoon, Alexander, an unsheltered resident who lives in a tent, was trying not to cry. Alexander, who agreed to an interview under the condition he not be photographed or fully named, has been…

Taylar Nuevelle is not a social worker. She is not a representative working on behalf of a government agency. She is not a wealthy philanthropist feeling charitable. She’s a disrupter with a very specific cause: helping unhoused women get…

In 2020, 180 District residents passed away while homeless, a 53% increase from 2019. Twenty-three of them died of COVID-19. On Dec. 21, the annual Homeless Memorial Vigil — organized each year by the People for Fairness Coalition —…

Community leaders are calling on city officials to scale back the maximum number of people sheltered at a Ward 6 recreation center during hypothermia season amid an uptick of COVID-19 cases in DC. Advisory neighborhood commissioners and…

Food insecurity. You’ve heard the phrase before. It invokes an image of John Walsh with some kind of safety device that could be attached to the entrance of a pantry or a cupboard door. Right? What does it mean, really? The…

As Street Sense Media presents its fifth news blitz on issues surrounding homelessness in DC, we take a look back at some of the local media’s articles, columns and commentaries from the past year that stand out on the subject. —…

Activists marched to the home of DC Mayor Muriel Bowser on a recent Saturday to protest the quality of services provided to homeless people in the District. Protesters singled out the District's Department of Human Services and a…

After two years of planning, construction of a replacement for the crumbling 801 East Men’s Shelter is getting underway after multiple delays. Community advocates, however, continue to voice complaints alleging a lack of transparency and…

Like many others in our city, I have been closely following news about the recent sweeps of homeless encampments. I, too, have been upset that these men and women experiencing homelessness have few other options for housing in our…

A proposed update to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Homeward DC plan is drawing some flak over complaints about inadequate transparency as well as doubts about the city government’s ability to fulfill ambitious goals. The DC Interagency Council…