Ever since I started calling Washington, DC home, I’ve worked with unhoused and housing-unstable people. First, I worked with children through the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project when it operated at DC General Homeless Shelter (a hospital turned family shelter that no longer exists, but the Playtime Project still does). Every week, we provided afterschool opportunities for play, like crafts, games, and yoga, homework help, and a healthy snack.
Now I work with the Unhoused Advocacy team of Ward 4 Mutual Aid (W4MA), a collection of neighbors helping neighbors every Saturday by providing adults personal hygiene supplies, clothes, tents, tarps, and sleeping bags, a home cooked meal (thanks to a saint of a woman Ms. Betty), and an indoor space to gather to beat the heat in the summer and cold in the winter, but also to play music, dance, and socialize free from police involvement.
A few insights from my time in these volunteer roles working with homeless children and adults:
1) Many unhoused people actually work and still can’t afford housing. I was shocked to learn this back during my Playtime days, when many of our families were so grateful for the safe few hours of childcare since many were working parents, sometimes juggling multiple jobs. This was the first time my assumptions about homelessness were challenged.
2) Many unhoused and housing-unstable people have faced serious trauma as veterans, victims of gun violence, victims of other abuse and assault, and so on. Sometimes this has led to justice involvement, mental health crises, or substance abuse. What I’ve learned is that everyone has a story that led them to where they are and informs the decisions they presently make. Homelessness does not just happen—a series of traumas and systemic failures can propel a person into extreme poverty they never imagined finding themselves in.
3) Many unhoused and housing-unstable people are just like you and me. We want to believe we’re not like “them” but the real them is not the homeless (or undocumented), it’s the millionaires and billionaires. The truth is, the average low, middle, even high-income American has more in common with the people living on the streets than the top 1% of wealth holders in this country. That’s because, for the rest of us, our proximity to poverty is so much greater.
Far too many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, pay well over one-third of their income on housing, cannot save for a 10% down payment to buy a home, will never buy a house or pay off their student loans, and are one job loss, trauma, or health crisis away from losing what they have. If you can’t rely on family or a social safety net, you might start living in your car, couch surfing, or sleeping on the streets.
I’ve met countless people who have held good jobs, attained higher education, served in the military, raised families, owned homes, and also lost it all and fell into unimaginable poverty. We are so much more alike than we are different. While many want to believe and vote as though they’re millionaires in the making, most of us are one tragedy away from filing for unemployment or food assistance, facing eviction or housing insecurity, or falling into a deep depression or addiction.
I feel very fortunate to have what I have: my job, education, home, husband, family and friends, and community. I’ve had support to get me where I am and through tough times. I went to college on the Pell Grant, I have filed for HEAP and SNAP, I bought my condo with DC’s HPAP first-time homebuyer loan, I have taken Family Medical Leave and accessed ACA health insurance, and I recently lost a job. This is all true *and* I am middle class.
I recognize that I have much more in common with the unhoused and housing-unstable people I work with every weekend than with Trump and the millionaire and billionaire class. And, frankly, so do other public servants enforcing Trump’s agenda and the police officers, ICE, and additional federal agents carrying out the “clean up” of DC.
Homelessness is NOT a crime. Our nation’s capital is NOT a “national disgrace.”
But it is a disgrace to destroy what little people have in the name of “beautification and clean-up” of DC when what they need is support. It is a disgrace to criminalize people based on their homeless or immigration status and throw them in jail or worse in the name of “liberating DC” when what they need is support. It is a disgrace to do all this while also only a month ago slashing social safety nets and making sweeping changes to Medicaid, SNAP, and college affordability programs—not to mention granting a massive tax cut to the rich.
To be clear, DC, like any city, is not a crime-free utopia. It has its challenges: gangs, gun violence, carjackings—all real (in my neighborhood, too). While violent crime is down, public safety still needs to improve. But deploying the National Guard upon DC is not a solution, certainly not a long-term one.
I’m upset and I’m scared. I’m scared that people, good people, who have fallen on hard times, might not be there this weekend. I hope I’m wrong and my unhoused neighbors don’t disappear as a part of the federal takeover happening in DC.
It is easy to be untouched by the headlines you might read, the news cycle of what’s happening in DC, or whatever Trump is tweeting about. That’s the segregation of it all. That’s not my family, my community, my problem. I don’t know “those people.” Maybe you even fear those people because of what you read, see on TV, or hear from Trump.
I feel fortunate that I’m able to volunteer and get to know my community, step out of segregation, and challenge my biases and what I think I know about “others.” I wish the powers that be would do the same. Maybe then we would have a much more humane and compassionate response to homelessness than what’s currently underway in DC.
If you’re looking for somewhere to give your time, money, and talents, consider these DC-based organizations:
Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless
I’ll end with this. I’m not a perfect person. Just this week, the same day Trump addressed the nation about taking federal control of DC, while waiting at a metro bus stop, a man was sleeping under the bus bay. The bus pulled up early and parked, and I welcomed that the driver left the door open for passengers to sit in the air conditioning while waiting for the bus to continue its route. While I was on the bus, another bus driver or metro attendant started harassing the sleeping man. They eventually grabbed from the bus what looked like metal wheel stoppers and started hitting them together to get the man to wake up and move. The noise was piercing and I could not help but squint at the sound of the loud, clanking metal. I felt sorry for the man, but I only looked on in concern. She started calling a police officer over. I wondered if she felt more emboldened to do this given Trump’s speech earlier in the morning, but I didn’t say anything or pull out my phone to record the incident. The man got up, looking sleepy and confused, said nothing, and started walking away. I didn’t interact with the man. I had no cash, food, or flyers about W4MA on me, so I just sat on the bus. The original bus driver returned, the bus pulled off, and I don’t know what happened after that. I don’t like that I did nothing in that moment. I could have said something, documented what happened, offered at least eye contact and a smile to the man, but I didn’t. I merely looked on with concern at the situation, hoping nothing escalated. I share this because we get confronted with unkind or unjust situations and often do nothing. Maybe we don’t care or maybe we fear for our own safety or threat to our peace. I’m trying to be more mindful of this.
In love and solidarity,
Jenna
Jenna (Tomasello) Roberson
Co-founder, LTLT
jenna@learnlivetogether.org