Our Struggle for Shelter and Housing in the City of WDC from 1976 to 1999
In the early 70's
as the war in Vietnam came to a halt a group of activists gathered at Georgetown
Univ. and began to ponder what to do about the war that was going on in the
nations capitol. Within blocks of the White House there were people living all
around on the street hungry and homeless.
More than half of the homeless war veterans were Vietnam veterans.
The activist group
was known as the Community For Creative Non-Violence.
They were
essentially a religious community though religious faith was not a criterion
for membership. The best-known member Mitch Snyder was an atheist. He was chosen
as their spokesperson not their leader as the press made him out to be.
They were
non-hierarchical and made decisions by consensus; not by voting. They
understood that the majority was almost always wrong.
They lived entirely
by small donations. They didn't apply for or accept grants or Foundation money
refusing to push paper as a price of its use. They were not beholden to any
government or religious group.
In 1972, they
opened up a soup kitchen and began to feed people in the nations capitol. Soon
they were beginning to know and feed over 200 people a day.
Meanwhile, the
group started to address the housing crisis...between 1970 and 1980 thousands
of homes were being lost to abandonment, demolition, (land-lords found
it easier to burn their units than to try to renovate them - they and many
elderly found the cost of renovation to be greater than the original cost of
purchase), gentrification or conversion to higher income units like
condominiums (sold apartment units to avoid rent control); half of the SRO's
(single room occupancies with sharing bathrooms on the floor, no cooking
facilities) were lost during that period. Nationally, 3 million low-income
units were being lost.
Housing politics
became insurmountable -- there are many reasons that land-lords wouldn't or
couldn't fix up their properties; and many more reasons why tenants couldn't
pay.. There were many rent strikes at that time due to the deteriorating
housing stock of WDC. In addition, the percentage of income being used for rent
for the average low income to middle income person was approaching 70 to 80
percent leaving very little for food, clothing, medical care or the other
necessities. For government controlled low-income housing, rent would soon be
set at nearly 30%. Meanwhile more and more people were living on the streets
while the number of abandoned units steadily increased. In 1976, as the
elections drew near, Marion Barry was often heard repeating, " Take the
boards off". Still ten years later, Barry had not taken off the boards
leaving five hundred families homeless even though there were 2300 public
housing units vacant.
Federal government canceled tens of millions of dollars in housing
rehabilitation funds because Barry's government did not spend them properly.
Frustrated with the
complications of housing politics it became increasingly clear that people
needed shelter until the government solved its housing crisis.
Back in 1976, CCNV
responded in opening their home and began to provide shelter to those they had
begun to feed. In less than a week the floor in their living room filled and
there simply was not enough space.
This soon started a
quest for space.
At that time there
were very nearly 1100 churches, temples and mosques in WDC. Today there are
nearly 900 religious institutions as people vacate the city at a rate of about
5,000 -10,000 a year from 1990-98.
All eleven hundred
churches were written and contacted by phone to see if they could provide some
space in their church for the homeless.
Over a period of 2 years
only two responded. Luther Place Church at 14th and M St. NW and the following
year St. Stephen's Church of the Incarnation at 16th and Newton NW.
Only Luther Place
remained opened the following year-- and then only for women. In 1997, it
provided refuge for 31 homeless women.
In the winters of
'76 to '79, 26 people froze to death in the nations capitol alone.
It became
increasingly obvious that the religious and the governmental community were
ignorant, too distant, indifferent and consequential inactive or irresponsive.
To overcome that
distance, fear and ignorance, the community had to act prophetically,
dramatically and symbolically. --They broke down doors and occupied abandoned
and government and church buildings. During snowstorms, as their homeless
friends filled the morgue, they occupied churches. They poured blood on the
altar of St. Matthew's Catholic Church at 17th and Rhode Island where the Pope
had visited and talked eloquently about "taking care of the poor".
Every time someone
froze to death the community made sure that death did not go unnoticed. One
demo took the form of a funeral procession, parading down 14th street to the
District Bldg. DC government buildings were repeatedly visited by demonstrators
and their supporters who were arrested for defacing government property by
pouring their drawn blood on their facades.
The members spent
more and more time in jail and several spent up to 40 and 50 days on water
fasts, interpreted as hunger strikes demanding a stop to the freezing deaths.
There were increasingly aggressive demonstrations to create a sense of urgency
with respect to the consequences.
The DC government
was only willing to admit to there being only a couple of hundred mentally ill
homeless while CCNV claimed thousands.
After opening
Pierce, an abandoned school in NE, WDC, the question of how many people who
lived on the streets would seem to be better answered (by creating space for
them to come in and be counted).
Within months a
class action suite in behalf of the homeless was initiated in federal court -- Williams
vs. Barry. The suites' intention was to address the poor living conditions
of the homeless in the other shelters that CCNV had created but were run by the
Dept. Human Services, as well as to get the court to force the city to open
more space as the shelters became filled.
The intention was
to show a demand and need for shelter in the other three quadrants of the city;
thus developing a process in which the homeless could be counted. The mayor had
begun to lose the numbers game.
Slowly the city
began to respond to legal, national and international political pressure and
began to accept responsibility to continue to run the shelters that CCNV had
created each winter.
In the winter of
1983, on Martin Luther King' s Birthday, the community occupied the abandoned
Federal City College building at 425 2nd Street NW. To Harold Moss the only
black member of the community fell the task of nightly running the Shelter.
After a year, Mitch
Snyder went on a nationally focused fast to force Pres. Ronald Reagan to
renovate the shelter. With the nation suffering from 4 years of
"Reagonomics" and the growing focus on homelessness, the president
complied in the middle of his run for another term.
That same year in
1984, CCNV initiated a campaign to provide shelter for any and all who wanted
or needed it. It was called Initiative 17, or the Right to Shelter Act.
Via this Initiative, the citizens of the District of Columbia voted
overwhelmingly against Barry's strenuous opposition to provide shelter for
anyone who needed it.
In the next 5 years
as the homeless problem worsened especially for poor families, Barry managed to
destroy the credibility of Initiative 17 by giving multi-million dollar
contracts to his friends. The most notorious was that to Cornelius Pitts who
charged the city up to $4,000 per family per month to stay at the Pitt's Motor
Lodge on Belmont St. NW.
The city soon went
bankrupt as did many major cities during the Reagan years; but many residents
blamed the Initiative for bankrupting the city and in a referendum 005 in 1990
reversed the initiative by a 1% margin. The city was no longer bound to provide
shelter for the homeless.
Mitch Snyder soon
hung himself and Carol Fennelly without consensus secretly institutionalized
CCNV. The last member, Harold Moss left and created another community called
the Olive Branch which continues to do advocacy work around Housing and
Homelessness.
In the last two
years the Olive Branch by living during the winter in front of the Control
Board demanded and got a meeting with some of its members & has forced the
city through the Control Board to address the growing problem of homeless
families in the District of Columbia. The waiting list two years ago of 700 families
is down to 300 in September 1998.
The shelter at 425
2nd St. NW, one of the largest nationally still exists with nearly 1500
residents who are forced to leave in 90 days. The shelter is in prime real
estate area and many are expecting it to be closed at any time.
March 27, 1999
Class Presentation in
The District of Columbia
at UDC