Thanksgiving has come and gone and now the holiday season is upon us. Neighbors hang lights and decorations on their houses and in their windows. Stores fill with shoppers buying gifts for their loved ones. Bing Crosby croons “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” on nearly every radio station. But this year, hundreds of D.C. families won’t be home for Christmas because they have no home at all.
I have been part of a coalition of organizations that has been working on a survey that would tell us more about the experiences of families that need shelter. This November, we gathered at The Virginia Williams Intake Center to talk to families about their situations. We were looking for more than just numbers; we wanted to hear the stories of these families in order to get a more complete picture of the problem of homelessness in D.C.
Much of my work at the DC Women’s Agenda focuses on advocacy and research. But this was front line stuff, direct interaction with people in need. As important as I knew the work was, listening to these people’s stories quickly became discouraging. Often I asked a survey question fearing I already knew the answer.
“Where do you think you are going to stay tonight?”
And then a long pause. “I don’t know.”
It was heart wrenching to talk to people facing all these situations that seem so hopeless. People who lost their jobs, people trying to get out of unsafe environments, people who just can’t make ends meet and have to choose between food and paying the rent. It was a humbling experience, and after spending a day talking to families in these situations, it made me grateful for something so many of us take for granted – a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in.
Sometimes it is far too easy for the staggering facts about homelessness to become mere statistics on paper. According to the Community Partnership for the Prevention of the Homeless, there are over 6,200 homeless persons in D.C. The issue of homelessness is a particularly important one for DC Women’s Agenda because 80 percent of homeless families in D.C. are headed by single women, generally in their late 20s and early 30s. But after my time at the intake center, it is impossible to view these statistics as mere numbers.
During our week at the intake center our group interviewed between 35 and 40 families, gathering their compelling stories that demonstrate the need for more shelter space in D.C. We hope the information we gathered will make it easier to advocate for increased shelter capacity. The complete analysis will be available later this month.
