Just as a cold front blew into town, a tent encampment was razed on Friday in a multi-agency effort to clear out the homeless from many areas around the District. Many people without other shelter have long occupied the space among the chaotic roadways and overpasses between Rock Creek Parkway, […]
homeless
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The stories of homelessness told in this series are but a few of thousands unfolding every day in the Nation’s Capital. These photos depict people who told their personal struggles but there were many more who could not or would not tell their story. There are thousands more in the […]
Byron Hawkins, 49, is a stocky man with bearish hands, a gentle spirit but scars from his fiery past. He speaks of his early life with a certain fondness of “easy times.” He went to Pattison Elementary in southwest DC when he was a boy. His favorite subject was math because his family […]
H-Boy “Homeboy” Poet is a towering slender young man with a few whisks of grey in a curly black beard. His dark unblemished skin is carefully wrapped in a head scarf. His hands are strong with pulsing veins. He wears the clothes he wore last week and the week before, almost never changing. […]
Davinia “Panama” Miles, 42, and her husband, Byron, nicknamed “B”, 49, sit at the corner coffee shop overlooking McPherson square. They find temporary warmth and a place to chat, insulated from the heavy rush-hour traffic. They charge phones and warm their hands, part of their nightly ritual before heading out onto the street and […]
Anthony, 47 years old, is friendly as he greets me in McPherson Square on Christmas. “What have you got for me?” he asks. His companion, “Chico,” is an obedient Pit Bull mix and looks up suspiciously as I go through my bag to find something for him to eat. Chico […]
It’s dusk on Christmas Eve. A white van of Samaritans stops at the corner of Eye Street. On queue the men shuffle to its hatch and line up. She opens its side door at the curb. At McPherson the men linger late into the night, waiting for food, gloves, hats, and tonight’s menu: steamy […]
They occupy alleys and benches, the side doorways of office buildings and dead spaces behind dumpsters. They hobble along sidewalks, looking for change, food and clothing. “Can you spare quarters, dimes, nickels?” A homeless man asks each night near McPherson Park. Others linger near the metro entrance waiting for the van from Martha’s Table […]
In preparation for hosting the World Cup, the Brazilian government spent the outrageous amount of $10 billion and displaced as many as 250,000 people–evicting the poorest from their homes and sweeping up homeless from the streets. Since the World Cup started, thousands have protested lavishing public resources on a sports […]