Meet Charles Wright. He’s a tenant at 1229 G Street SE, which is home to about 140 seniors and persons with disabilities inside the Potomac Gardens Public Housing Complex. Charles is a senior with a seizure disorder. He also has HIV. He was diagnosed in 1999 or somewhere there abouts. A number of people living at 1229 G Street SE are HIV positive or living with AIDS, but not many are willing to talk about it. As a volunteer at Whitman Walker Charles is not shy about the disease, his condition or how he got there.
Charles Wright was born and raised in the District of Columbia. He and his family lived on Euclid Street Northwest in Petworth, which even then was a relatively fashionable. He fully admits that he was very spoiled. He bought his clothes at Woodies and Landburgh’s. His father bought him a Triumph Spitfire. Plenty of girls were interested in Charles but there was only one girl for him. Yes indeed, Charles Wright was a big man at Roosevelt Senior High School. Like the other popular boys, he played basketball in a park on Hamilton Street and smoked reefer with his best friend Ronald and the other guys playing pick up ball on the court. Eventually, the reefer led to harder drugs, heroine, cocaine and eventually crack.
It’s hard to say when Charles contracted HIV. Despite his drug use, he functioned reasonably well. After high school, he went to Maryland Eastern Shore for accounting, but he left after two years. It was enough to land him a job at the United Planning Organization and later a better job as a tax accountant at the Department of Finance and Revenue. But the money he was making, didn’t allow him to live the spoiled life to which he had become accustomed. He needed money, not just for the drugs but to dress well and look good when he went to the clubs. So Charles started forging checks and credit cards.
His drug use lost him his high school sweet heart, but looking good at the clubs got him a new girl. “We met at Tiffany’s,” Charles remembers fondly. “She had pretty feet. In fact, that was my pick up line, ‘you have cute toes.'” They danced the Hustle and because it was pay day, Charles bought everyone at the table a drink. The rest is history. They fell in love, moved into an apartment together in Northeast DC and had a son.
All was going smoothly until he got caught for his forgery and found out that he was positive for HIV. Fortunately, he hadn’t infected his partner and so his son was spared as well. He spent eight years in a low-security prison. When he got out, he was still using drugs but this time without the steady accounting job or the illegal income. Charles and his son’s mother continued to get along well, but he didn’t move back in with her. She didn’t ask for child support and encouraged him to be a part of their son’s life. He admits that he might have been more present for his son, if he hadn’t been chasing the drugs. Somewhere during this time, Charles’ high school friend Ronald died of an overdose.
Fortunately, for Charles he found Whitman Walker and his life began to turn around. Having finally decided to quit using drugs, he started going to their Narcotic Anonymous meetings. Eventually, he was allowed in their drug rehabilitation program, which unlike the vast majority of in-patient treatment programs, was entirely free. That was three years ago. Charles stayed off drugs for two of those years but eventually, overcome by loneliness, he started using again. “I was frustrated and mad,” he says, “so I started using weed and crack again. The loneliness is the hardest part about drug use. You get in your apartment and you just get lonely. And then you go and do what happens.”
Charles still struggles to keep from using but he is trying to quit again. He has a new girl friend. She does not like his drug use and Charles wants her to be proud of him. So, he’s started going to the Narcotics Anonymous meetings at Whitman Walker again. “In the beginning, they know you won’t be clean,” he says, “but by taking the meetings, they expect you to get strong enough to get clean.” Charles hopes to go through Whitman Walker’s drug treatment program again when they agree he’s ready. In the meantime, Charles volunteers on the Whitman Walker outreach truck, passing out condoms and teaching the public how to avoid infection. He advises Lifestyle condoms over Trojans and for heterosexuals, female condoms over male condoms.
Charles is open about his status because he wants to make a difference. Whitman Walker is known for working with Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual, and Transgender individuals, but they welcomed Charles who fits into none of those categories. Potomac Gardens is proud to count Charles Wright as a member of the community. We are also grateful to Whitman Walker for opening its doors to the public housing community, whose members are too often stigmatized and rarely given the second and sometimes third chance that everyone deserves.
Charles was interviewed for the Whitman Walker promotional video above. In it, he is given the last line. You’ll have to watch it all the way to the end to find out what that line is.
My last post focused on the “cautionary tale” we can find in how states spent their Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds. Now here, as promised, is what we learn about the District of Columbia’s TANF spending.*
The figures are somewhat dated, but they’re still relevant to decisions the DC Council must make as it works on the Mayor’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
The District reported $254 million spent on TANF in 2013. Twenty-three percent went for cash assistance. This is a tad higher than the percent reported for 2012. But a family of three was still left at 26% of the federal poverty line. And that’s about where it is now, unless it’s one of the 6,300 families whose benefits have been cut three times already.
They’ll get zero, come October if the Council doesn’t approve the Mayor’s proposal to give them a one-year reprieve. Even if it does, our three-person family will have to get along somehow on $156 a month — roughly 9% of the current FPL.
The Bowser administration justifies the reprieve on the basis of continuing weaknesses in the employment component of the District’s TANF program.
I’ve previously reported the results of an audit that focused on outcomes for the parents facing benefit cut-offs who were actually referred to a contractor for job training and/or help in finding a job. Not encouraging.
But there are two other parts to this story. One is that some parents have had to wait for nearly a year to get those job-related services. This may be in part because the Gray administration froze additional funds for them.
And that’s perhaps because the Department of Human Services didn’t spend all the TANF employment funds in its budget, according to the new director. We certainly see what seems to be under-spending in the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report I’m using here.
Only 15% of TANF funds spent on work-related activities in 2013. And even this was a marked improvement over 2012, when only 7% went for what surely ought to be a top priority for a TANF program.
At the same time, the District spent an unusually low percent of its TANF funds on administration and systems — 2%, as compared to a nationwide 7%.
This matters because the DC Council enacted exemptions from the benefits phase-out for families facing specified hardships, i.e., difficulties, beyond the usual, that parents would face trying to support themselves and their kids.
One, added for the current year, would temporarily stop the time clock for mothers with infants to care for. But the department hasn’t actually granted this exemption. The reason, we’re told, is that it doesn’t have the computer capacity to suspend time-counting for the moms and their babies.
I personally believe that the TANF time limits merit rethinking altogether. DHS itself is looking into a policy that would convert the one-time hardship exemptions for at least some of the designated families and perhaps others into hardship extensions, as federal law has always allowed.
But that’s not even on the drawing board yet. The proposed reprieve is on the Council’s must-decide agenda.
A rollback of the benefits cuts should be too, given what we know about job training waiting lists — and the many months families had to wait for the assessments used to decide what training and/or other services they should get to give them a reasonable chance of success in the workplace.
Beyond these obviously urgent issues, the Council should, I think, take a hard look at how DHS spends its TANF dollars. In 2013, the department spent nearly as much on “non-assistance” as on work activities. What’s in this catch-all category is a mystery. Not the department’s fault, but rather a flaw in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ reporting format.
The new DHS director, unlike her predecessor, shared a break-out of TANF spending with parties interested enough to have attended a recent briefing. Some money here, some there, some someplace else.
I doubt the Council has ever delved into the dispersal of TANF funds. Every dollar may support something worthwhile. But the mechanism is hardly responsible — let alone transparent — budgeting.
And it inevitably diverts funds from cash support for very poor families and from work-related services that can help the parents get to the point where they can pay for their families needs.
These, I think most of us view as core purposes of the TANF program. And both the CBPP report and everything else we know suggests they’re being shorted.
* The TANF funds spent include the District’s federal block grant share and what it claimed as its maintenance of effort, i.e., what it spent of its own funds, plus funds that some nonprofits spent on at least on of the program’s four major goals.
Every year, District government lays out a plan for how much money it will take to meet our residents’ diverse needs—and keep the city running. It’s not just how much money, but where the money should go. Everything under the sun is in the budget, from street repairs to the police force to school lunches.
I say budget season because the whole process will go on for a number of months. Don’t be intimidated! It’s going to be fun!
Here are some of the important parts of the process:
Agency oversight hearings. Yesterday marked the start of agency oversight hearings. Between February and March, City Council committees will get to ask D.C. government agencies questions about their programs and how they use their funds. These hearings are one tool Councilmembers use to make decisions about what funding streams are effective and whether they are serving their purpose.
The Mayor’s budget proposal. While the council is holding oversight hearings, the Mayor will be preparing her own budget proposal, which she will release on April 2. Every year the Mayor sends the City Council a budget proposal outlining how she’d like to see all the services and programs the city provides funded. Mayor Bowser has indicated she is committed to putting resources behind fighting homelessness, and her budget proposal will send a clear message on whether she intends to stand by that commitment. One way to keep reminding her that it matters to us is by attending one or more of her three budget engagement forums this month.
Public hearings. Members of the City Council have another way of gathering information—public hearings. Through April and May, public hearings will be an opportunity for the citizens of D.C. to weigh in on the budget. By testifying, organizations and individuals can illustrate how budget decisions have a real impact on Washingtonians’ lives. As just one example, Hyacinth’s Place testified before the Committee on Housing and Economic Development last year about the Housing Production Trust Fund, one funding stream that makes permanent supportive housing programs like ours possible.
Mark-ups. Now that the committees have gathered information from government agencies, reviewed Mayor’s budget priorities, and heard input from real Washingtonians, they hold mark-ups, where they will craft the actual budget and vote to approve it. These mark-ups also take a number of weeks! But once the council has agreed on and passed a full budget in the form of a bill, they send it to the Mayor, who also has to approve it.
Hyacinth’s Place has hit the ground running, and we’ll be active throughout budget season. Like last year, we’ll advocate for the Housing Production Trust Fund and the Local Rent Supplement Program. We’ll also lend our support to our diverse partners who advocate for the many other programs that fight poverty in the District.
Here are some ways you can be involved.
– Check out the Fair Budget Coalition’s (FBC) budget priorities. Hyacinth’s Place worked with FBC to craft this comprehensive list of funding recommendations. It’s a great primer for all the important programs we’ll be fighting for this budget season.
– Tweet using the FBC’s hashtag #WeAreALLdc. You can also retweet us!
– Like us on Facebook for an easy way to get updates and see our latest blog posts.
– Come to the Mayor’s budget engagement forums over the next month. Email Vanessa@hyacinths.org if you’d like to attend.
– Attend council hearings or, if you can’t be there in person, stream them online.
– Testify at the public hearings! We’ll let you know when the time to sign up comes closer.
– Check out these other great resources: the Fair Budget Coalition, the Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute
It’s going to be a long haul, but we’re excited to be a part of the effort to make D.C. a safe and healthy place for all its residents to thrive!
The heart says, “I will take care of you; if you will take care of me!”
According to The New People’s Physician the human heart is a hollow muscular organ located in the breast that pumps blood received from the veins into the arteries. The heart beat is regulated in two different ways: the heart muscle itself possesses what is called a rhythmic quality of its own and if removed from the body and placed in proper environment it will go on contracting at about forty beats a minute, and may maintain its natural rhythm indefinitely. The heart in its normal function, however, beats seventy to eighty times a minute, and is responsive to all the calls which the body makes on it. The blood in the course of its circulation traverses three varieties of blood vessels when it leaves the heart.
Blood enters the arteries which from there move through capillaries to feed our tissue (i.e., muscles and skin). Capillaries are arteries that divide again and again, until they finally become so small that they are invisible except through a microscope. They are arranged in the form of a network, the size of the mesh depending on the needs of the particular tissue. The blood flows through the capillaries at the speed of about an inch per minute to join the veins. The capillary bed is the great controlling factor of subcutaneous and muscular circulation. The blood flowing through the capillary vessel holds oxygen, and carries away carbon dioxide and other metabolic end products. Life can continue only if the composition of the blood is kept constant by circulation through the organs that replenish its expendable constituents and rid it of its wastes. So small is the reserve of oxygen contained in the blood and tissues that when the heart stops life goes out, in higher animals in a matter of minutes. The rate of circulation varies at different hours of the day; in the afternoon it is at the maximum; in the early morning hours, when we are asleep it is at its minimum.
The arteries are strong, thick and elastic tubes, whose walls are made up of three distinct layers. The innermost is thin and smooth and allows the blood to flow over it without friction or obstacle; next comes a layer of muscle, which by its contraction can lessen the size of the artery and thus diminish the amount of blood flowing through it; the outermost layer is gifted with great elasticity by which it retains an even pressure on the blood in the vessel, and by its recoil gradually drives it on wards. The artery is surrounded with a bed of loose tissue, which allows it a certain amount of freedom of movement. The muscular middle coat of an artery is an exceedingly important provision of nature. The blood supply to an organ must vary with its demand for blood, and this is not constant. The stomach, for instance, during digestion, when it is manufacturing gastric juice, obviously requires a much larger supply of blood than when it is in the resting state. This variation of the supply depends on the state of contraction of the muscle fibers in the walls of the arteries. If the vessels are narrowed the supply of blood is lessened, and vice versa.
The contraction of the arterial walls has another important effect. If it occurs simultaneously in many arteries throughout the body, by offering resistance to the flow of blood, it must increase the blood pressure. An efficient water supply to a town or to a house can be maintained only if the water pressure is sufficiently high, and the same is true of the supply of blood to all parts of the body. In most arteries the branches communicate freely with those of other arteries, a condition known as anastomosis. In this way, if the blood supply of one trunk artery is cut off the supply can be maintained through another. The largest and thickest artery is the aorta. It is the main trunk artery leading out of the heart and conveying the whole stream of blood from that organ to the various parts of the body. In an adult man it is a tube large enough to accommodate two or even three fingers. It runs upwards out of the heart and then sweeps to the left in a wide curve. At the top of this curve it gives off its first large branches, the vessels going to the head and arms; thereafter it runs downwards, behind the heart, passes through the diaphragm and branches to the stomach and bowels. Lower down it divides into two branches, one going to each leg. In health this huge artery is exceedingly elastic like a very large rubber tube. This is of great importance, since the elasticity acts as a reservoir of power between the heartbeats.
Each beat fills the aorta with blood and expands it. The white blood corpuscles can make their way out of the blood vessels by passing between the cells. This migration is enormously increased in inflammation. Ordinarily the red blood corpuscles do not pass out of the capillaries, but this may occur in inflammation. The presence of capillaries is the cause of the rosy tint of healthy skin and mucous membrane; in blushing more capillaries are flooded with blood. If the capillary network is well-filled with blood, then in contact with cold air the temperature of the blood, and therefore the body, will be lowered. In order to prevent undue heat loss, therefore, nature closes up many of the capillaries by contracting the smaller arteries, and this is the reason of the pallor induced by cold weather. On the other hand, if the weather is warm the skin becomes flushed and the loss of heat greater. This important mechanism for controlling the body temperature can be easily impaired by the common habit of wearing too much clothing. It can also be made more active by training the skin to exposure.
Meet Charles Wright. He’s a tenant at 1229 G Street SE, which is home to about 140 seniors and persons with disabilities inside the Potomac Gardens Public Housing Complex. Charles is a senior with a seizure disorder. He also has HIV. He was diagnosed in 1999 or somewhere there abouts. A number of people living at 1229 G Street SE are HIV positive or living with AIDS, but not many are willing to talk about it. As a volunteer at Whitman Walker Charles is not shy about the disease, his condition or how he got there.
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