Rapid Rehousing – Washington DC – IRP Poverty Dispatch

Rapid rehousing: A new way to head off homelessness, By Brigid Schulte, August 18, 2013, Washington Post: “At a little after 7 on an August morning, Contessa Allen-Starks puts on her beige scrubs, pours coffee into a plastic foam cup, locks the door to her apartment and hurries to the A4 bus stop on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SW for an hour-long commute to her job in Dupont Circle…”
To be self-sufficient, first you have to find an affordable apartment, By Brigid Schulte, August 18, 2013, Washington Post: “After nine months of being homeless, all Yolanda Pharr can think about is how much she misses a stove. She’s been living in a Days Inn motel room off New York Avenue with her six boys – four boys to one double bed, she and two boys to another — because DC General is full. She longs for the ordinary grace of cooking dinner…”
Homeless believe remaining in shelter will net them permanent subsidies, By Brigid Schulte, August 18, 2013, Washington Post: “Jordan Love Smith is convinced Rapid Rehousing won’t work for her. She stands outside DC General on a hot summer day, under a cement awning that provides the only shade on the sweltering day. Some residents sit in lawn chairs, eating, doing each other’s hair, yelling ‘Get over here! Now!’ at the children playing on the steaming sidewalk when they get too close to the curb…”