As of Tuesday, May 2, DC Central Kitchen suspended delivery of 2,300 daily meals to eight city homeless shelters because the non-profit lacked financial support from the community and city of DC. The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness (CPPH) is the agency responsible for allocation of city funds for homeless services. It failed to deliver a contract, and all the shelters were advised that serving their residents without city funding had become an unsustainable solution to an increasing problem.

Please flood Sue Marshall, executive director of the CPPH, with calls and emails. Call her directly at 202.543.5298. X102, send an email to suemarshall@community-partnership.org, or fax her at 202.543.5653.

This is not a surprise. Over the course of Mayor William's tenure, he has been successful in shutting down homeless shelters (Gale, Randall), reducing homeless services, prioritizing a baseball stadium over public schools, using public dollars to support an ongoing gentrification campaign under the guise of "urban renewal", and the list goes on.

Given the recent developments in the state of homeless affairs in the city, and Mayor William's ongoing failure to address interests that do not come with large dollar signs, we are urging EVERYONE to come out and protest the Mayor. We will be delivering a letter of protest (see a copy of the letter below), demanding that he see to it that food service is restored.

Join the DC Anti-War Network (DAWN) Weekly Action Group as we protest, yet again, at his house, Thursday at 9:30pm.

Meet at:
2475 Virginia Avenue NW at the Potomac Plaza Apartments.

Come to the protest, but don't just stop with a protest. The DAWN Weekly action group will be serving meals at Franklin every Thursday until the food gets up and running again. We urge everyone to contribute in whatever way they can to help end this public emergency.

Whether that's writing letters to Sue Marshall, to the Mayor (2475 Virginia Ave. NW apartment 829, Washington DC), taking on a day to cook food for a shelter, or contributing money, food, or juice, everyone can play a role.

DAWN has set up a special paypal account to fund this endeavor. You can contribute directly at http://www.dawndc.net/ or try this direct link.

Just to give you an idea, $30.00 buys rice, beans, and tortillas for 100 people. Any amount you can donate would be appreciated. Funds over and above what we need for this specific effort will be applied to the costs of our ongoing service to DC residents who are homeless, for food, beverages, paper goods, toiletries, and metro cards.

You can also get in touch with DC's shelters directly and find out how you can help (see the listing below). Please, let us come together as a community and do what we can to fight the effects of this assault on human health and dignity.

Our needs:

- Existing groups (clubs, faith-based organizations, neighborhood associations, groups of friends) to organize help at one of the various shelters or by contacting them as to their needs (remember, we are only able to cover one meal on one day of the week at Franklin Shelter, and that in and of itself is a daunting task)
- Significant kitchen space (huge need) with capacity to prepare large amounts of food
- Big pots and pans - In our particular case, donations of volunteer time are always appreciated;
- and/or money
- of course, food donations (though, if you have particular food donations we should strategize about the critical problem of distribution)
- demands upon the city government that they get this crisis with DC Central Kitchen Resolved (see above).

If you can help or need help coordinating ways you can help, please call Becky Sambol at 703-463-0558 or by email at catsambol@aol.com.

Men’s Shelters

Community for Creative Non-Violence
425 2nd St. NW
202.393.1909

Emery Shelter
1725 Lincoln Rd. NE
202.655.1041

Franklin Shelter
13th & K Streets, NW
202.638.7424

La Casa
1436 Irving St. NW
202.842.1731

New York Avenue Shelter
1355-57 New York Avenue, NE
202.832.2359

St. Elizabeth’s Hospital
2700 A. St. SE
202.889.7634

Women’s Shelters

John L. Young Shelter
119 D Street NW
202.772.4313

Open Door Shelter
2nd & D Streets, NW
202.639.8093

******************************* Mayor Anthony Williams
2475 Virginia Avenue, NW
Apt. 829
Washington DC, 20037

Dear Mayor Williams,
As you are well aware, on May 1 DC Central Kitchen suspended its daily delivery of 2,300 meals to eight homeless shelters in the district. DCCK cited as causes the lack of leadership and the city's failure to deliver a contract or funding. The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness had been repeatedly advised that providing ongoing services for the DC shelters without the city’s financial support was an unsustainable solution to an increasing problem.
Even before the suspension, because the funding was already substandard, these shelters were unable to provide adequate nutritious food to their residents, a disproportionate percentage of whom suffer from a variety of illnesses either caused or aggravated by a diet high in fat, sugar and empty calories. We have been in communication with shelter staff as well as residents; they all confirm that these shelters are now experiencing a full scale crisis, scrambling to figure out how to provide sustenance to over 2000 of DC's most vulnerable residents.

Mayor Williams, we hold you personally responsible for this crisis and the suffering it is causing to providers as well as recipients. Over the course of your tenure, both the Gale and Randall Shelters have been shut down. The Franklin shelter came very close to closing, and was kept open only through the hard work and advocacy of local residents. Services to the homeless are continually besieged by funding cutbacks. Public dollars that can best go to public services are instead funneled into what you refer to as "urban renewal." To us that's just a euphemism for gentrification; it's one of the root causes of our exploding homeless population.

Mayor Williams, we feel that your track record shows you to be a servant of the wealthy, not of all of the District's citizens and we see this latest crisis as a crime. You lobbied successfully for the baseball stadium, the cost of which will drain funds from public education. And how can it be that the Junior ROTC program, which entices our young to fight and die in an illegal and immoral war, commands a budget of $1.2 million annually while the city cannot come up with funding to feed our residents or provide real training and jobs for our youth?

A group of outraged DC residents will be delivering this letter to you at your home tomorrow evening, Thursday May 4, 2006 at 9:30 p.m. We are working hard to fill the gap by cooking and serving food ourselves to distribute to those fellow residents who could otherwise go hungry. You can make a donation directly to our effort at www.dawndc.net.

We wish you cared a fraction as much as we do. You apparently do not and we demand that you use your power and influence, if not your heart, to do the right thing and see that food service is restored.

Respectfully,

The DC Anti-War Network and other DC residents