Today, Homes Not Jails took over a vacant HUD-owned building at 1959 H St.
NE and is still there making repairs and readying the house for a homeless
family to move in. The family holds a HUD-issued Section 8 housing voucher.
In three days the time allotted for them to find a landlord that will
accept that voucher runs out.
Throughout the day the group also helped repair a nearby neighbor\'s public
housing unit. She asked HNJ for help because her requests to the city for
repairs have been ignored.

Surprisingly, cops have not approached the building to ask questions.
Neighbors have been incredibly supportive. According to one neighbor, the
building was empty and abandoned for at least twenty years.

The mother of the family that is participating in the takeover with HNJ, has
been either homeless or living in unstable temporary shelter for ten years.
Though she holds a Section 8 certificate, she has had a very difficult time
finding a landlord that will accept it. When she has found a landlord
willing to accept a voucher, she hasn\'t met there income requirements or had
the money to pay security deposits.

HUD\'s Section 8 program is failing many people throughout the city.
Thousands of families spend years on waiting lists for the vouchers. If
they do receive a voucher, they are then hard-pressed to find any landlord
that will accept it within the sixty-day time period that they are granted
to look for a home. Landlords often ask up to $1,000 up front for a
security deposit, despite the dire need driving most of the tenants to use
the Section 8 program.

Meanwhile, according to a HUD source, there are close to six hundred
HUD-owned properties in DC. If an FHA mortgage loan property is foreclosed
on, HUD takes the property and can sell it at market rate. One does not
have to be low-income to buy a HUD-owned property. Yet A HUD Section 8
housing voucher is an acknowledgement that the holder is in need of low- or
no-income housing. Why can\'t HUD give a family in need a home, instead of
sending them on a wild goose chase with a voucher?

The search time for the mother\'s Section 8 housing voucher runs out on Nov.
26th. Her family\'s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits
are due to run out at the end of the year. The \"welfare to work program\"
she is part of, AME job training, was sending her to classes that had no
instructors. When she had a job as a home health provider at $6.00 an hour,
she was kept away from home for days at a time for a wage that barely met
her family\'s needs, with no child care for her two-year-old during those odd
hours. The stress this created caused a family emergency that forced her to
quit her job so that she could attend to her family needs. The temporary
housing program she is in, Marshall Heights, reapeatedly ignores or is
extremely slow to act on her requests to repair unhealthy leaks and rodent
problems in her house, even though her youngest son has asthma. Her stay
in temporary shelter ends in March. She hopes to finally have a permanent
home that she can afford. We are pushing for HUD to turn the building over
to her. HNJ is committed to working together to bring the house completely
up to code. She and other HNJ folks will only leave the building if dragged
out.

What you can do to help:
1. Come on out! Stick around. Eat meals with us. Show your support for
housing justice by holding a placard, playing football, raking some leaves,
picking up trash, painting a wall, playing with the two-year old, or just
dancing to the music.
2. Call HUD at 202-275-9206 or 202-275-9200 and demand that they transfer
ownership of the house at 1959 H St. NE to Nadine and her children and allow
them to make it their first permanent home.
3. Call Council Member Sharon Ambrose at 202-724-8072 and Mayor Williams at
202-727-2980 and demand that they support Homes Not Jails\' cause and put
pressure on HUD to turn the building over to the homeless family.
4. Bring donations. We need flashlights, batteries, a coleman stove,
BLANKETS, mattresses, spring water, hot beverages, food, toilet paper,
tools, money for building supplies, cups, buckets, and good energy.
5. Know any good electricians/plumbers? Please send them our way.
Thank you!

To reach Homes Not Jails: 202-297-4430, or hnj-dc (at) homesnotjails.org