By the
thousands, Washington, DC bears witness to the displaced who congregate
in its parks and sidewalks. They wait for meals and clothing that are
delivered by civic groups after the last of the rush hour traffic has
dribbled back to the suburbs. A few days before Christmas, vans pull up and the hungry appear from the night driven by the cold for a warm meal.
There’s
temporary protection from weather which whips around the facade of the
Veterans Administration building as it stands firm like a
sentinel guarding them. The metro staff accepts that they’ll always
inhabit this place. At midnight the
night staff lower the metal gates and turn off the escalators and
though there is a shelter at 4th & D, it’s a long trek for those who
have no bus fare.
In McPherson Park, a cold rain blows through the
square, whistling through tree branches and wetting the grass. The
homeless huddle in the nearby metro entrance a block from the White
House. On this night the entrance finds only a few dozen waiting and
offers them a damp marble floor. They share muffled conversations while
some lay on cardboard. Among them is a woman with a dog hovering under a blanket.
Connie ‘Cookie’
Knight has been a metro employee for 14 years and hasn’t seen it this
bad in the seven years that she has been assigned to work in the
District. “There are more folks here than ever,” she says. “There are
more Spanish folks out there now and even Asians are coming here.” She
spoke of the changing demographics of the homeless and how it has
changed over the last few years. “It is getting mixed more now than
ever, there are more women than before and the change has largely come
over the last five years.” She spoke of recent efforts metro has made to
put people on buses during the coldest nights when temperatures drop . .
.
from here with more on the homeless
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