Sheila: I haven't read this for so long.

Laura: It's good.

Read that to yourself.

Sheila: Oh, okay.

Yeah.

I wrote this poem while being homeless and this what I used to do.

Here I am on a metro bus again.

Talking and meditating to myself.

counted people get on counting people who get off.

Sleeping on the bus.

Traffic is so jammed up.

morning commute.

Evening no better, but still I arrive.

Laura: Thank you.

Sheila: Pictures tell 1000 words.

pictures don't lie.

My name is Sheila White, and I'm a reporter for Street Sense Newspaper.

We write stories about homelessness and how can we prevent homelessness.

I just fell in love with it.

I think my point of view is uniq because I'm using my experiences Somebody that wasn't homeless can't tell me how I feel.

I can tell you how I feel because I was homeless.

Eric: Thank you all for for being here.

We received a pitch for the Street Sense newsroom.

There is a nonprofit called Law in the Margins.

They want to partner with the Street Paper Network to investigate more about what's affecting homeless communities.

So they reached out with a list of story ideas.

And one of those story ideas was homeless encampments.

So that's what I want to learn from you all what you think we need to be focusing on when it comes to encampments.

Reggie: So my thing is, like, I have been on the street without an encampment, like when I started homelessness myself, like I actually stayed on the street, like I didn't know where shelter was a lot of criminal activity at those shelters too, as well.

When you just bunch a whole bunch of people together, you know, you're gonna have problems when you have to look at it from both sides.

I mean, if you are someone living in a community, you walk past a tent city with your child, and you say people lay it all out on the ground smoking and drinking or doing whatever they're doing.

You're not gonna want that.

Eric: I'm wondering, when can we reasonably expect to get out into the field.

So I know we were talking about maybe Sheila doing cinematography and a reporter to go out in the field.

Sheila: Well, we're trying to ge awareness out about tent city.

Reggie: through NOMA, one of the most gentrified areas in the district, Sheila: where we have a lot of homeless and living in tents down here, and we find out a lot and don't want to go into shelter.

We want to get an opportunity to tell that story.

Reggie: So how long you been in the district?

Subject: Since March.

Sheila: Reggie is focusing on the interviewing and writing.

And myself I'm videoing both the interviewer and the subject.

Reggie: So you feel safer here, under the bridge than anywhere else.

Subject: Well safe from the rain.

Reggie: Okay.

Sheila: So we tell people's stories, how they became homeless.

And what fascinated me was their stories were similar to mine.

Reggie: Have you ever been to any of our shelters?

Subject: The atmosphere is just negative.

Sheila: I figured a way for me to get my story out is to tell people's stories.

When I came to Street Sense I was on my last leg, I didn't have nothing to do.

I fell in love with the camera.

That's all I'm thinking about was getting that person to shine through a camera.

Everything I learned at this paper it really made me think about what I want to do with my life.

And so I decided I wanted to go to college.

Today I'm at UDC in my third year trying to get my associates degree in photojournalism.

What's it like doing homework in a shelter?

Woo, it's stressful.

Because we were in a room with 10 other women, we always have to be on alert because you don't know if somebody is gonna lash out at you, or actually just want to hug you.

Now, I'm at this stage of my life.

I'm 59 years old, and I had to start all the way over mostly like people getting ready to retire- me it's the opposite.

I'm trying to go to work.

News Reporter: And now from Washington's leading news station.

There's a push to create pedestrian safe zones in the NOMA section of the district.

Some residents are concerned about people trying to navigate the homeless encampments there.

They're fed up with elaborate sidewalk setups, aggressive begging and open drug use in DC.

Camping out on the street is illegal and district crews routinely clear so called tent cities.

This site is slated to be addressed soon.

Reggie: Some people just want you know a house, a family and want to be left alone.

Sheila: We have Reggie here getting ready to go interview a person who's living off the streets.

Reggie: Hello, how are you doing?

My name is Reginald.

So I'm a reporter with Street Sense Newspaper.

Mike: Excellent.

Reggie: And we want to talk about kind of like your plight.

Mike: I've been in and out of shelters for years.

I'm a high end carpenter, I've been staying in vacant apartments and or houses that I've been working on as well.

News Reporter: So what makes you stay outside now since you have you experienced shelters before?

What-what made you decide, you know, just to come live here.

Mike: Other than the noise with the ambulance and the fire trucks and the big trucks and the buses and motorcycles going by?

It's safer.

It's quieter, it's peaceful.

It's mine.

Reggie: Did you go to school in the district?

Mike: I was raised here up until about 10 years old and I was a foster kid oh, my brother and I were picked up off the street by the police department and we were taken to what they used to call it DC Village or Junior Village.

Sheila: Yeah I've heard of that.

I've been there Mike: My brother and I were the last two kids to be foster kids at that house.

Sheila: Meeting Mike was a moment I'll never forget.

When he mentioned DC Village all of the sudden all things came back to me.

How I was in DC Village as a child.

Me and him had similar lives living somewhere that neither of us wanted to be.

Reporter: These are the sounds of hungry children.

In this case their hunger is being satisfied in the dining hall at Junior Village.

Sheila: So I was in and out of there from like probably two to eight.

And it was a place for children during domestic violence disputes or whatever the case may be.

Reporter: Children arriving at junior village, we find a frequency of scars.

These perhap are due to the association with the environment in which they live.

Sheila: His story unlocked something in me.

Something that I had forgotten about.

That was a memory I have blocked for 50 years I grew up in a home where it was a lot of domestic violence.

So most of my journey like began watching people hurt other people.

I wanted to do something different in my life but I also became a teen mom.

I wind move in an apartment and had a flood.

Things just escalated more and more.

I wind up sleeping out on the streets.

Being homeless on the street as a woman, you can't show your feminine side on the street and you're always alert you don't get no sleep.

You know I was getting sleep?

I was riding the bus and just sit there and just sleep, like I'm just coming off from w If you open up that vulnerability part, that sweet side that I have they would've killed me out there on the street.

Yes it's very hard to you can't you can't show your feminine side on the street.

Residency and all that and I'm like, why don't you want to come in?

He said this is my home right here.

He showed us how he can build a fire and how he stays warm.

And how he deals with the heat and everything and he's still out there and he's... I said so you won't ever think about having the place?

Said no I haven't had a place in 26 years.

Right now this is where I'm at, you know.

Official: Well we know that that isn't the case for every senior we have heard that though, day-to-day.

Sheila: I would like to do that.

Like the CIA's doing out there now.

When we went back to visit Mike, he told us that all the 10 residents was ready to be the evicted from their home.

The city was gonna kick them out.

Mike: I envision not being homeless because with the housing will come more progress.

My social life.

I even have better rest.

And I'm looking forward to getting a cat too.

I had a cat, Knuckles.

He had five five digits on his fingers on his paws.

And now so we call him knuckles and it looked like he will walk around with baseball gloves on it was so cool, but when I became homeless shorty became homeless too.

I would go by from time to time and put food out for him and a number of neighborhood people will say that and say that they had seen him around.

yeah so yeah, I'm gonna...I'm hoping to get a cat and begin to live life again, I hope.

You know, because up to this point I've been existing.

Yeah, just existing, you know.

Almost like an animal, I guess to a degree.

Sheila: I saw a lot of my story in Mike's story.

I've also been where he's been.

I wonder where Mike would go if he got kicked out.

News Reporter: Today is the deadline for dozens of homeless people living under the NOMA underpass to pack up and leave.

City leaders are clearing out the camp filled with tents right under the K Street Bridge.

The last day for the tents is today.

So all of these people will have to go Mike: The District following through on a kind of mandate to clear this stretch of tents.

Help me.

Help me.

[Unintelligible chatter] Everyone outside of the yellow safe zone for your safety.... Reggie: Is this a normal cleanup or do people have to permanently move?

Mike: This is not a cleanup.

This is an eviction.

I'm being evicted from the street.

Sheila: My team and I, we worked on a project called Beats.

We filmed the cleanup crew cleaning up tent city over on K St.

Bridge.

Official: I need everyone behind the yellow tape barrier were going to use this equipment.

Mike: It's unfortunate that this happened.

It's also unfortunate that the city didn't issue a citation.

Didn't issue a warning.

Reggie: Uh, huh Sheila: I don't know what's gonna happen to Mike cause I haven't seen him since the clean up.

I don't know if he went to the next bridge or he went in the alley to sleep or he went in some apartment building.

I don't know.

And for somebody like him it's hard for him to get up in steps with a wheelchair so wherever he's at I just pray he's safe wherever he's at.

My holidays ain't the same since I don't have my own place.

I don't do too much of nothing on the holidays.

I might go see a relative but I can't stay so...I just wing it by ear.

I just take it day by day.

Because holidays right now are just scarce for me I just got diagnosed with prediabetes last week so there are a lot the things I can't eat.

So my health is being jeopardized staying in the shelter.

A woman just died in the shelter just the day before yesterday where the coroner had to go through the back door to take her body out so we didn't see it.

I don't want to die.

To be honest with you, that's what's motivating me every day to get up off that bed and go to school and just, just keep pushing forward.

What do we want?

Crowd: Housing Sheila: When do want it?

Crowd: Now.

Sheila: What do we want?

Crowd: Housing Sheila: When do want it?

Crowd: Now.

Sheila: Housing is a human right.

Crowd: Fight.

Fight.

Fight.

Sheila: Housing is a human right.

Fight.

Fight.

Fight.

Sheila: What do we want?

Crowd: Housing Sheila: When do we want it?

Crowd: Now.

Sheila: Writing is good.

Reporting is good, but it's not enough.

I want someone that's not homeless to actually hear my story, see my story, and feel my story and actually be an activist.

I want you to see someone that's laying there on the street, hungry, sleeping on the concrete.

But I want you to also go to your council members and say look, this is unethical.

News Reporter: COVID-19 has torn through the largest homeless shelters in this town.

The DC government isn't revealing how many men and women have tested positive at each shelter nor how many workers.

The CDC is warning people not to gather in groups larger than 10.

But for those experiencing homelessness, they have no place else to go.

Sheila: In the shelter we had a woman who came down with COVID-19.

When that happened on my floor I got nervous.

Now I gotta get out of here.

I can't stay in there.

Look at these closets.

Walk-in closet here and another closet right here.

I got a lot of closet space.

But today is my first day living in my new place and I'm waiting on the furniture to be delivered to my apartment.

I'm excited about getting me a decent bed to sleep in.

Because I was sleeping on a, when I was in the shelter, I was sleeping on this like, they were bunk beds, but they was hard.

[ringtone] I hope that's them.

The earlier they come the better with me.

Yeah, right there.

I like it.

It's nice, ain't it?

I like that.

All the way to the back.

All right.

Finally.

It is a brand new queen size matress.

(Laughing) Alright.

Have a good night's sleep on me!

Yes.

Have a good night's sleep on me!

[Laughing] It's deep.

A few months after Mike got kicked out of tent city he received housing and a new apartment.

[Dialing] Hey Mike, me and Laura wanted to, me and Laura wanted to come see you right quick.

Mike: Oh my.

Sheila: Open the door.

Are you okay?

Mike: Yeah, I'm alright.

But I got company.

Sheila: Oh, okay.

Oh, he hung up too.

He says he's got company.

Laura: Why do you think he's ignoring everybody?

Sheila: I couldn't, I couldn't say why he's ignoring everybody.

I really couldn't.

You know, the only thing I could think of is he's probably doing something he ain't got no business doing.

I can't write the ends of other people's stories.

I wish I could.

But the only one I can write is my own story.

(Laughter) Oh.

I've never printed my pictures before I'd never even thought of doing it.

Oh yeah, this I think this is one of the best pictures I've done.

I call this Dark City for the quarantine.

Everyone off the streets.

Yup, this my favorite one right here.

I love this picture.

I'm gonna put it right here, so when I come in the door I can see my artwork.

Now that I'm in my own place, I don't have to wear that black cap anymore.

I just feel like me.

I feel like Sheila again.

I like me and I love me and I, to get a second chance and get my own place.

Things I've dreamed of doing I can do now.

Somebody sent a card to Street Sense with my name on it.

And what she put on the card is like she actually felt what I was feeling and she has not been homeless herself.

She wanted to know what she could do.

It touched my heart to know that I got through somebody.