D.C.’s High Housing Costs Pushed Me In and Out of Homelessness for 30 Years
“In a city as unaffordable as Washington, D.C., it’s not hard to find yourself included among the thousands of people experiencing homelessness during the Point-in-Time Count. I know, because I’ve been on both sides of it: For three years I have helped count people, because for nearly 30 years before that I was one of them. I’ve lived in this city my entire life, and I’ve watched it change drastically. In 1980, I got my first apartment – a studio near 9th and Kennedy – and my minimum wage job was enough to cover the $200 a month rent. Now, average rent for a studio in D.C. is $1,642. I could work those same jobs and still land in a shelter at the end of the night. The margin of error has been completely erased.”