More Bags Please!

Since the advent of the 5 cent D.C. bag tax, Bread for the City has become a distribution center for reusable totes. Nickels add up for our struggling clients. They need reusable bags.

As monthly food client Bernard Smith explained to me, "I don't want to pay a nickel for a plastic bag that will just break and pollute the city." Another client added, "I can't afford these [reusable] bags without Bread for the City, and getting a bag from you helped me remember to bring them to the store."

What's more, reusable bags save us money. By replacing plastic and paper bags in our pantry, we immediately save 18 cents per reusable bag donated. A seemingly small impact; until you consider that we have collected 16,000 reusable bags, saving us a total $2,800. But Bread for the City's food pantry serves thousands every month; we still need more bags!

Our reusable bag collection started with likely donors such as Whole Foods, D.D.O.E, and Safeway. Recently I started casting a wider net in our never ending quest for bags -- and recently got a big boost from the Walter E Washington Convention Center. I had a hunch they might have a few leftover reusable bags from trade shows and conventions, so I contacted Theresa DuBois, the External Affairs Manager. Turns out they had 1,500.

Theresa was kind enough to expedite the donation, and we had the bags one short week after I contacted her. Notably, the Convention Center does not report donations, and they rarely receive recognition for their actions. Theresa, in short, was happy to help just for the sake of helping Bread for the City. She explained, “I am very familiar with Bread for the City’s exceptional work. We are excited to work with you on your tote bag campaign!”

We plan to continue working with The Convention Center as more bags become available.

You can help too by organizing a reusable bag drive at work, home, or in your neighborhood. A wide variety of organizations have signed up for bag drives; such as WilmerHale, Eco-Bags , and Sasha Bruce Youthwork.

Bag collections are a simple way to help Bread for the City, our clients, and the environment. Sign up today! Contact Jeffrey Wankel at jwankel@breadforthecity.org for details.

Building a Human Safety Net

Standing at the Wilson building today, chanting phrases like “Save Our Safety Net,” holding a net, and the hands of fellow advocates from across the city, I felt renewed in my commitment to serving my clients each day. I have journeyed this year with clients like Mr. S., Ms. N., and Mr. K. I have sat down with them, listened to their stories, and together, we have gone to their Social Security disability hearings hoping to win them Social Security benefits. Each day at Bread for the City, I meet with walk-ins and take calls from many people across the city calling because they have found themselves in need of an attorney. I have listened to their stories and have seen the effects of both personal choices and structural inequalities.

In the last month, the Wilson building has become quite familiar to me. Together with Eli and Legal Clinic for the Homeless attorney Scott McNeilly, we have gone door to door to Council Members, asking them to reconsider the proposed cuts to IDA, the program our SSI clients need to survive each month. I have helped the Fair Budget Coalition plan a budget briefing on housing, and have attended a previous rally urging City Council members to vote for progressive tax reform so that our social safety net services might be spared in the $500 million of proposed budget cuts this year.

Today felt different than those previous visits to the Wilson building. Today we stood, holding hands and nets, circling the entire building. This literal joining of hands, the literal act of building a human safety net, was a public testament of how important these services are to our clients. It is more than just about progressive tax increases or fighting for what I believe is right. It’s about making sure our clients can simply live.

Standing around the Wilson building, seeing familiar faces of the advocates I’ve met this year, holding hands and passionately chanting, my heart was flooded with emotions of connection, passion, dedication, and increased vigor. I felt a sense of renewal and recommitment. I am here for my clients, and for the ways we are growing together.


For more information about the Save Our Safety Net Campaign or for more pictures of this rally, please click here.

Save IDA!

This post brought to you by BFC legal clinic coordinator Eli Sevcik-Timberg.

Yesterday, advocates from the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, So Others Might Eat (SOME) and Bread for the City joined a group of men and women who currently receive Interim Disability Assistance (IDA), and the group paid visits to the offices of six councilmembers.

Their goal: to save IDA.

We’ve been blogging about IDA here a lot recently, because it is one of the most heavily-cut items in Mayor Fenty's proposed budget. IDA is a city program that provides $270 per month to individuals waiting for Social Security disability benefits. It's fairly common for people to wait for years.

Like my client, Dexter, who came along on our visit to City Council. NPR actually profiled Dexter in a story about delays in Social Security; at the time, Dexter had been waiting for Social Security for almost three years. That was in early 2007.

In the meantime, Dexter subsists on $270 a month in IDA support. Hundreds of DC residents like Dexter (perhaps even more than 1,000) now face the prospect of life without Social Security or IDA.



So what does that $270/month mean to those who receive it? For many in DC, $270 is the price of a monthly pass at the yoga studio or a bar tab after a big night out.

$270 means something more to James, who had been addicted to drugs and homeless for years prior to receiving IDA (“All that society don’t want to see…I was that”). IDA benefits allowed James to pay the $81/month that his subsidized group-home charges for rent, and bus fare for his therapy appointments. It gave James enough stability to concentrate on kicking his addiction. James has been clean for over a year now, but when talking with city council members, he didn’t talk much about himself: “I’m worried about the people who aren’t able to get [IDA] now…they’re gonna be on the street for good.”

$270 means something more to Christina, who is able to buy toilet paper because CCNV, DC’s largest shelter, often runs out. She is able to buy her medication—only $1/prescription through Medicaid—but she has ten different medications to treat asthma, bi-polar disorder, and high blood pressure. In the past, she had to beg for change on the street to buy her medicine. Most importantly, she was able to buy a cell phone with a few minutes in order to receive calls from her doctor, social worker and the pro-bono attorney who was representing her in her Social Security hearing—calls that she can’t reliably get at a shelter.

And $270 means something more to Dexter. Bread for the City has represented him for three of his five years of waiting, as his application was kicked from office to office, from Social Security court to Appellate court and then back again to Social Security court. Joseph receives dialysis treatment three times a week but he missed Monday’s appointment to tell his story to councilmembers and their staffers. Dexter realizes that if it weren’t for IDA, he wouldn’t have been able to survive. “I’m 56 years-old and my liver doesn’t work. IDA gives me a place to live, and combined with foodstamps, I make it work. [IDA] might be small to other people, but it gives me a chance to survive.”

These are not unique stories. These are the stories of the approximately 1,500 people who won’t be receiving IDA next year if new revenue sources aren’t found. You can help save IDA by supporting the Save our Safety Net campaign. Call your Councilmembers. Let's save IDA.

—Eli Timberg

Interim Disability Assistance: Loans of hope, now in danger

Last week we told you about the budget cuts facing Interim Disability Assistance (IDA), a program that many of our clients depend on while they are applying for the federal Social Security disability programs (SSI and SSDI).

Since these people are unable to work, IDA provides them critical assistance of up to $270 a month, which helps them subsist while they wait for their Social Security to be approved.

I want to tell you more about Mr. S., a client whose life was practically saved by IDA.

Mr. S. originally came to us after his Social Security judge recommended he find a lawyer to help him in his case. Mr. S's life is made increasingly difficult because of his disabilities: he suffers from HIV, Hepatitis C, chronic pain in his knees, difficulty grasping small objects, diabetes, pain and numbness in his feet, chronic and severe depression, asthma, and difficulties walking. Despite treatment with an ongoing psychiatrist, small group therapy, and social worker, Mr. S’s depression continues to cause him to be unable to work.

Carrying these heavy disabilities each day on the long road towards obtaining Social Security caused Mr. S a profound sense of hopelessness and self-doubt. He struggled to piece his life together, to end his homelessness, and to extract even a morsel of hope so that he could simply continue with his life.

Since Mr. S knows that his health will probably not improve and that his suffering will probably continue, receiving IDA was that morsel of hope that he needed desperately. In his own words, he says that “IDA gave me an opportunity to get up on my feet, knowing that I had an income.”

Once on his feet, he secured housing and is no longer homeless. Mr. S used his IDA each month to pay his bills, including his rent, phone bill, and toiletries. Paired with his food stamps, he was able to afford food.

Eventually, with Bread for the City’s representation, Mr. S was approved for Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI). He was also approved for all of his SSI back-payments, totaling thousands of dollars. Not only that: the District was then repaid by the federal government for the money IDA had provided him each month.

I like to think of IDA benefits as a “loan of hope” that the City gave Mr. S. Now with his SSI, he has repaid that loan -- and the City also has one less person in desperate condition, relying on the far more expensive shelter system.

In the history of the IDA program, the number of participants typically hovered around 2,400 -- except in hard times, when it would shoot up to 2,900. But over the past couple of years, during some of the hardest times we've seen, IDA has seen its budget cut and its rolls capped at 1,500. This means there's about 900 District residents in situations like Mr. S's, waiting on a waiting list for a program that helps people who are already waiting for help.

It's an example of a safety net that should so clearly be saved -- so I hope that our Councilmembers stand with us tomorrow morning (8:30 AM) at City Hall when we call upon them to be heroes.

Why ID? Yet Another Barrier to Vulnerable Families

I’ve gained a huge amount of knowledge in my time here at Bread for the City, and I am so grateful for that knowledge. However, there have been some things that I’ve learned that I’m not so glad to know.

Last week, I talked to a client who had been denied access to the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center, which is the gateway to shelter resources for homeless families. She was turned away because she did not have a photo ID. I was shocked to hear this, and at first assumed that maybe it had just been an exceptional situation. But through some phone calls my supervisor discovered that it is current policy at the Family Resource Center to require photo ID in order to enter the building.

This made me feel frustrated and completely helpless.

One of the things I’ve learned doing this work is how difficult it is to get an ID in DC. A DMV ID requires a birth certificate. Both cost money. A DHS ID requires a visit to 645 H Street. It is not a quick process. And if an individual or a family is seeking shelter, they are already in crisis; there could be any number of reasons why they don’t have their ID.

Homeless families are already facing very real barriers -- more than ever because of cuts to DC's safety net services. To require formal identification from such families just to be able to go through an intake process… well, that doesn’t work out very well in my head. I’m sure the staff over at the Family Resource Center are overwhelmed as well. But they are there to serve families that are already powerless and hopeless. Is this additional barrier appropriate?

Fortunately, one of the great things about working at Bread for the City is that the staff has so many connections and resources. We called our friends down at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, and they reacted as we had. They agreed that is unacceptable for the Family Resource Center to turn people away due to lack of ID, and reported that they would take care of things. It felt good to know that the situation was in competent hands.

I spoke with this client the next day, and she had gotten into the building without any resistance, and was in the process of working with someone.

I think I learned two important things in this situation last week. First of all, I was reminded that sometimes other agencies put in place rules or requirements that aren’t ever going to make any sense to me. That’s just how these things work. Secondly, I was reminded that in the times when I feel completely helpless, there are often others to whom we can go for assistance. Last week, the folks at Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless felt like superheroes to me. I’m so grateful that there are people like them that we can call on.

2009 Bread for the City Annual Report Now Available

Bread for the City's 2009 Annual Report is now available! You can either download it as PDF from our website (here) or email us to request a hard copy. Read more about our upcoming expansion, the Human Rights Clinic in our medical clinic, new programs in our Food Pantry, and the exciting work of our Social Services and Legal staff.


In Fiscal Year 2009, Bread for the City served 58,929 low income clients with food, clothing, medical care, legal and social services. Approximately four fifths of our clients live below the Federal Poverty Line, with an overall average income of $6,816. All of our services are provided under one roof and at no cost to the client. Our pictures are pretty and our pages are glossy.

Interim Disability Assistance in Jeopardy

By Lucas Sharma, a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and Bread for the City's Northwest Legal Clinic Coordinator.

Mr. S has a wide range of disabilities -- ranging from chronic knee pain to HIV to severe depression. As such, he qualified to receive income support from Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a federally-funded program. To qualify for SSI, someone must be by definition unable to work. But SSI applications can take years to wind their way toward approval -- years during which, in most cases, applicants are unable to work.

Mr. S applied for SSI in July of 2007. He was only just recently approved to receive monthly benefits. So, during that almost three-year waiting period, how did Mr. S sustain himself?

The answer is Interim Disability Assistance (IDA). Like almost 40 other states, DC’s IDA program helps support people like Mr. S while they wait for a decision from the Social Security Administration (SSA). IDA provides up to $270 a month, a small sum that nonetheless keeps many people living with disabilities from becoming homeless or going without food or medicine. (Read more on this blog about IDA here.)

This program made all the difference in Mr. S's ability to live a life that was difficult, but at least secure. Mr. S told us that IDA helped him stabilize his life, and ensured that he could follow up with his multiple appointments each week. IDA gave him a sense of hope – not least of all, hope that his SSI benefits would be approved in the near future.

This is a safety net program that can be reimbursed in part with federal dollars from the SSI program. When an IDA recipient is awarded SSI benefits, the District is able to reimburse itself for the amount of IDA paid to a successful SSI applicant from any back payment paid to that applicant (the back payment represents the SSI benefits the individual would have received from the date of application until the date SSA approved the application).

IDA is facing severe budget cuts of up to $7 million. More than a thousand disabled DC residents are on a waiting list to receive this emergency financial aid. But a waiting list defeats the purpose of IDA, which is designed for people who are already waiting for critical support!

Please email the DC Council to express your concern and to ask them to restore funding to IDA.

Your emails are needed TODAY! Please email:

Vincent Gray, vgray@dccouncil.us
David Catania, dcatania@dccouncil.us
Michael Brown, mbrown@dccouncil.us
Phil Mendelson, pmendelson@dccouncil.us
Kwame Brown, kbrown@dccouncil.us;
Jim Graham, jgraham@dccouncil.us
Jack Evans, jackevans@dccouncil.us
Mary Cheh, mcheh@dccouncil.us
Muriel Bowser, mbowser@dccouncil.us
Harry Thomas, Jr., hthomas@dccouncil.us
Tommy Wells, twells@dccouncil.us
Yvette Alexander, yalexander@dccouncil.us
Marion Barry, mbarry@dccouncil.us

Sample message (feel free to modify this to reflect your concerns or experiences):

DC residents with disabilities need your help. Please restore the $7 million that the Mayor’s proposed FY2011 budget has cut to Interim Disability Assistance. If the cut is not reversed, between 900 and 1,400 residents with disabilities will have no income while they wait the months or years it can take to get a decision on their Supplemental Security Income (SSI) claims. The District will also lose the federal reimbursements which help pay for IDA. More importantly, residents forced onto the waiting list will face homelessness and hardship. They will be left with no money for rent or household expenses, no money for bus fare to doctors’ appointments or for any other basic needs.

Anything you can do to restore full funding for IDA will help District residents with disabilities avoid severe hardships. Thank you.
****************************************
For more information or to get involved in advocacy to support IDA, please contact Bread for the City’s Legal Clinic at (202) 386-7081 or contact Scott McNeilly at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, scott@legalclinic.org/ (202) 328-5508.


--Lucas Sharma

More and more bags!

In the wake of the Bag Tax, Bread for the City has become a distribution center for reusable bags. Our clients, who on average earn just $7,000/year, can't afford to pay for bags -- but we can help them mitigate the effects on their wallets.

Our goal is to give every client a reusable tote. We can't do it alone. Recently, we blogged about the generous contributions from large donors like Whole Foods, D.D.O.E., Target and Giant. And now that Safeway has generously fulfilled its pledge (and then some!) with a donation of 7,000 bags, Bread for the City has reached a total of 15,000 reusable bags.

While this is impressive, our food pantry serves enough people to pass out these bags in a few short months! We want to make sure every client gets one. There is still a lot of work to do, and now you can help!

Please consider organizing a reusable bag drive at work, school, church, or around the neighborhood. Many of us have extra bags lying around (a few shopping bags too many, canvas totes with random logos, free bags from work functions, etc). Contact Jeffrey Wankel at jwankel@breadforthecity.org to receive simple instructions for setting up your drive today!

Our goal is to collect 3,000 additional bags through drives. I’ll continue to update you on our progress as the campaign moves forward.

Visit to Ms. S's house

Lucas Sharma is a member of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and volunteers full-time at Bread for the City as the Legal Clinic Coordinator in our Northwest Center. The following post borrows heavily from his personal blog recording his experiences during his year of service (lucassharma.blogspot.com).

Last week, I went on a client visit with Rebecca and Eli to deliver food and a donated television to one of our legal clinic clients. Ms. S lives in the Northeast section of the city. As we drove from our Southeast office across the Anacostia and back into Northeast, the area looked familiar. My roommate Jordan and I had biked to that very intersection during one of our biking expeditions a few weeks prior and had commented on the presence of stores, chain stores, etc… in an area we might not have expected them.

Perhaps one block from this area, an area that includes chain stores and retail development is the building where Ms. S lives. From the outside façade of the client’s building, life looked normal and average – nothing out of the ordinary. As Eli opened the door of the apartment building, I was transported into another world – trash was the first thing I saw in the hallways of the building… cigarette butts lined the floors… We arrived at the top of the stairs to meet Ms. S, who told Eli that we should walk around back of the building to enter her unit. We walked back into the sunshine, around the building, and up a flight of stairs.

This morning I was fishing for a word to describe walking up those back stairs. I think eerie describes the way I felt walking into Ms. S’s apartment building. The dark messy hallways contained large holes in the walls. The doors to the various apartments had violent images of death and corpses graffitied on them. We stepped through a large pile of garbage as we walked toward Ms. S’s apartment – the garbage could have been the home to rats and bed bugs for all I know. We handed Ms. S a bag of food, chatted for a second, and said goodbye.

This is the aspect of poverty I don’t have to see at Bread for the City. The image of Ms. S’s apartment building is imprinted in my mind as a sign of mental illness, the effects of drugs and prostitution, lack of opportunity, hopelessness… the effects of the poverty cycle that is present in our society.

I was more struck here than I was in Zambia. Zambia, an African nation, a nation mired in deep poverty. Walking along the dirt streets of Zambezi, glances at homes with thatch roofs and no running water, with children wearing second- or third-hand clothing from America, with the people staring at the white outsiders. That is an image of poverty too -- an image of some of the world’s most absolute poverty.

I think as Americans, with our media coverage, we’ve been conditioned to know that to expect in Africa. That is the African poverty we expect when we travel there. It is no surprise to us when we see it. Though it tugs at our hearts and we grapple with the site of the poverty, it is exactly what we expected to see.

I live in Washington, DC. The capital of the United States of America, the “richest country in the world.” I live in the same city as the U.S. Capitol building, the White House, the Smithsonian Institution Museums, the Memorials, and the Washington Monument. But I also live in a city where Ms. S lives perhaps worse than the people of Zambia. Ms. S’s apartment is just hidden by the brick exterior. Bricks are hard and sturdy. Bricks don’t reveal what is inside.

To borrow a phrase from Norman Maclean and adapt it to my own experience, I am haunted by the image of Ms. S’s house. I have not lost hope, however. Instead, my experience with Ms. S makes clear my vocation to act with justice, to love tenderly, to serve one another, and to walk humbly with God.