3 Generations Reid Family Housing
Donation protected
My dear friend Joann Reid, her daughter, and granddaughter Trinity (Minnie) are about to lose their housing because they owe $1,500 in back rent to DC Housing Authority. This 3 generation family of women are victims of the bureaucracy of being poor.
When they started receiving a social security check (that stopped after three months without warning) and a welfare to work check (cut off when her daughter couldn't find work) DCHA increased their rent dramatically--and then the checks stopped, but the rent didn't decrease. While Joann works diligently to sort out her Social Security situation and her daughter continues looks for work, they need help getting caught up.
I've known Joann for 5 years, since I bottomed out my truck behind her house on my way down to a community garden. She has volunteered in that garden pretty much every day since. She is the face and heart of the garden. Joann is a 24/7 volunteer. In her neighborhood, if a senior is immobile she visits, brings vegetables and flowers, cooks for and bathes them. When somone in the community passes, she almost certainly is cooking for their repass. If a young woman is pregnant and needs a peaceful place to rest, they are on her couch. She is always, always babysitting-her own grandchildren and great grandchildren and so many other children. Joann is always working to make the world around her more loving and a safer place to be. If Joann and her family lost their housing it would be devastating to them and to their community in this,our city, DC.
And Minnie, by the way, is probably the smartest almost two year old I know. Her potential is gigantic.
Joann and her family will go to court in February. If they have the $1,500 they will not lose their housing. Every single dollar from this campaign will go directly to paying the back pay for rent. Any extra will be kept in a fund in case the Reid family needs further assistance before they get through the red tape and their rent is adjusted accordingly.
Joann, though reluctant to have me ask for this money, will be unbelievably grateful and will continue to volunteer her entire life to making this a better world. And she and Tiffany will continue to raise the insanely smart and wonderful Minnie in their home in NE DC.
When they started receiving a social security check (that stopped after three months without warning) and a welfare to work check (cut off when her daughter couldn't find work) DCHA increased their rent dramatically--and then the checks stopped, but the rent didn't decrease. While Joann works diligently to sort out her Social Security situation and her daughter continues looks for work, they need help getting caught up.
I've known Joann for 5 years, since I bottomed out my truck behind her house on my way down to a community garden. She has volunteered in that garden pretty much every day since. She is the face and heart of the garden. Joann is a 24/7 volunteer. In her neighborhood, if a senior is immobile she visits, brings vegetables and flowers, cooks for and bathes them. When somone in the community passes, she almost certainly is cooking for their repass. If a young woman is pregnant and needs a peaceful place to rest, they are on her couch. She is always, always babysitting-her own grandchildren and great grandchildren and so many other children. Joann is always working to make the world around her more loving and a safer place to be. If Joann and her family lost their housing it would be devastating to them and to their community in this,our city, DC.
And Minnie, by the way, is probably the smartest almost two year old I know. Her potential is gigantic.
Joann and her family will go to court in February. If they have the $1,500 they will not lose their housing. Every single dollar from this campaign will go directly to paying the back pay for rent. Any extra will be kept in a fund in case the Reid family needs further assistance before they get through the red tape and their rent is adjusted accordingly.
Joann, though reluctant to have me ask for this money, will be unbelievably grateful and will continue to volunteer her entire life to making this a better world. And she and Tiffany will continue to raise the insanely smart and wonderful Minnie in their home in NE DC.
Organizer
Katharine Lee
Organizer
Washington D.C., DC
