Housing and Healthcare Assistance

Donations may also be sent via cash app to $RHam75 or Venmo at Richard Hamilton @ Richard-Hamilton-102

As a COVID-19 measure, I am told shelters are not accepting folx who've been out 48 hours or longer. Housing assistance will go a long way in keeping me and mine off the street this week!!!

Bio

Black; gay; 44 year old;he/him/they; Gender-nonconforming; artist; writer; poet; homeless now for 1 year in the DC metro area; Like many, I was laid off on March 13 due to public school closures. At the time, I was on a pathway to permanent housing—living in area emergency shelters (New York Ave and 801 East Men's shelter in DC). I was scheduled to join the Emery work-bed program just as the pandemic hit. Due to COVID-19, new applicants to the program were delayed. Still no word on my status or when the program will resume. I have chronic lymphedema in my right leg for which I was denied Social Security Disability again. I am in the process of appealing that decision. Medicaid's pat refusal to pay for a compression pump means I need to raise $5000 for a Flexi-Touch. Money can buy those with lymphedema a $30,000 corrective surgery, $100/hr colonics (which aid the lymph system in moving toxic buildups), necessary compression stockings, and more. I need financial support to manage my condition while unemployed as I navigate the healthcare system. Being homeless in the District does not help matters!

For those of us who live under daily threat of extermination, COVID has been both blessing and curse. It reminds the world that we are still here. Yet, it dwarfs everyday antagonism, making miniature what folks like us experience without pause, turning instead to the ways a broad band of people are effected, especially the monied and elite in times of disaster. Thank you for helping me and mine find some semblance of joy and reprieve, safety. Richard