00:00:05.000 - 00:00:37.550

Today is July 20th. We are in the Brightwood neighborhood, and I'm here with James Shabbazz. My name is Reginald Black. Do I have permission to record this interview? Yes, you do. Could you tell us your full name? And when and where were you born? My full name is James Shabazz. I was born in Washington, DC, March 1st, 1951.

00:00:41.100 - 00:01:00.100

Have you ever experienced homelessness or are you currently experiencing homelessness? I experienced homelessness in the past. How would you describe your current living situation? I should add that, that period of homelessness was approximately seven years.

00:01:01.400 - 00:01:33.600

Okay. What was the— Oh, how would you describe your current living situation? My current situation is great in terms of not being homeless. It is very comfortable and allows me to have privacy and peace of mind. But my situation is very tentative because I couldn't survive one more rent increase.

00:01:36.100 - 00:03:32.100

Do you think homelessness is a big problem in Washington DC and the larger region? Yes, I would say that homelessness continues to be a big problem in Washington D.C. for two main reasons. The government and nonprofit sector, lack a holistic approach to homeless constituents. The leadership is required by case managers and activists that helps to motivate and develop the will to do for self in homeless individuals. The face of homelessness in Washington D.C. is that of black men and women whose self-esteem and and self-conscious and the will to live has been blunted by the effects of post-traumatic slavery syndrome. And do you think this affects the ability of people to live in the city? Like you said, you were born and raised here. So over time, how has the ability to live in the city changed over time in ways that impacts homelessness. Are there more homeless people? Less? Well certainly, I don't remember seeing homeless people in Washington, D.C. growing up. And throughout the '70s and '80s, upon returning back from the military, I began to see homelessness in the streets of Washington, D.C. grow and develop in the late '80s and '90s and definitely the first two decades of the 21st century.

00:03:34.200 - 00:05:42.900

So what do you think are some of the biggest causes of homelessness here in DC? Well, I will talk about one aspect of it that I know. Around 30 years ago, the DC public school system closed down all of the free training in the DC public school system. That existed, not only for school-age youth, but also young adults. Veterans coming home from military service or high school dropouts, peole who had to leave school in order to go to work or even people coming home from prison. These training programs for school-aged youth and and adults was closed down and for the last 30 years, we've had going on two generations of particularly young black men who have not been able to have access to these skills so that they can make a decent living or start a business. So that is one aspect or cause of homelessness in Washington DC in my opinion. Okay. And do you think, you know, some of the closure of some of these schools and the, you know,termination of some of these programs, are they affecting like you or your family's ability to have a place or housing and how has that changed over the time that you've lived here? Could you repeat that question, please?

00:05:44.000 - 00:10:48.200

The question is has what you were just saying about the closure of the trade schools and those things. Have they affected you or your family's ability to have housing, affordable housing, and how has that changed over the course of the time you've been living here? As I said earlier, when you have almost two generations of people who free training in the DC public schools for school-age Youth and adults. When they can't get this training, but yet immigrants legal and illegal coming across the border who have been trained by American schools, who came to their country, to give them this vocational training. And they come across the border with those skills. And then for the first few years, they're willing to be exploited in these jobs with low raise wages, but then after a while, once learning the ropes of the system, they're able to branch off and demand proper salaries and qualify for contracts from the government and the private sector. For new construction sites, they have the competitive edge over black men and women who have been denied those opportunities in the same city. So does this particular job situation. Like how does this affect see like your ability to access health? Does it limit that? What kind of jobs do you see that are available? You think they or do you think they pay enough? You were saying that well, some jobs are exploited to the nature in terms of immigrants. So you know what would be the quality of these jobs that you're describing? Cons are they can you access them? Do they pay enough? Well, the problem the problem for me as a 71 year old black man on a fixed income, with a monthly rent of $1000 and almost $200 in utilities, if I get one more rent increase I'll be homeless. Because I can't pay any more money. Now, the other option for me is to get a job, okay? But at 71, I'm no longer looking for a job because for two reasons. Number one, since the age of 65, when I sought employment, okay? I found out for two years that I was being denied employment because of my age, you know, even though I felt, you know, that I could physically and mentally handle the job positions that I applied for. You see, then there's the other, then there's the other threat of working additional money and then taking the wrist working earning additional money from taking on a job. Just to survive. Just to pay bills, okay? I stand a chance to lose the modest stipend that I currently receive from VA, which I couldn't afford to lose. You know, for its, in other words, if I got a job and I'm earning extra money to be able to save a measly $100 a month in a bank account and adequately pay bills, then I might run a file of the regulations governing the stipend that I received from VA, and they'll cut that off. And then with health issues that I have, you know, now I have no income. What am I going to do? Now, I dare say that there are many people, elders, in the same situation that I am. Yeah.

00:10:49.200 - 00:13:06.600

And like, do you think like they're not enough jobs for them? Is it the hiring jobs exist, but they don't pay enough? As you were saying, you're having trouble getting hired, but it may be more like a policy thing. Well, I'm I'm no longer looking. The only other option that I can actively pursue is self-employment. You know, some some kind of business opportunity that would allow me to not only make money, but the shock of losing the stipend that I currently receive. Okay. That seems to be but as far as the job market, I'm no longer looking. because you know no one told me that I was too old, but I knew what they were saying, right? Okay so why y continue to look for job? To increase my income right now with my income situation and conditions and my age. The only other opportunity and route open to me is self-employment, right? A business opportunity. Okay, So, you were saying you get a stipend from the VA. Is that like a government service? It's a stipend that is considered to be disability, okay? In other words, because I'm 65 years old and served during war time, I'm eligible for what would normally be 60 percent disability. In fact it's called a disability stipend.

00:13:06.700 - 00:15:22.600

Okay. Do you think government services in the changes to services have impacted homelessness by things better? Are they worse? I think that the government services are woefully inadequate to the homeless. Woefully inadequate. First of all, the jobs that are offered are low-income jobs. So if the homeless person is given the opportunity to take advantage of something called "rapid rehousing housing program" and his rent is fifteen hundred dollars a month and he can get into this program, but he won't have the benefit of a housing voucher. So if his job does not cover his rent, then he won't be in that apartment very long. He will lose that apartment because he can't pay that rent above and beyond the date that the government will supplement his rent. There's a time limit six months or a year. Okay. So, if he fails to secure training of vocational training or scholastic training, you know in that six-month period or that year period, that will allow him to have at least a 100% increase in income, then he will not be able to to continue to live in in his household after the temporary government subsidy is over. So he's homeless again. Have you ever had any experience with public housing? No.

00:15:23.000 - 00:24:07.100

Okay. I applied for public housing. I applied for a Section 8 voucher to get into public housing. I applied for a DC voucher to get into private housing with a housing subsidy, but at every turn, I was not able to not able to take advantage of that opportunity for two reasons. Number one, a list of being on a list of 40,000 people for the government program and the requirement or the suggestion that I seek the help of certain nonprofit organizations that would help you get housing. If you have a mental problem and I refuse to take that alternative. I refuse to take that option. You know, I was aware that many people had gotten housing with the connivance of certain case managers to say that this person had a mental problem, okay, that person got a crazy check. That person got housing, but that person had to take the medication in order to, and he had to prove that he was taking that medication by monthly blood tests and then within a few years, that person's brain was turned into swiss cheese. See, because he took that medication. I refuse to take that option. You know, I refuse to take that option. The only way I was able to get free from homelessness is through my unofficial status or unlicensed status as a street vendor in Washington DC which, while risky, satisfied the requirements of a landlord that I located on my own. And she offered an amount of money of rent that I could pay per month and she verified my income by coming to witness where I was conducting business everyday. Just gave her the confidence to rent to me and it also gave the confidence of a counselor at a local veterans program to help me out with housing payments for six months and after that time, I was on my own. And so for seven years I have successfully, you know, kept my apartment with the help of the government subsidy and the little money I make on the side as an unlicensed street vendor. Congratulations to that by the way. So, I don't know if you stayed on the street or in shelters when you were homeless, but how would you describe the state of the homeless shelters in DC and what impact do they have? By and large, I would say that the average shelter, whether it's a so-called low barrier shelter, where you have limited hours or the work shelter that requires you to have income and save your money for a year or two before you found suitable housing or shelter like full-service 24-hour shelter like the Second and D shelter, Mitch Schneider shelter in Washington DC, I would say that all of those shelters that I lived in, low barrier and high barrier shelters, for me, they were adequate because I had a place to sleep. I had a place to take a shower. I had a place to get a few hours of peace and tranquility so I could get up the next day and pursue a plan of action to get myself out of homelessness. Okay? But the problem is with most of the shelters including the one that I spent the most time in, the Second and D shelter, was gross mismanagement. And in the case of the low barrier shelters run by Catholic Charitiesand others who had contracts to provide those, their staff was Ill trained. Many of them, you know, from prisons and were given those jobs without the knowledge of how to understand human mind. And the psychology of the human being, especially human being that's under the stress of homelessness. You got to know how to deal with that, you know, in ways that doesn't drive a person into real insanity to where they need medication. If they had people in these shelters that were trained, not necessarily with a college degree, but training in the function of the human mind that has access to food clothing and shelter. Okay? And never has experienced, you know, the trauma of homelessness. Okay. So you want the homeless person to get into a situation where their mind is healed from the ravages of homelessness and they can be restored to a healthy mindset, so that once they get into housing, they could function properly, you know? And they will never lose that housing. But the staffs in the low barrier shelters and the high barrier shelters, they lacked the proper training. And then, of course, you have, on the nonprofit side and the government agency side, you have a staff of case managers and bureaucrats who really don't care for the people that they serve, the homeless that they serve, you know, there's a class difference. You see that's a problem. And then of course, you have the situation where one case manager has too many clients. They might have 50, 75 clients. That does not allow that case manager or that bureaucrat the opportunity to take the necessary time to spend on each cline.t You know, to find out where they need a hand, where they need a boost in their psychic, to lift them up and to help remold them and guide them and inspire them towards a mentality.that they're now that they're willing to say I'm able to do for myself, just give me give me the opportunity. That's not happening in the shelters and that's not happening with the nonprofit sector or the bureaucrats in the DC government.

00:24:10.000 - 00:30:52.400

So you were saying that people who may have some criminal justice involvement, they had issues. Do you think people's lives are shaped by criminal records? I can tell you how people people's lives are affected by the threat of having a criminal record and the actual reality of having a criminal record. When I was growing up as a child, the, the first lesson that I learned from my parents and from the elders in the community and teachers in the school. When you out in the world, you not only representing yourself but you're represent your family, you're representing your community and you're representing your race. Tell my black people, now, right? If you go out there and do anything, you criminal or disgraceful, you are not only hurting yourself, but you're hurting everybody else, right? And then they went further and said any man or woman, but particularly men, who have a criminal record, you are destroyed for life. That stigma will haunt you to the end for life. You have no opportunities. So we live with that threat before we get in trouble, right? And then if you don't go to prison and get a criminal record, then you have a further threat if you go into the military, and you get a less than honorable discharge. This will stop you from getting any meaningful employment. This will be a disgrace, you know, public disgrace against you and your character and your record to the end of your days. You will not be able to get meaningful employment, particularly in the government sector where the high salaries are you see? So now, if you fail to stay on the right path and you get a criminal record or you get a bad conduct discharge, that could you know the reality of those things because you've been told that these things will stop you will paralyze you and stop you from trying to overcome that obstacle, you see? So, you don't even have to meet the obstacle from the system. There may be no obstacles, you may be able to overcome come it if you just applied yourself because there's always a way. But if you've been told that this is going to be a problem then, and if you believe that, then you're an ex-convict and you are homeless, and that's how you probably will spend the last two or three decades of your life, into your death. Do you think the criminalization of poverty or homelessness is an issue? Because you were saying that there's this fear of, okay, if I do this or that I might get arrested, that's going to follow me the rest of my life, right? You gotta do. You think there is? Yeah, of course, I don't know if it's human nature or not. I know we've got a lot of these churches and we got a lot of Non-profits and individuals are running around here providing food and other services to the homeless. But that doesn't Inspire the homeless person to get up off of that sidewalk or get out of that shelter and seek opportunities to do for self. Now, one thing that happens to you when you are homeless, you feel the hatred of the world. You feel the rejection of the world, you know, even someone who puts a dollar in your cup or your hat, if you're a panhandler, you know they might put that in there, but you can see the disdain on their face. You see the hatred even on their face. You feel the brunt of neighborhoods rising up against you and your fellows if you if you live in a homeless camp in somebody's neighborhood. You know, that's not a very good feeling. And so where do you go? If they shut your camp down? What do you do? You know, there have been people arrested for being homeless. Loitering laws? You see? So this is a problem. It causes a sense of alienation in people's lives and people's minds and the longer you're homeless, the longer you're out there homeless, the more esstrange you become from the real world or what they say is the real world, and you may not even have a desire to become a part of polite society again. You become happy with where you are. Now, in my case, I resisted those urges and the pull and the lore of those feelings and fought to get out of homelessness. Even when my way out of homelessness was hindered by the DC and the federal government.

00:30:54.400 - 00:33:35.020

I don't know if you've had experience with this, but do you think the War on Drugs back in the '90s and 2000s has had any impact on homelessness? The War on Drugs or the Drug War came to folks in two ways. The first way, the first strategy in this war, was to actually flood the communities, poor communities, black communities, with drugs. That was war itself. That kills people. That destabilizes people. That while it causes business opportunities, you know, for some, it creates desolation and life deterioration for others. So, then if you get locked up for drugs, now you you have a record, you have a criminal record. So yeah, the the War on Drugs influenced and still influences homelessness today because the drugs are here for a reason. And those who abuse drugs will suffer the consequences of using drugs. And one of those is rejection by society, especially in the employment line. So, do you think policing or policing policies affect homelessness. Does police brutality have an impact on homelessness? Well, the police, in my view, are just like all other segments of society that reject the homeless who look down on the homeless and have a less-than-stellar view of a homeless individual. But because he wears a badge and he has the power to abuse people, then he may be abusive when it comes to homeless individuals. I might add that in the downtown area back around 30 years ago, when the business organization called the downtown bits or the city citywide bit.

00:33:37.300 - 00:37:45.900

What year are we talking about? We're talking about the 1990s when the bid concept was invading Washington, DC and the model was brought here from other states, other cities and other states and other jurisdictions. The way the bid process works is a certain territory of businesses will come together and agree to form a business improvement district and they will approach the government and say, hey, we will take care of the security and the sanitation over these square blocks of public space owned by the the public. We will take care of all that for you, but you got to give us control over the sidewalks, okay? And we will take care of nuisances such as homeless individuals and street vendors who inhabit those those sidewalks. And of the ofcourse, those those businesses would, for the free sandwiches or payoffs to the police, they would take care of the homeless problem or the street vendor issue or no sidewalks. That's one example. Do you think that homelessness impacted people's health? Did it impact your health? Yes, homelessness will impact your health. It will impact your ability to live if you don't know how to survive on the streets. Living on the streets and even in the homeless shelter, there's a technique that you must learn. And usually, as you come into homeless society, there is a comradery amongst the homeless that is strong enough to keep new people from freezing to death. They will teach you how to arrange your newspapers and your cardboard and your blankets and your comforters, you know, whatever it is that you need to stay warm. They will teach you how to do that. and some will sleep in clusters for protection, but to live on the street and have a place to sleep at night is only one problem. The next day, you got to get up and you got to go get a bath and you got to go get food and you have to go and and take care of your personal business. You might have to replace a license that was stolen because somebody took your wallet. There's a whole bunch of survival skills that you must learn. And one of those survival skills that you must learn is to handle the rejection of the overall society and harassment from the police department because you're homeless. And this affects your self-esteem and your will to live, your will to survive, your will to conquer, your will to overcome. That's all intact in the beginning, but after awhile you, when you get beat down over and over again and one day, you just stop.

00:37:47.700 - 00:42:27.900

What would you describe the state of the health services that are available to homeless people? Are they changes that may be helpful or not that you are aware of? Now, I would say that many of the health challenges that are faced by the homeless are self-induced. Some come naturally with homelessness. If you live on the street, then you may not get a proper meal every day. You may not get balanced meals every day. You may not be able to take a shower or a bath every day. You may not be able to have a fresh change of clothes every day or twice a week. So all of those factors could affect your physical health, where you lower your resistance to diseases. Lord. And also your self-esteem is damaged. So now you got psychic illnesses which could lead to seeking the pacifier of drugs or alcohol. You see? So, the lack of health on the part of many homeless could be self-induced because we have to understand that the homeless do have adequate healthcare. We would have to say that the government, the DC government, provides adequate health care. So if you have not lost your faculties and you are in pretty much in possession of your rational mind, then all you have to do is go to the hospital and seek treatment and hopefully be cured or relieved the whatever physical problems you have. But if you don't care about life, if you just give up and your issues grow psychically and physically every day, then you will probably die from untreated illnesses on the streets prematurely, I might add. That's probably why there should be an end to homelessness. So do you know of any groups or strategies that people are engaged in to try to end homelessness? I know groups who have answers. Workable answers proving a provable strategies and tactics to end homelessness but lack the resources, the money, to carry out those missions. Now, we have homeless services coming from the government, and we have home and services coming from various nonprofit organizations in Washington DC. But in my view, the nonprofit's by and large are just opportunities for the owners or the managers of those nonprofits to pay themselves to live a comfortable lifestyle at the expense of the homelessness without providing the proper mental and physical re-training that the homeless need so that they can be inspired to stand up in full confidence and help themselves with the tangible resources offered by nonprofit organizations and the DC government.

00:42:29.400 - 00:49:54.700

So you're saying that homeless people themselves should be a movement or something to mobilize against homelessness? First of all, there should not be any homeless problem in Washington DC because Washington DC has the resources and the personnel in the private sector and in the government. When I say the private sector, I'm talking about between the churches and the nonprofits and the government, there's enough resources there to help any homeless person who sincerely wants to end his homelessness to get off the streets. But that's not happening, and I would say that 80% of the reason why that's not happening is because the homeless population is not doing anything to collectively to help themselves. They're not, they're not a force. They're not a conscious force. On the front lines to battle for help that they truly need. So, they're in a situation where they are sheepishly in hopes or belief that the government is going to give them a housing voucher one day. And they will come off the street and live happily ever after, but I waited from 2007 until 2015 and they kept telling me that they were still on 2003. In that forty thousand waiting list. So I knew in 2015, that I had to go outside of the back box and make something happen for myself and market myself to somebody and say, hey, I'm ready to make this move help me. If I didn't do that outside of the box, then I would still be in Second and D right now waiting for a housing voucher Yeah, I hope that answered the full scope of your question. So if the homeless did collectively create a movement to end homelessness, what would be some of the most critical issues that that movement should focus on? Well, the first thing that would happen. If 10,000 homeless in Washington, DC, majority of that number is black men, by the mere fact that this movement would take an interest in its own political and economic struggle in homelessness and then they would be learning things that they didn't previously know. And they would be networking with groups of people in the private sector and the government sector learning more things. This will give them the confidence to not only fight for their recognition and active help from the private sector and the government. But it would also give them the self confidence to say, any help that the private sector can give me and the government can give me, I welcome. But now I'm gaining the self-confidence and the vision to create my own opportunity somewhere. For example, for $50 I can get a rake. A box of bags, plastic bags, and a hand lawn mower, and I can cut grass and I can save that money. And at the end of six months, I've got three or four thousand dollars saved up. And now I can get a business license and now I can get a truck or I can get an electric lawnmower to prepare for the the leaf season when the leaves fall and the next full season in the following year and then perhaps earn twenty thousand as I build my clientele. But I can't think think like that and I can't make that happen from a very primitive level if nobody's helping me to think like that. Nobody is from the private sector or the government is telling me you're giving me an opportunity, letting me know hey man, you can start a business for $50 and in and a year from now, be earning twenty five thousand dollars. And then in three years be earning $100,000 as you expand your lawn care services and leaf services throughout the city. This requires being able to get out of the box of the hopelessness and helplessness, the mentality of homelessness and that's not coming from from the private sector and that's not coming from the government agencies, like the commission on homelessness or some of these non profit groups and shelters. Then you leave these people where they are. You know, in a hopeless or helpless state. So the only answer that I can see that's going to help some real movement towards the end of homelessness in Washington DC is that the homeless have to take an active political and economic step into the political and economic arena and advocate for themselves and create a force and that's going to open up doors for those people who want to walk through those doors.

00:49:59.500 - 00:52:56.500

So, are there any questions you think I should have asked? Anything I might have left out? No, I can't think of any anything else, Or maybe you have some other ideas you'd like to share. My closing thoughts would be this. In Washington, DC, I saw as as a fellow advocate in a group of activists and advocates working on something called a DC Comprehensive Plan. We worked on that plan from from 2016 to about 2020. And during that plan, we learned that by the year 2045, they wanted to increase the population of DC towards a million people. But they wanted to decrease the number of black people in a certain income bracket in Washington DC. And once that was done, they would have a comfortable margin of black population in Washington DC, somewhere between 12 and 18 percent. So, if the black population is 42% in Washington DC now and the black population is 2 or 3 percentage, points ahead of the whites, but then we have percentages of Asians and Spanish-speaking people too that we have to have to compete against then a lot more than 10,000 homeless are going to be eliminated as a black population in Washington DC by the year 2045. And I think that not only the homeless, the present generation homeless need to understand this, and I think that grassroots of DC need to understand this and I think that the so-called borgeouis element of black DC needs to understand that because the way gentrification works, if you can't pay to live in the city, then you're going to have to leave and that includes the so-called middle-class.

00:53:01.600 - 00:53:02.100

Thanks man.