‘I Don’t Deserve to Die on the Street:’ Inside a Funeral for the Homeless

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http://www.nationofchange.org/2014/12/25/dont-deserve-die-street-inside-funeral-homeless/


Year after year hundreds of people die without the dignity of a home. While cities have shown that it is possible to merge private development with the public interest, will this provide permanent supportive housing to the homeless?

WASHINGTON, DC — It’s a cold, grey Friday morning in Washington, D.C., and Schyla Pondexter-Moore is standing next to a coffin, asking the assembled homeless activists and non-profit housing advocates to get radical.

“Regardless of how much money I have, my education level, whatever I’ve been through, I don’t deserve to die on the street,” the energetic Empower D.C. activist shouts into the microphone in a small tent set up across the street from the building that serves as the District’s city hall. “We need to go back to sitting in there,” she says, pointing across Pennsylvania Avenue, “not leaving, house protests, find out where they live and go to their houses!”

At least one of the city politicians she’s referencing is in the crowd that hovers in and around the tent, listening to Pondexter-Moore and another dozen speakers from the local activist community. Most of the elected officials stand stage right of the coffin, a simple grey-blond shape of wood set atop a table in the center of the tent.

Friday is National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day. The program handed out here today lists 44 people who have died homeless in the D.C. metro area in 2014. But in the middle of the speeches, word comes in that 11 more names have to be added to the list.

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