Funding for Olaiya’s Cradle, a program operated by Sasha Bruce Youthwork, faces a $190,000 gap after the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development denied a request to keep funding the program.
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A version of this article first appeared in Street Sense Media.
Althea Thompson is a woman experiencing homelessness who transferred from the Harriet Tubman Women’s Shelter to the Holiday Inn on Rhode Island Ave. NW, which the DC Department of Human Services (DHS) has used as a Pandemic Emergency Program for Medically Vulnerable Individuals (PEP-V) center since March. Usually, residents are assigned case managers within three weeks of admittance, according to the DHS. But after eight weeks, Thompson had still not been matched with a case manager.
Case managers are essential in helping connect shelter residents to housing, a process that can take years for many people experiencing homelessness in DC. Without one, Thompson is completely unable to progress her case. She keeps asking DHS staff at the hotel why she hasn’t been connected to a case manager yet, and says the department’s personnel keep telling her she will eventually be given one.