The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-29)

C6 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.SUNDAY, MAY 29 , 2022

understanding that it was going

to end on a certain date,” Wil-

liams said. “During the pandem-

ic, we were in a constant state of

hiring. I don’t think we were ever

able to stop and say, ‘Okay. We

are fully staffed.’ ”

Jeffrey C. McKay (D-At large),

chair of the county board, said

the local homeless problem

could be a lot worse after thou-

sands of people lost jobs during

the pandemic in a region where

affordable housing is hard to

come by.

That shows that many of the

homelessness-prevention pro-

grams in the county have been

working, he said. But, as some

people get off the streets, others

become newly homeless, making

it “feel like you are kind of on a

treadmill,” he added.

The review of the county

homelessness-prevention plan is

meant to discover “what is work-

ing with regularity?” he said.

“What is a waste of resources?

What is something another juris-

diction is doing that’s a best

practice that we need to try to

experiment with here?”

Outside her tent in the woods

near the government center in

Reston, Joan McDonald said she

just wants a place she and her

unemployed friend can afford on

the $24 per hour salary she

makes as a bus driver.

McDonald, 48, has been home-

less since 2016, after her brother

asked her to leave his home in

Springfield to make room for

their ailing parents. She and her

friend, who became homeless

after her husband left, have been

in their tent in Reston since

February.

Subsidized apartments they

have been offered are still too

expensive at around $1,500 a

month, when they factor in other

expenses, McDonald said. “It

hurts,” she said, sitting at a picnic

table in her bus driver uniform

after just finishing a shift.

now gone after the “Neighbors in

Tents” campaign, involving food

and water donations to the tent

dwellers, garnered some public-

ity. The tent dwellers moved to a

nearby wooded area.

But the message resonated

with county officials. Alcorn cre-

ated a community task force

whose mission will be to craft a

master plan for the Reston area

that will include more perma-

nent supportive housing and up-

grades to the Embry Rucker

emergency shelter.

“We do need more shelter

beds,” Alcorn said during an

interview, calling it “a moral

obligation” to provide as many

solutions as possible to people

without homes. “We are short.”

Another obstacle has been the

inability of local nonprofits and

religious organizations that op-

erate homelessness-prevention

programs to maintain staff and

volunteers, a problem related to

stress and lower pay than what

one might earn in the private

sector that has been made worse

by concerns about coronavirus

infection, county officials said.

“Turnover is typically quite

high among the staff at the

shelters,” said Thomas Barnett,

deputy director of the Office to

Prevent and End Homelessness.

“That creates challenges, in cre-

ating stability and high quality

services.”

Maura Williams, vice presi-

dent of housing and community

services at the Cornerstones non-

profit organization, said it was

particularly difficult to keep staff

working under the county hotel

program. Cornerstones had oper-

ated one of the six hotels used for

that program, serving about 90

people, with the understanding

that it would be for three

months. Then the program was

extended several times.

“It was great for the program,

but you lose staff when that

happens because they had an

Many of those people had

previously been staying inside

area hotels through the county

Quarantine, Protection, Isolation

and Decompression Program,

launched in 2020 as a way to

guard against the spread of the

coronavirus.

But that temporary program

ended in March, in part because

coronavirus vaccinations are

now widely available in Fairfax

but also because area nonprofits

struggled to keep it staffed and

hotel rooms were harder to find

after the tourism industry re-

bounded in the area.

“We don’t want people to be

living in tents. That is absolutely

not what we are advocating for,”

Selvaraj D’Souza said. “But what

options did they have?”

All but two of those tents are

housing. A Best Buy store recent-

ly shut down and is vacant. A

shuttered Inova Hospital reha-

bilitation center for the elderly

has been vacant since 2014, used

as a place to sleep by some

homeless residents until, in Feb-

ruary, they were forced to leave

the facility, which is boarded up

and scheduled to be demolished.

“We have plenty of space here,”

she said.

In April, Reston Strong sought

to bring more urgency to the

issue by helping people who were

forced to leave a nearby hypo-

thermia shelter after it shut

down for the season to set up

tents outside the Fairfax County

North Governmental Center,

home to the office of Supervisor

Walter Alcorn (D-Hunter Mill)

and a county police station.

sites where more supportive

housing could be developed. The

county will also investigate

building more emergency shel-

ters in commercial and indus-

trial areas of Fairfax, a more

viable option after the pandemic

forced some businesses to shut

down.

Sarah Selvaraj D’Souza, execu-

tive director of Reston Strong,

said her community group has

been lobbying for that alterna-

tive. The organization, originally

formed in 2020 to provide aid to

those suffering from the pan-

demic, has helped dozens of

homeless people who have been

living in tents in the Reston area.

She pointed out several large

commercial sites around the

community that would make

good candidates for temporary

that housed the homeless inside
hotels.
“Some things never change
and that is very, very troubling,”
Supervisor Penelope Gross (D-
Mason) said Tuesday before the
board approved a motion for the
review.
Nearly 1,200 people in Fairfax
are considered to be homeless,
according to a spot count con-
ducted in January. That is about
35 percent lower than the home-
less population count in the
county in 2008.
But, after a spike in homeless-
ness in 2020, there are 204 more
homeless people in Fairfax now
than there were in 2018, accord-
ing to a report on homelessness
in the region published earlier
this month by the Metropolitan
Washington Council of Govern-
ments.
With an estimated 282 adults
sleeping in the streets, while
others stay in emergency shelters
or some other form of temporary
housing, county officials are
searching for ways to add more
shelter beds and housing options
in Fairfax.
There are six county-owned
emergency shelters in Fairfax
operated by local nonprofits with
a total of 510 beds in a mix of
space set aside for individual
adults or entire families. Some
facilities have a waitlist of several
hundred people to get inside.
There are also 670 beds avail-
able inside supportive housing
complexes that offer mental
health counseling, job training,
financial literacy and other ser-
vices, in addition to a place to
sleep, also with long waitlists.
Other programs offer emergency
rental and utility payments and
access to affordable child care to
people in danger of losing their
homes.
The Board of Supervisors di-
rected county staff to search for

HOMELESS FROM C1

Fairfax reviews pledge to end homelessness as tents linger

CRAIG HUDSON FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Joan McDonald, a bus driver who has been homeless for three months, moves around items next to her

tent in Reston. Fairfax County is reviewing efforts to end homelessness that were established in 2008.

What we need to do is get up

and make sure lawmakers know

we’re done with their prioritizing

guns over children. What we need

to do is invest in the services,

programs and people who can

keep potential shooters from

becoming murderers. What we

need to do is hold law

enforcement officials

accountable.

Details that have emerged of the

police response in Uvalde show

that law enforcement officials

failed those children, teachers and

their families in horrific ways.

Officers not only held back parents

desperate to rescue their children,

they waited outside those

classrooms for nearly 50 minutes,

prioritizing their safety over the

lives of students who were being

tortured and killed. They did that

even as children repeatedly called

911 and asked for help. During a

call made more than an hour after

the gunman entered the school, a

child pleaded, “Please send police

now.”

The actions of the police that

day were shameful. That’s clear.

But if the rest of us do nothing to

make it harder for a person to

shoot at children in schools — or

on sidewalks — our inaction will

be more so. We know that right

now children are bracing for the

next round of gunfire. We know

that students are asking “Are we

next?” and the answer will be

“Yes” for some of them.

When it comes to gun violence,

the only response to a child’s

grave is to do whatever it takes to

make sure we aren’t digging

more.

begging us to protect them from

gun violence. In the days since the

Uvalde shooting, which left 19

students and two teachers dead,

students have tried to make

themselves heard. They have

given interviews about their

trauma. They have shared their

fears through social media. They

have marched out of their

schools. On Thursday, as part of a

nationwide demonstration, about

200 students walked out of

McLean High School in Fairfax

County. At one point, they

chanted together, “Are we next?”

Are we next? We should have a

better answer to give them

besides the only truthful one:

Maybe.

When I was younger and trying

to make sense of child deaths, I

came across a poem by Bill Knott.

It was one sentence long and, to

me, captured succinctly the

gutting nature of those losses. It

read: “The only response to a

child’s grave is to lie down before

it and play dead.”

At different times in my life,

including after personal losses and

while writing about young people

who died senselessly, those words

have come back to me. They did

again after the shooting in Uvalde,

which is not far from my

hometown of San Antonio. This

time, though, they hit differently.

This time, it occurred to me that

lying down and playing dead felt

no different than what we’ve done

time and again after shootings

involving children. This time,

lying down and playing dead

seemed no more useful than

offering thoughts and prayers.

I told you about her in a

different column after her words

were translated into Spanish,

French and other languages by

media outlets across the world.

That’s how uniquely American our

out-of-control gun problem is — a

girl’s comment about expecting

gunfire makes the news in other

countries. One publication ran the

article under the headline, “DC

Shootout: 8-year-old Says ‘I Was

Kind Of Prepared’ For It, Leaves

Twitter Terrified.”

Young people right now are

the next one from happening.

What is so chilling about that

Northern Virginia video is that

those children were bracing. Their

words and body language showed

they knew they might not be safe.

Similarly, after a shooting

occurred near Nationals Park in

July, an 8-year-old heard “Get

down” and knew what to do. She

explained to a reporter afterward,

“It was my second shooting, so I

was kinda prepared, because I

always am expecting something

to happen.”

But right now, we need to be

looking over there and over here

and all around at the way guns

are claiming our kids.

Street shootings. School

shootings. Birthday party

shootings. They might differ in

detail, but they all follow the

same plot: A person who

should’ve never been allowed

access to a gun gets one (or an

arsenal of them) with ease. Lives

get snatched. Grief and outrage

follow. And lawmakers and the

public don’t do enough to keep

of the kids says, “Who are they?”
Another child responds, “A bad
guy! You remember?” Someone
says, “The gangsters.”
One child ducks behind a
parked car, but then, a moment
later, stands up as the other kids
watch those figures. (It’s at that
moment you will want to yell at
those kids to run). The children
stand there, holding play items in
their hands that they are waiting
to use, when a silver sedan drives
by, backs into a parking space and
heads in the direction it just came
from. The sound of gunfire comes
next. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.
Three children sprint out of
frame. One child drops to the
ground, letting go of a basketball
that rolls away. Another child
stays with her.
“Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!
Mommy!” the girl on the ground
can be heard screaming. “I can’t
feel my leg. I can’t feel my legs. I
can’t feel my legs.”
Prince William County police
later said that was a 9-year-old
girl and she was not the intended
target of the bullet that hit her.
The sedan was. Police said the girl
was flown to a hospital with life-
threatening injuries and
remained there in critical
condition. On Thursday, they
released a statement, announcing
they had arrested a 15-year-old in
connection with the shooting.
When mass-casualty events
happen, it’s easy for shootings
with singular horrors to go
unseen. After all, we have only so
much emotional energy to give.

VARGAS FROM C1

THERESA VARGAS

Police action in Uvalde was shameful. Our inaction would be more so.

VALERIE PLESCH FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

Students from McLean High School in McLean, Va., participate in a walkout on Thursday in protest of

the mass shootings that have taken place in schools around the country, most recently in Uvalde, Tex.

BY BLAINE P.

FRIEDLANDER JR.

Wake early in May’s waning
days and all of June to find planets
strolling across our morning
heavens.
Look to the east and south in
the predawn hours to find this
pleasant planetary parade. In fact,
check out the close companions
Mars and Jupiter in the east at
about 4 a.m. Monday (May 30).
Today, May 29, was their official
conjunction, but no worries — you
can spot them tomorrow before
sunrise. While both planets still
appear close from our earthly per-
spective, they begin to separate
this week.
In fact, gazing from east to
south — before the sunrise washes
them from the sky — you can see
the planets Venus (the second

planet from the sun), Mars

(fourth), Jupiter (fifth) and Sat-

urn (sixth) — in their proper plan-

etary order. Technically, Mercury

(closest to the sun) will be there in

early June, but it may be hard to

see the speedy planet until mid-

June, as it hugs the horizon at

dawn.

The ringed Saturn leads the

planetary lineup as it rises in the

east after 1 a.m. now and will be

high in the southeastern sky at

about 5 a.m. This +0.6 magnitude

planet (bright), according to the

U.S. Naval Observatory, seems to

be squeezed between the constel-

lations Capricornus and Aquari-

us.

The large Jupiter and Mars rise

concurrently just before 3 a.m.

now, loitering in the vicinity of the

constellation Pisces. Both will be

higher in the east-southeast

around 4:30 a.m. Of the two, Jupi-

ter is -2.3 magnitude, very bright,

while the reddish Mars is more

dim at +0.7 magnitude, but it is

becoming brighter as the year

moves along. On subsequent

mornings, you’ll begin to see a

noticeable separation between

those planets.

Venus, at -3.9 magnitude, re-

mains incredibly bright, accord-

ing to the observatory, as it rises

now at around 4 a.m. in the east-

ern heavens. You will see the mag-

nificent, vivid planet climbing

higher above the horizon later in

that hour.

By mid-June, you may be able to

find the fleet Mercury at about

4:45 a.m. on June 18, for example,

joining its planetary pals, as it

follows Venus. It’s +0.6 magnitude

on June 15 and a slightly brighter

+0.2 magnitude on June 20, ac-

cording to the observatory.

The summer solstice — the offi-

cial first day of astronomical sum-

mer — arrives June 21 at 5:14 a.m.,

according to the observatory, but

please note that on the days sur-

rounding the solstice, we get the

most sunlight. From June 18

through June 23, Washington will

enjoy 14 hours and 54 minutes of

captivating sun. Just don’t forget

the sunscreen.

Down-to-Earth Events

* June 7 — “Black Holes at

Work,” an online discussion with

astronomer Andrew Fabian, pro-

fessor at the University of Cam-

bridge and winner of the 2020

Kavli Prize in physics, will speak

to journalist Frank Sesno of

George Washington University’s

School of Media and Public Af-

fairs. The talk is hosted by Carne-

gie Science, 4 p.m. To register in

advance, visit carnegie-

science.edu and then click

“events.”

* June 12 — “Supermassive

Black Holes at the Center of M87

and Milky Way Galaxies,” an on-

line lecture by Razieh Emami, a

fellow at the Institute for Theory

and Computation at the Harvard-

Smithsonian Center for Astro-

physics. It is hosted by the North-

ern Virginia Astronomy Club. 7:30

p.m. For viewing details visit no-

vac.com.

* June 17 — “Supermassive

Black Holes at the Centers of Gal-

axies,” a lecture by astrophysicist

Shobita Satyapal, a professor at

George Mason University. Her lec-

ture is hosted by PSW Science,

formerly the Philosophical Soci-

ety of Washington, and it will be

presented at 8 p.m. at the John

Wesley Powell Auditorium, Cos-

mos Club, 2170 Florida Ave. NW.

Also, the lecture will be held on-

line concurrently; go the group’s

website as the event date ap-

proaches: pswscience.org.

* June 29 — “Earth, Exoplanets

and Everything in Between,” a

lecture by astrophysicist Knicole

Colón of NASA’s Goddard Space

Flight Center. She is the deputy

project scientist for exoplanet sci-

ence at the James Webb Space

Telescope. Her lecture will be pre-

sented live and online concurrent-

ly at the Smithsonian’s National

Museum of the American Indian.

8 p.m. For details and to register,

visit airandspace.si.edu/events.

(Note to readers: The National Air

and Space Museum is undergoing

renovations this summer.)

Blaine Friedlander can be reached at

[email protected].

SKY WATCH

June will present a pleasing planetary parade and plenty of solstice sun