In a Georgetown elevator alcove, a heavyset woman in all black sits on two plastic crates, insisting to Gunther Stern that she is fine. She is not homeless, she says. She has a big house. But Stern knows differently. He knows that she will wear the same sweatshirt tomorrow, and the day after that. He knows that crammed into three nearby garbage bags, one topped with a tiny pink-haired doll, is everything she owns.
He knows that if he doesn’t check on her, no one might.
The woman, who gives her name as Janice one day and Darleen the next, has been homeless for decades, making her one of the neediest in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the nation’s capital. She’s a regular on Stern’s rounds.
For 25 years, Stern has run the Georgetown Ministry Center, which was created after a homeless man froze to death on the street more than three decades ago. But because many homeless cannot or choose not to come into the day center located behind a church, Stern often goes to them, stepping into the nooks that tourists will never see and forging relationships with their hidden occupants, some whose hardships are obvious and others who blend so seamlessly that they might disappear unnoticed if it weren’t for him…. [Read full article.]
Theresa Vargas, The Washington Post
