Written by Christy Zeitz, CEO of Fellowship Square

The need for affordable housing and services for older adults has exploded nationally – and locally. With housing, rental and health care costs soaring, older adults are now at greater risk of homelessness than at any time in recent history. Only one in three low-income seniors receive the housing assistance they are eligible for because the programs are small compared to real need.

Fellowship Square works tirelessly to help. This Fall, Fellowship Square celebrates our 60^th anniversary, marking six decades of providing safe, affordable, well-managed and attractive apartment living for some 800+ older adults (age 62+) who meet low-income criteria set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Through our four communities in the Washington DC metro region, Fellowship Square offers not only accessible and affordable housing for seniors, but also vital services and programs that help our residents lead healthy and active lifestyles.

Our Beginning

Fellowship Square’s founding in 1960 was led by Rev. Dr. John A. Scherzer (1901-1994), a pastor and member of the Lutheran Lay Fellowship of Metropolitan Washington who aspired to bring together his local community to better support vulnerable seniors and assure they had access to safe and affordable housing. Under his stewardship, a corporate charter for Fellowship Square was issued by the D.C. government on November 30, 1960. In those early years, Fellowship Square assisted a diverse population of older adults and sought funding and land to build an affordable housing community in the region. In 1970, FSF broke ground on the Lake Anne Fellowship House in Reston, VA, and welcomed residents in 1971. The community soon expanded, with the Lake Anne II Fellowship House opening just five years later (1976). Over the next decade, Fellowship Square expanded its communities and geographic reach with Hunters Woods Fellowship House in Reston, VA (1979), Lake Ridge Fellowship House in Woodbridge, VA (1983), and Largo Landing Fellowship in Upper Marlboro, MD (1984).

Fellowship Square Today

Fellowship Square’s four communities in Northern Virginia and Maryland currently provide 670 affordable apartments in a safe and dignified environment for more than 830 older adults (aged 62+) living on extremely limited fixed incomes. Many of our residents live on Social Security or Supplemental Security Income alone, and the average annual income across our communities is approximately $12,000/year. Funding and subsidies from HUD and other organizations ensure that rent is never more than 30% of a resident’s income.

Fellowship Square proudly enables residents like Sharlene Fanning, 71, have a safe, stable, affordable and comfortable place to live and thrive:

“In my 60s, I was working three jobs in childcare and food service and still couldn’t afford to rent my own apartment in the area. So for some time, I was renting a single room in apartments and living with roommates. But even rent for a single room kept getting higher and higher to a point I couldn’t afford. I finally had to move in with my daughter and her family. We were 6 people in a three bedroom apartment and I was living in a room with my granddaughters. I wanted more independence and not to be a burden. On my 62nd birthday, I dropped off my application for Fellowship Square’s Lake Ridge Fellowship House. With the housing benefits I receive, I can live on my own and be active in the community here. I don’t know how other people do it. There are so many other baby boomers out there who I’m worried about if there are not more housing programs for seniors. I’m worried that many could end up moving from room to room as I did, or homeless and on the street.”

Fellowship Square Amid COVID-19

With the help of our committed staff, volunteers, and community groups, we also aim to meet the physical, social, and emotional needs of our residents with dozens of opportunities each month for residents to be active, engaged, and reminded that they are a valued part of our community. These have included cooking classes, choirs, visits from therapy dogs, cards playing, painting, and art.

While most activities are on hiatus right now due to COVID-19 and social distancing, Fellowship Square and our staff and volunteers are ensuring that no one suffers from isolation. With safety as a top priority, we have closed common areas and restricted non-essential visitors — while at the same time holding “check in & chat” calls, encouraging residents to take on hobbies such as puzzles and art, as well as get their bodies moving with outside walks. I’m pleased to report that our communal gardens have never looked more beautiful, as a handful of residents are managing pandemic stress through gardening!

Gardening at Lake Ridge Fellowship House

Gardens at Lake Ridge Fellowship House

We’ve also received unbelievable support from our local community during this time. Although many of our residents have been avoiding crowded grocery stores, they are still eating well thanks to the donation and delivery of food, milk, prepared meals and care packages from groups including McLean Bible Church, Lake Ridge Baptist Church, the Woodbridge Rotary, Greater Mt. Nebo African Methodist Episcopal Church, St. Anne Episcopal Church Food Pantry and many more. Our residents need and appreciate these efforts! Learn about opportunities to help with food donations and contactless food delivery, or volunteer to call residents to check in on their well-being. We especially need volunteers who speak Korean, Chinese, Farsi and Russian.

Addressing the Unique Senior Housing Demands of the DC Region

The demand for affordable senior housing is particularly high in the greater Washington DC region, where an annual income of nearly $60,000 is needed to afford a 1-bedroom apartment. In the past, seniors of limited means used to be able to stay in their homes or downsize into rental apartments. Today in our region, however, older renters are getting squeezed out as rents and real-estate prices have exploded and affordably priced options disappear.

Take for example the experience that 89 year old Fellowship Square resident Nancy Delay shared:

“My husband and I were in our 60s and had to move apartments every few years to stay in one we could afford. When the rents would raise at the end of our initial rental agreement, we so often could no longer afford it and would have to start all over to find something in our price range again. We lived in many places in Maryland and Virginia as my husband neared his retirement from the postal service, and as rents kept rising it was getting harder and harder to find an apartment where we could stay for the long term. My daughter found Fellowship Square for us and we were able to move in. Today, it can take years to get in. I feel for the seniors in our area who are on long waitlists for housing help and whose lives are in distress. They don’t have the money for the rent they are paying now and can end up homeless and, worse, sleeping on the street or in a shelter. I want our government and community to do what it can to build more affordable housing and subsidized housing for seniors. I’m now 89 and I’ve been safe and secure and living healthily in a stable home because I’ve had the benefits of subsidized housing. I want that for others.”

Fellowship Square kicked off its 60th year with two groundbreakings to meet the increasing affordable housing needs of older adults well into the future:

• Redevelopment of its Lake Anne Fellowship House, an $86+ million project that includes the construction of a new 240-apartment building to replace the existing property.
• A $12+ million renovation to the Hunters Woods Fellowship House to modernize its 225-units that provide affordable housing to 300+ residents by enhancing amenities and common space.

These communities will help local seniors like Sharlene Fanning, 71:

“In my 60s, I was working three jobs in childcare and food service and still couldn’t afford to rent my own apartment in the area. So for some time, I was renting a single room in apartments and living with roommates. But even rent for a single room kept getting higher and higher to a point I couldn’t afford. I finally had to move in with my daughter and her family. We were 6 people in a three bedroom apartment and I was living in a room with my granddaughters. I wanted more independence and not to be a burden. On my 62nd birthday, I dropped off my application for Fellowship Square’s Lake Ridge Fellowship House. With the housing benefits I receive, I can live on my own and be active in the community here. I don’t know how other people do it. There are so many other baby boomers out there who I’m worried about if there are not more housing programs for seniors. I’m worried that many could end up moving from room to room as I did, or homeless and on the street.”

Celebrating Our Yesterdays, Todays and Tomorrows

Fellowship Square has provided homes for thousands of low-income seniors since our founding in 1960 and has been on the front lines of the affordable housing challenge ever since. We at Fellowship Square appreciate that aging is something to be appreciated and celebrated. We embark on this highly unusual 60th anniversary year amid the global COVID-19 pandemic prepared to protect and serve our residents. Our in-person celebrations may be postponed, but through the pandemic and beyond we continue to engage our excellent staff, energetic volunteers, committed supporters and community stakeholders to work together to meet the affordable housing needs of today and the future.

There are many ways to get involved in the mission of the Fellowship Square and support seniors with very limited incomes and resources. Join us as a volunteer, have your business or nonprofit become a community partner, consider board membership, attend or sponsor an event, or pursue an internship or career position.

Written by Kristyn Burr, Executive Director and CEO of HomeAid Northern Virginia

This summer, HomeAid Northern Virginia proudly completed its 150^th project of building and upgrading emergency shelters and supportive housing facilities for those experiencing homelessness! These 150 projects have spanned:

• building a brand new residence for runaway teens (Youth for Tomorrow in Bristow, VA)
• renovating residences for female veterans experiencing homelessness (Final Salute in Fairfax, VA)
• updating multi-unit supportive housing properties (Community Lodgings in Alexandria, VA)
• expanding local food pantries (Loudoun Hunger Relief in Loudoun, VA)
• installing upgraded security at domestic violence shelters (Artemis House in Fairfax, VA)

See a complete listing of HomeAid projects here.

We do this by connecting regional homebuilders and housing industry professionals with local nonprofit organizations focused on ending homelessness. Our building industry partners donate their expertise, time, and resources to renovate or build homeless shelters, housing facilities, and other spaces at little to no cost to the nonprofit service provider. Importantly, this allows HomeAid’s nonprofit partners to allocate their scarce resources on programming and supportive interventions such as job skills training and mental health services that improve lives and greatly facilitate the transition out of homelessness, rather than on construction/renovation costs.

150^th Renovation: Winchester Rescue Mission

Our milestone 150th project is our recent renovation of the Winchester Rescue Mission, which provides safe and secure housing for 33 individuals, serves up to 80 individuals at its nightly dinner, and operates a community food pantry — all within a historic 1930′s building that was in dire need of upgrade. HomeAid Northern Virginia with our “Builder Captain” Dan Ryan Builders and three construction trade partners installed new flooring throughout the building, repainted the entire interior, and replaced flooring and tiling throughout.

“This facility is critical to carrying out our mission of supporting individuals who are experiencing homelessness, and some of our programs — such as providing meals and offering laundry and shower facilities for resident and community use — are components that we feel can keep others from becoming homeless,” said Winchester Rescue Mission Executive Director Brandan Thomas, “There are so many in our community who are on the verge, and losing our ability to serve because of issues with our building would be truly devastating. We haven’t been able to make any updates to the building since 1985, so this renovation is a gamechanger. The cafeteria is probably the most incredible example, with luxury plank replacing a really worn concrete floor that had layers of peeling paint. It is a beautiful facility now, and all of the other changes allow us to service people more fully and more efficiently. This building is a source of pride for our whole community now, and we are so grateful.”

Winchester Rescue Mission

Winchester Rescue Mission

The Unique Challenge of Renovating Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

It is important to note that the COVID-19 pandemic did not halt our work. Through deliberative and creative coordination with building crews, we were able to complete the Winchester Rescue Mission project and other projects already underway when the pandemic took hold. Balancing the need for worker safety, we and our building partners deployed small crews at different time intervals to finish projects.

In fact, construction is considered essential during these uncertain times, and new HomeAid projects continue to move forward today as housing and service providers prepare for a potential homelessness crisis in the region as coronavirus emergency protections end — and evictions begin. The need for supportive and affordable housing programs will be more keenly felt than ever. We are ready to serve and are looking strategically ahead to the next 150 projects in the coming years to build sustainable solutions to prevent and end homelessness and rebuild lives.

Real World Impact: Each Project Brings Hope & Dignity

Across our 150 projects, HomeAid Northern Virginia has invested more than $18 millionin building a better community and has generously donated $11 million in labor, time, materials, and expertise. This has real-world impact. This is money that our shelter partners can invest in people rather than on building projects, helping them with things like life skills and job training, rather than on building maintenance. This is money that means children have somewhere safe to go after school.

This is funding that helps close the enormous funding gaps that exist between what our community nonprofits need versus have — making a real difference in our ability to provide safe and stable places for the 167,000 people who have benefitted from our enhanced spaces as they work to regain their independence.

Most importantly, each of the 150 projects bring hope and dignity to individuals and families struggling to obtain stable housing and in need of critical wrap-around services. Adults and children experiencing homelessness can rebuild their lives in safe and dignified spaces thanks to our partnerships with homebuilders and construction trade partners who collaborate with us and our nonprofit partners to build solutions to end homelessness. These collaborative partnerships enable homebuilders to do what they do best (build!) and service providers to do what they do best (provide supportive programs and wrap-around services!). At the end of the day, our building projects rebuild lives and, as one of our nonprofit partners recently told us, “serve as a launchpad for new beginnings.”

HomeAid Northern Virginia launched the HomeAid 150 Campaign to commemorate this milestone, engage supporters, and make a difference in the lives of those experiencing homelessness.

“It is so special for the women in our program to move into a beautiful and newly upgraded residence like this. It helps them to feel, sometimes for the first time, that they themselves deserve to live in a beautiful space. It really reinforces to them that they are in the next chapter of their story. It reinforces to them their responsibilities to themselves and to the program. When you live in a space that is beautiful, you have to maintain it. You have to put in the work– both in this house and in their lives, inside and out. HomeAid Northern Virginia truly created a beautiful space to serve as a launch pad for new beginnings.”-Friends of Guest House executive director Kari Galloway

Written by Justine Hipsky, Program Director of Mikva Challenge DC

A bustling auditorium. Dozens of middle and high school students pouring in the front doors and following the signs down the escalators, some springing with excitement and some whispering to their friends and their teachers about how nervous they’re starting to feel. A lively registration table with pump-up music playing in the background and an assortment of colorful nametags out for the taking. The sound of 120 young people playing musical questions to start the day before launching into a spirited Rock Paper Scissors tournament, building community and shaking off any nerves. This is a typical start of Mikva Challenge DC’s annual Citywide Project Soapbox event, an electrifying in-person celebration of youth expertise.

One of Mikva Challenge DC’s in-person Soapbox events, prior to COVID-19

Mikva DC’s work revolves around amplifying youth voice and creating meaningful opportunities for DC’s young people to “learn democracy by doing democracy” through Action Civics, with one of our cornerstone programs being Project Soapbox. Project Soapbox asks young people to, well, get up on their soapboxes! Answering the prompt of “What is the most pressing issue facing your community, and what should be done about it?”, over a thousand middle and high school students from all eight Wards of DC write and deliver a 2-3 minute-long soapbox speech in their classrooms during the fall semester – on topics ranging from housing costs to gun violence to the inequities of public education – with finalists from every classroom attending our annual Citywide event each December.

Throughout a typical fall, we host professional learning community dinners and curriculum trainings for our incredible partner teachers. We visit schools, run guest lessons to kick off the Project Soapbox unit, and coordinate over 75 adult allies to visit these classrooms as civic partners and guest judges.

One of Mikva Challenge DC’s in-person Soapbox events, prior to COVID-19

Of course, now, as we look ahead to the start of a new school that seems anything but “typical,” we’ve been asking ourselves the same questions as so many others. How do we continue to support our teachers and students effectively in the lead up to Soapbox and beyond? And how do we meet this moment to not only adapt our existing model but to also innovate and improve?

A huge piece of this innovation has been to adapt our Issues to Action curriculum to accommodate both asynchronous and synchronous remote learning. Mikva’s Issues to Action curriculum guides students through six steps of community problem-solving:

1. Identity and Community Analysis
2. Project Soapbox: Issue Identification and Envisioning Change
3. Research
4. Power Analysis
5. Strategizing and Taking Action
6. Showcase and Reflection.

Not long after social distancing began, we collaborated as a national team to convert key lessons and activities to be student-facing. From media literacy to how to create a community asset map to how to identify a Project Soapbox issue, we’ve compiled an array of resources for this age of physically distanced education. After receiving teacher input, we are continuing to expand our digital activity offerings to cover the span of the Issues to Action curriculum and to create and share fun instructional videos, student-facing PowerPoints, as well as opportunities for students to attend virtual election events this fall.

We are thrilled to continue to provide as many digital resources to our teachers and students as possible to amplify youth voices remotely, but we also know that teaching and learning don’t happen in a bubble. Since we sadly can’t bring our teacher cohort together in person for training and fellowship in the coming months as we normally would, we hosted a highly interactive, three-day Action Civics Institute over Zoom in early August. During this institute, we modeled how to build community and develop empathy in virtual classroom spaces in preparation for Project Soapbox and held two immersive Project Soapbox sessions where teachers got to explore how to facilitate digitally, as well as write and deliver their very own powerful speeches! To close, we asked participating teachers to encapsulate their professional development experience in one word. Some of the responses included:

“Ready!”

“Inspired!”

“Invigorated!”

A recent Mikva Challenge DC’s virtual teacher training

To build on this momentum and further foster our professional learning community as we move from summer to fall, we have planned out a series of virtual teacher “dinners,” where programming will allow for community-building, best practice-sharing, and a chance to connect with Mikva DC staff.

As we move from summer into an unchartered new school year, we will be continuing to partner with our teachers to find out just what Mikva DC’s 2020 Project Soapbox will look like, sound like, and feel like. However, what we are certain of is that there is no stopping youth voices, and that DC’s young people need a microphone and a platform now more than ever. Project Soapbox speeches will still be delivered by middle and high school students from all eight Wards of the District, and we will be showcasing the finalists through an online platform.

We look forward to continuing to connect young people from across the city, as well as bringing youth voices directly to adult community members and elected officials. We may not have an auditorium this year, but we have this city’s leading community experts and they deserve to be heard.

If you are interested in learning more or serving as a Project Soapbox adult ally to support and celebrate DC youth voice this fall through our Project Soapbox program, please email Mikva Challenge DC’s Issues to Action Program Director, Justine Hipsky, at justine@mikvachallenge.org.

Written by Koube Ngaaje, Executive Director of District Alliance for Safe Housing

Imagine being 18 years old again, about to begin the journey into adulthood. No longer a child, but not yet a grown up, navigating the enormous changes and new demands that come at this major transition point in life. You might be exploring numerous new roles and transitions, leaving behind your adolescent support networks, finding a job, and forming more complex intimate relationships. It can be an exciting time, but unfortunately it is also a time of intense vulnerability.

Transitioning youth (aged 18 to 24 years) are more likely to experience domestic or sexual violence during this phase of their life than at any other time. The 2015 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey found that almost half of women who experienced violence by an intimate partner first experienced it between 18 and 24 years of age. For marginalized populations, such as LGBTQ youth and those living in poverty, experiencing homelessness, or exiting the foster care system, this period is particularly precarious, and their risk level is even higher.

To compound this issue, transitioning youth often have the least contact with support services. Transition services that are geared specifically to smoothing the progression from adolescent to adult services are few and far between, so these young adults are often pushed into adult services that are ill-prepared to meet their needs, especially as they recover from abuse. In DC, the experience of domestic violence is the most defining characteristic of homelessness or housing instability for this age group.

The District Alliance for Safe Housing (DASH) is the largest provider of safe housing for survivors of domestic and sexual violence in Washington, DC. We believe that all survivors deserve a safe place to call home, including transitioning youth. This is why we have created our newest, innovative program, Right to Dream.

What is Right to Dream?

Right to Dream is a scattered site housing program for transitioning youth (aged 18-24 years) who are survivors of domestic and/or sexual violence and are experiencing housing instability or homelessness. Like all of DASH’s programs, it is survivor-centered, low-barrier, voluntary, and trauma-informed.

Through Right to Dream, 20 transitioning youth survivors will receive wraparound supports and housing assistance for up to two years. They will be partnered with a DASH advocate who will help them find and set up their new home in the DC Metro area, check in with them regularly, and help them develop a plan for their safety. DASH advocates will support participants to identify their long-term goals and help them eliminate the barriers to achievement, helping them gain the skills, knowledge and supports to be confident adults who break the cycle of power and control their abusers forced on them.

Right to Dream participants will have access to educational opportunities, job training and career planning as well as a range of other community-based supports to help them recover from their trauma and become empowered. The goal at the end of the program is for each participant to be economically secure and able to maintain the lease on their own or, if they choose, to move to similar lease, and transition to self-sufficient adulthood.

Why are we doing this?

There are very few long-term transitional housing programs in our area that cater specifically to transitioning youth survivors. DASH saw the immense need for support services for this population and designed the Right to Dream initiative to start filling the gap. Right to Dream will expand the availability of youth-friendly, survivor-focused, long-term transitional housing and services.

What are we hoping to accomplish?

Our Right to Dream program has two primary goals: to ensure short-term and long-term stability for transitioning youth survivors. We want to assist youth survivors to get stable housing right away, and we want to help them find long-term economic and housing stability, meaning a secure job, and a place they can call home. But ultimately, this program is about more than just providing safe housing. For many of these young people, the support DASH provides will help break intergenerational cycles of abuse and enable them to build lives free of violence.

You can learn more about the program on our website or contact us by emailing righttodream@dashdc.org.

Written by Leah Paley, Executive Director of Laurel Advocacy and Referral Services

What a year it has been. COVID-19 served a devastating blow to those who were already experiencing hunger, homelessness, and fear of an uncertain future. I will personally never forget the shaky voice of the mother who called us from a motel with her four children crying in the background. At the height of the pandemic, she was running low on food and money to keep her family sheltered for another night. This call was just one of hundreds we have received over the past six months.

I asked our frontline staff to reflect on what things have been like at Laurel Advocacy and Referral Services (LARS) since the start of the pandemic. This is what our Emergency Services Manager, Alli Milner, shared with me:

What has work and/or life in general been like for you over the past few months since the pandemic started?

“During the pandemic it seems like even the simplest task has become complicated. Before, we could easily unlock our doors and allow clients to come in and sit down. We could easily hand them clipboards with their paperwork and collect their information. Now, our doors are locked and we have to wear masks and gloves. We try to avoid handing things like pens and clipboards to clients, and when we do, they are sanitized after use.”

What feelings have you had?

“Some days, I feel like we go non-stop. Right now, there are so many people who need support and it can get overwhelming. But, it has been great to see how people in the community are stepping up and supporting one another.”

What feelings or worries have your clients expressed?

“Clients are expressing a lot of concern for the future. Many of our clients have lost employment or they have been furloughed. There are also concerns for safety and some feel that by leaving their home to get help they are putting their health at risk.”

Although Maryland’s infection rate is declining, thousands of residents across Prince George’s County are terrified of losing their housing now that the moratorium on evictions has been lifted. The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) reported that “Before the pandemic struck, a quarter of all renters – and 71 percent of extremely low-income renters – were paying over half their incomes for housing, too often leaving them one emergency away from eviction. Now we’re seeing millions of people all have those emergencies at once.”

Across Laurel’s four zip codes, the average housing wage (the hourly wage one must earn to afford a modest two-bedroom rental home without spending more than 30% of their income on rent) is $34.80, or $72,400 per year. This is more than three times the earnings of a minimum wage worker. A single parent working as a grocery store cashier would need to work over 120 hours PER WEEK just to afford basic shelter for their family. Essential workers in food, transportation, health, and other service industries are the backbone of our community, and this pandemic has made that even clearer. Yet these vital members of our community are up against impossible odds. The numbers simply don’t add up.

Despite the disheartening state of the world right now, we have also witnessed incredible acts of kindness in our community, like City of Laurel employees who helped us quickly transport food to that family in the motel, along with many of our senior and immuno-compromised clients. Or the young man who collected over 200 bags of toiletries for LARS in lieu of birthday gifts. And LARS’ Permanent Supportive Housing participant who called us to meet him at Giant to collect a cart full of groceries he had just purchased for our food pantry. Or LARS’ Self-Sufficiency Program participant who received a bonus at work and donated it to LARS to pass on to someone in greater need. Often, we see that those who have the least give the most. Because they know what it’s like to go without their basic needs met, and the difference it makes when that worry is lifted.

Kindness, gratitude, and hope have propelled our organization forward through this dark time. Let us make this collective experience a lesson on the importance of caring for all members of our society in good times and in bad.

For more information on LARS and how to get involved, visit www.laureladvocacy.org.