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Street Roots • July 13-19, 2018
Conversation
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P H O T O B Y R O D N E Y C H O IC E
c7.0. Kep. Maxine waters (D-Calif.) has pushed far dedicating more federal fu n d s to address the nation's homeless crisis. “It's going to be
expensive to end homelessness,” she said. “Let's p u t a price on it."
Making waves
Congresswoman Maxine Waters has never shied away from controversy or her commitment
to ending homelessness, supporting services and community organizing
BY REGINALD BLACK
AND OLIVIA RICHTER
C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R S
Reginald Black is a vendor and writer with
Street Roots' sister paper, Street Sense Media
in Washington, D.C. He requested an
interview with Congresswoman Maxine Waters
for the paper to talk about her proposals to end
homelessness. Olivia Richter worked with
Black to compile this interview.
sensation among folks on both sides of the
aisle, who frequently refer to her as “Auntie
Waters” on social media.
Throughout her political career, Waters
has been a steadfast advocate for ending
homelessness in the United States. Two
years ago she introduced the pioneering
Ending Homelessness Act of 2016. The bill
would provide $13.27 billion in funding over
five years for federal initiatives to help the
thousands of Americans facing
homelessness and create affordable housing.
She reintroduced the bill in 2017, but it was
not passed.
ongresswoman Maxine Waters
(D-Calif.) has been an outspoken
Democrat in Congress since she was
elected in 1990. She has been re-elected
Reginald Black: In D.C. I've noticed most
consistently to represent California’s 29th
Congressional District and is the longest-
o f our homeless community are African
serving black woman in the House of
Americans. Do you see that in your home state
Representatives.
o f California?
Waters has a well-earned reputation for
unfaltering candidness. She has made
M axine Waters: Increasingly. This
headlines repeatedly for frank criticisms of
business of homelessness has evolved a lot
President Trump, referring to him as a
over the last 15 years or so. It has to do
“crook” and a “liar,” and to his staff as the
with public policy, the cost of housing,
“Kremlin Kian.” She has called for Trump’s
decisions that politicians make about
impeachment and openly supported the
whether or not they’re going to support the
public harassment of members of Trump’s
ability of people to afford rent, whether or
Cabinet - a statement that drew severe
not we’re going to build more housing, and
backlash laced with overt racism and even
whether or not we’re going to have policies
death threats.
that support people in public housing rather
Her outspoken opinions on the Trump
than putting people out of public housing. It
administration have made her a viral
has to do with joblessness, discrimination
B
and the lack of ability to easily get a job.
All of that has had negative impacts on
the African American coftimunity. And when
you go into cities, even in downtown L.A.,
you will see black men and increasingly
black families and women. Drugs played an
important part. In the ’80s, when crack
cocaine became prevalent, like in South
Central Los Angeles, people got addicted.
Some lost jobs, some were never able to
apply for jobs, and some went to jail or
prison, came back, could not get jobs and
ended up on the street So it became a
combination of things that have had negative
impacts on the African-American*
community. You know this better than I do.
R.B.: What work is being done to
specifically stop the cycle o f African Americans
becoming homeless?
M.W.: In Los Angeles, it has gone on so
long that it’s a crisis. Now, the city of Los
Angeles and the county are passing
legislation to raise tremendous amounts of
dollars to do something about
homelessness. They have a problem
because they don’t really know howto spend
the money. A lot of Los Angeles is
landlocked, so acquiring the property and
packaging it in ways that developers are
interested in, and making sure you have
enough subsidies for developers to want to
do some low-income housing - it has just
not come together. L.A. is really being
criticized for not having a strong plan to
spend all of this money.
We know that simply having shelters
won’t solve the problem. We need
supportive services to go along with them,
even if we’re able to develop the housing. 1
This means that sometimes the people who
have been on the street for a long time need
more than just a (housing) unit. They need
some help, whether it is how to go about
getting a job, maybe mental health care, or
other kinds of things. So supportive
services, along with the development of low-
income housing, is very important.
R.B.: In D.C. we have reports that say we’ve
lost over 40,000 African American residents
due to displacement and gentrification. Is that
something that's happening in California, too?
M.W.: Oh yeah, gentrification is real. As a
matter of fact, public policy makers have not
resolved the attempts to do economic
development and understand what that
means in terms of displacement. For
example, in one of my cities, Inglewood, we
have tremendous economic development
going on with the Rams moving in, and
See WATERS, page 5