April 29, 2011 | 12:00 PM | By

Graham: Outsourcing Youth Rehab is Expensive and Cuts Family Ties

Flickr: dbking

Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham

Two D.C.teens recently escaped from centers in Maryland and South Carolina aimed at rehabilitating them.

D.C. spends approximately $67,000 a day to house 225 wards in so-called residential treatment centers, or RTCs, across several states, according to a recent Examiner article. Councilman Jim Graham, chairman of the city committee that oversees the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services, slammed the RTC system recently, saying it’s not cost-effective or productive.

“Sending kids to Utah and Arizona and Tennessee and South Carolina raises our costs and cuts those ties. It is totally unacceptable, for example, that we do not have a juvenile substance abuse treatment program right here in DC. I hope to be able to change that shortly,” he said in an email.

But supporters of the current system say the District doesn’t have enough centers. The teens sent out-of-state “are not kids who have shoplifted, these are hard-core bad guys,” Kris Bauman, leader of D.C.’s police union told the Examiner recently.

Critics question how troubled the youth are, since that is hard to measure. Some say what’s needed is a rehabilitation program that’s closer to home, or perhaps at home.

In some cases, RTCs have been used for wards who did not have a serious emotional disturbance or mental illness and who were not a threat to themselves or the community, according to the Washington City Paper.

What’s more, the city’s youth rehabilitation services department may have exceeded its budget by $994,000 in 2009 in part because it used RTCs for teens who may not have needed it.

But it’s easier to send teens away than deal with guiding them to improve their lives, said Victoria Otchere, Program Director at Sasha Bruce Youthwork, a local nonprofit that designs intervention strategies to treat teens at home.

Otchere echoes Graham’s concerns about preserving family ties because she believes relatives can be an important part of the rehabilitation process. She has worked with DYRS wards who benefited from remaining in the community and receiving the support of their families.

FILED UNDER: Government, Children, DYRS
April 29, 2011 | 10:30 AM | By

‘Where Are You From?’: Thoughts From A Second-Generation American

Flickr: The White House

President Barack Obama

Aside from the politically-charged debate surrounding President Barack Obama’s decision to reveal his long-form birth certificate this week, the story highlighted something for me on a highly personal level: questioning the “American-ness” of second-generation Americans.

First, a word about me: I’m Iranian-American, born and raised in D.C. and Maryland, respectively. And on the numerous occasions I’ve been asked, “Where are you from?” I give the accurate response to that question: D.C. and Maryland. Rural Maryland, in fact, where bringing cowbells to both football games and high school graduations is the norm, and a common excuse for being late to class is claiming you got stuck behind a tractor on a two-lane road. I can’t think of anything more stereotypically small-town American.

My response is typically met with a blank stare, and perhaps a follow-up of “No, really. Where?” I know the answer I gave is not the one wanted, despite its accuracy.

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FILED UNDER: Government, The People, Identity, Second-generation
April 29, 2011 | 8:50 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – Housing Voucher Discrimination, Flash Mob Robberies and Marion Barry’s Manifest Destiny

Good morning, DCentric readers! Have a royal Friday with the five things we’re reading, right now:

D.C. landlords shun housing vouchers “One landlord imposed a requirement that a voucher holder had to make $64,000 a year in order to a rent an apartment costing $1,300 a month,” said Don Kahl, the (Equal Rights) center’s executive director. Applicants for the voucher program typically have incomes of less than $30,000 for a family of four. Such actions are illegal under the D.C. Human Rights Act, which prohibits landlords from discriminating because a renter wants to pay using various types of funds, including government vouchers.” (The Washington Post)

D.C.’s child welfare system leaves kids at risk “The inspector general made 23 recommendations to improve the system. Key among them was improving the city’s child abuse hot line so investigators spend less time on frivolous cases. In one case, a father reported that his child’s mother was spending child support dollars improperly, the report said. The father’s complaint was sent to an investigator, even though there was no report of neglect or abuse, the inspector general wrote. An investigator then had to meet with the family and school.” (Washington Examiner )

Flash Mob Robberies Not A Rare Occurrence in DC “A brazen robbery occurred in broad daylight at a Dupont Circle men’s store. These daytime hold ups are going on more often than you might think. Surveillance video from the G-Star Raw store on Connecticut Avenue on Monday shows more than a dozen teenagers rushing in, overwhelming customers and employees. They ended up walking away with more than $20,000 dollars worth of merchandise. This bold type of criminal activity happens quite a bit. (myfoxdc.com)
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April 28, 2011 | 2:51 PM | By

Black Football Players and White Women: Albert Haynesworth’s Defense

Joe Robbins / Getty Images

Albert Haynesworth

Washington Redskins player Albert Haynesworth has been indicted on one charge of sexual abuse after a Feb. 13 incident at the W Hotel, in which he allegedly fondled a cocktail waitress’ breast. According to the indictment, Haynesworth told a security guard, “I didn’t touch her” and that the waitress was “a little black girl” and he “doesn’t even like black girls.” Later, according to the indictment, Hanyesworth told detectives “I know what this is about, she is just upset I have a white girlfriend. I couldn’t tell you the last time I dated a black girl. She was trying to get with me.”

Oh my. Despite obvious problems with such a “victim-blaming” defense, Haynesworth’s remarks touch upon a sensitive topic: interracial dating and black athletes dating white women.

This really came to the fore nationally at the height of the Kardashians’ fame, when two of famous sisters were dating black athletes. The women, who although aren’t technically white, were still viewed by many as fitting the stereotype of black athletes preferring white women to black women, spurring plenty of nasty comments.

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FILED UNDER: The People, Albert Haynesworth, Interracial dating, Redskins
April 28, 2011 | 11:39 AM | By

“Blackness that is uniquely and indisputably American”

Flickr: Natalie Woo

Billboard from 2009 along California's Interstate 5 freeway.

More on race and perception, though this time, the issue is not what people see– it’s what they know about President Obama’s ancestry. In “For Birthers, Obama’s Not Black Enough“, Melissa Harris-Perry wonders if the President’s lack of connection to “the historical variation of blackness that is uniquely and indisputably American” is part of what makes him suspect to those who doubt his citizenship:

The American slave system disrupted the ability of enslaved Africans to retain or pass along their ethnic identities. Igbo, Ashanti, Akan, Yoruba and Hausa became interchangeable units for sale. While slaves nurtured fragments of cultural, religious and familial traditions, much of the specificity of their African experience was surrendered to an imagined and indistinct notion of “Africa.” Moreover, the law did not initially recognize slaves or their US-born children as American. So enslaved Africans were women and men literally without a country, defined solely in terms of their labor value. Their descendants eventually achieved citizenship, but to be an American black, a Negro, is to be a rejected child who nonetheless clings to her abusive father because she knows no other parent. To be a black American descended from slaves is to lack, if not a birth certificate, then at least a known genealogy—to have only a vague sense of where one comes from, of who one’s ancestors were and of where one belongs.

In this sense, Obama is not very black. He is not a Negro. As a black man, President Obama’s confident and clear knowledge of his lineage is precisely the thing that makes his American identity dubious. Unlike most black people, he has easy access to both his American and his African selves.

FILED UNDER: History, Immigrants, Multiracial, Obama, Racial identity
April 28, 2011 | 8:55 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – Homeless African Americans, Student Transit Passes and DYRS Escapee Captured

Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are some links for a rainy Thursday.

D.C. mayor: National Zoo stabbing shows need for more police agency coordination Several fights at the zoo, two stories about how they were handled. Did the zoo police know one of the teens it ejected was armed? They say no, MPD says yes: “After one such fight, D.C. police say, zoo police officers removed several teens, and a teen was stabbed four times in the chest on Connecticut Avenue NW…It was unclear why zoo police decided to eject the youths from the zoo rather than arrest them or whether they knew one had a knife, as D.C. police allege he did.” (The Washington Post)

Economy Drives Increase in Homeless Count “High rates of unemployment among minorities, foreclosures, the rising cost of rent, utilities and fuel and extreme budget cuts are behind a rise in the area’s homeless population, local homeless advocates say. An upcoming report by the Washington Metropolitan Council of Governments indicates the Washington region’s homeless has increased to 11,988 persons, mostly among families and African Americans, and that’s largely due to the hobbled economy.” (afro.com)

Anti-Police Sentiments Rage On In Southeast DC Plain clothes officer who was part of unit tasked with getting guns off the streets killed Rafael Briscoe when the teen ran from them with a BB gun: “The shooting has sparked outrage among community members who held a vigil for Briscoe Wednesday evening. Neighbors who live in the area are now turning their frustration at the police, claiming Briscoe was shot in the back and never threatened the officer. Cherie Smith, Briscoe’s grandmother, said, “The police senselessly shot and killed my grandson, and they are making up all kinds of excuses for them doing it.”" (WUSA Washington, DC)
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April 27, 2011 | 4:14 PM | By

D.C. At-Large Race: Orange Took Majority-Black Wards

Courtesy: Patrick Madden

The scene outside one of the polling places in the District Tuesday.

Democrat and former D.C. Councilman Vincent Orange won D.C.’s special election to fill an At-Large council seat, besting opponents in a crowded field. The breakdown for this particular election seems to mirror what happened in the 2010 mayoral race: election returns showing a schism between the city’s majority white and black wards.

The unofficial results don’t give us numbers on the racial breakdown of voters, but they do show Orange won in all of the city’s majority black wards: Ward 4 (35 percent of votes) ,Ward 5 (55 percent of votes), Ward 7 (61 percent of votes), and Ward 8 (66 percent votes). Did the racial undertones of the campaign have an effect on the result? The Washington Post reports that Orange’s name-recognition helped him pull in votes:

On Tuesday, several residents said they voted for Orange because they thought he was experienced and they didn’t know enough about the other candidates.

“Rest of these guys, it’s their first time out,” said George Poynter, 87, who voted at Patterson Elementary School in Washington Highlands, in Ward 8. “We’d be right back where we started.”

Yet Orange struggled to win over voters in neighborhoods in the western part of the city, resulting in an electoral split similar to last year’s mayoral race, in which Gray unseated Adrian M. Fenty (D).

Two of those majority-white western wards — Wards 2 and 3 — were carried by Republican Patrick Mara, who also took majority-white Ward 6, while Democrat Bryan Weaver took his home Ward 1.

FILED UNDER: Elections, D.C. City Council, Vincent Orange
April 27, 2011 | 11:42 AM | By

Expand American University to Ward 8?

Flickr: Matthew Hurst

What could an AU expansion do for Ward 8?

Lydia DePillis over at Housing Complex puts forth an interesting proposition: if neighbors around the proposed American University East Campus expansion project find it so objectionable, put it in Ward 8:

… American University would be perfectly suited to Anacostia and Congress Heights: MLK [Avenue] would fill up with coffeeshops and bars, students would have all the low-cost housing they could ask for, and local residents could benefit from jobs that don’t require a high-level security clearance–not to mention the opportunities of a credible institution of higher learning in their backyard.

In exchange, the proposed Department of Homeland Security at St. Elizabeths could instead go to Ward 3.

Given the high unemployment rate in Ward 8 — 18.6 percent — compared to 3.6 percent in Ward 3, maybe the switch isn’t such a bad idea.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, American University, Anacostia, Congress Heights, Ward 8
April 27, 2011 | 8:58 AM | By

Tasty Morning Bytes – Disorganization at the Zoo, Neighbors Outraged in Southeast and Orange Wins

Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are your links:

Officer: Disorganization, Lack of Resources in National Zoo Stabbing Response “The officer also said throughout the day, there were kids fighting and causing problems. “You’re talking about 45 to 55 kids; they were running right into the main entrance of the National Zoo, they were disturbing people, they were toppling over each other, strollers, things of that nature,” the officer said. “The officers that I was working with had no other recourse, but use their spray in order to subdue two of them,” he said. With an estimated 26,000 visitors at the zoo, the officer said they only had seven officers on zoo grounds. Clearly, he said it wasn’t enough.” (myfoxdc.com)

Study: Renters spending greater share of income on monthly expenses “The study offers the latest in a series of grim statistics about the scarcity of rental housing, especially for the working poor. Housing supply has not kept up with demand in part because of a shortage of apartments, a key source of new rentals. Developers cut back on such projects when the economy deteriorated in 2009, which drove down vacancies and boosted rents. Rental markets are tightening while monthly costs climb putting the largest burden on the nation’s poorest workers, the bottom fifth of household income distribution.” (thehill.com)

Cora Masters Barry won’t toot her own horn, but others will Said Maya Angelou: “She means to change things for the better, and I don’t know of a better way to use my energies than to support someone who does that.” More: “When then-D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty was trying to take the (Southeast Tennis and Learning Center) away from Barry in 2009, saying that the city lease had run out, a nationwide coalition of women — Angelou, Height and several members of Congress among them — came to her defense. Once Fenty decided not to pursue the eviction, Barry got back to work.” (The Washington Post)
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April 26, 2011 | 7:11 PM | By

Update on Easter Monday Stabbing at Zoo

Flickr: Smithsonian’s National Zoo

The crowd reached 25,000 at the National Zoo yesterday, on Easter Monday.

Mshairi Alkebular, the 16-year old who allegedly stabbed another teen during Easter Monday celebrations at the National Zoo yesterday will be charged as an adult, according to WUSA9:

Charging documents show the victim identified (Alkebular) by photo.

According to charging documents, the victim said he was stabbed twice in the right elbow area by Alkebular inside the National Zoo and police broke up the fight.

Then, according to documents, Alkebular and others exited the zoo and chased McNeal again. Alkebular allegedly stabbed him four more times in the chest.

African American families have been visiting the National Zoo on the day after Easter for over a century. WUSA’s Bruce Johnson said that the victim is 14-years old and is now in stable condition. NBC reported that the attack was gang-related.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Crime, Gang Violence, National Zoo