Washington (AP) – D -JJ did not wait for the authorities to come before packing their tent and carry what things could through Avenue Pennsylvania on the way to everything that follows.
She lived “The Life of the Girls of the Girls,” she said, saving money and looking for work while she was homeless. When he received a message that the law was on the road, it turned out to be living the intelligence motto: be prepared.
“It was so scary last night,” she said, recalling when federal law enforcement officers, in agreement with the local police, began to ignite Washington to bring homeless camps. “I don’t want to be the one to wait until the last moment and then to rush.”
The host of President Donald Trump began with official Washington and the occupants of his marble buildings, back in the days of the bureaucracy of the Ministry of Government. He now takes on the other side of Washington by sending about 800 troops to the National Guard to help local police go after a crime, dirt and improvised camps for homeless.
The spring cleaning came first
Already in the beginning of spring, Trump’s efforts raised the US Mirror Institute, among other institutions and departments. On Thursday, authorities introduced an engine on Earth to clear the camp within the gaze of the carved central headquarters of the Avenue of the Institute’s Constitution.
The mission to clean the capital of criminal elements and ragged edges falls under the creation of a DC of Trump a safe and beautiful working group. Some DC believe that a different types of ugliness are played out.
“From the White House, the president sees a lawless wasteland,” Washington’s episcopal diocese leaders said. “We see fellow human beings – neighbors, workers, friends and family – each of them made in the image of God.”
For Andrew S., 61, the ugliness came on Wednesday when agents he identified as the federal government treat him as his eyes. He was asked to move from his vacation spot on the route, where Trump would be driven to the center of Kennedy.
“You have to move because you are in the vision of the president,” Andrew said, originally from Baltimore, told him he was told. He added: “I didn’t take it seriously to this day, but the president really doesn’t want us here.”
He, d -JJ and some others interviewed and shot by the Associated Press
Goodbye to his belongings
At the camp near the Peace Institute, a 67 -year -old man named George, went on Thursday, wearing an umbrella in one hand and a garbage bag with some of his belongings in the other. City workers put his mattress and other possessions in an idle junk truck nearby. He waved goodbye to him.
It was such a day for others on the same site.
“I know homelessness so long that this is part of a normal life at this point,” says the 43 -year -old Jesse Wall, as she clears her belongings on Thursday from the site near the Peace Institute. “What are you trying to prove here?” Wall asked, as if he were talking to the law. “You are a thug?”
67 -year -old David Beatty had been living in this camp for several months. On Thursday, he watched parts of it were removed. Beatty and others were allowed to pack whatever they could, before heavy machines could clear the other objects in the area and throw them into trucks and vessels.
What about the golden rule?
He cites a variation of the Bible’s golden rule – “Do others as you would make them do you” – and said, “The idea that he is directing and chasing us is feeling wrong with me.”
Much of the clearing on Thursday was in the hands of the local police. DC officials knew that federal authorities would dismantle all homeless camps if the local police did not. Wayne Tarnja, a deputy mayor, said the area has a process to do it “the way it should be done.”
The expectation was clear if it had not been honest: the local police would continue working in a more humane way than the federals.
Jesse Rabinovitz of the National Center for Homelessness said that, according to the briefing he received during the operation, people would be able to leave or be detained in eight federal and 54 local sites. The intention, said Rabinitz that he believed, was to throw tents in daylight (because the authorities want the public to see this) and to make the greater part of the arrests in the dark (because they do not want to be widely seen).
Once without penniless he is already a defender
Born and raised in Washington, Wesley Thomas spent nearly three decades on the streets, fighting drug addicts, while other homeless people and charity organizations did not help him clean through therapy and back on his feet.
He now had a place to live for eight years and worked as a defender of a non -profit group that supports him, Miriam’s cuisine, where he helped dozens to find a home.
“The first day when I was out, I was without money, homeless, scared, only the clothing on my back I didn’t know where I would sleep or eat,” he said. “Fortunately, there were some stray people in the area, they gave me blankets, they showed me a safe place, St. John Church to rest my head for the night.”
St. Jones is opposite Lafayette Park, which is opposite the White House. He is known as the Church of the Presidents because his sanctuary saw all James Madison presidents in the early 1800s.
Thomas wanted the public to know that most of the people who move were not “uneducated, dumb or stupid”, even if they were lucky. “You have doctors, lawyers, businessmen, naval seals, veterans, mail,” he said.
“Poor people come to all races, ethnicities and colors.”
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Kinnard reports from South Carolina. The Associated Press River journalist has contributed to the reporting.