In 1984, a bilingual shelter was opened, at the urging of the Adams Morgan Advisory Neighborhood Commission and the hard work of the Mayor's Office on Latino Affairs. The need for the shelter was more than apparent on Columbia Road and other streets and parks in Adams Morgan. It was four years after the Mariel Boatlift from Cuba, and many people freed from Castro's prisons and asylums in Cuba landed up at the corner of Ontario and Columbia Roads. There were a lot of vacant buildings in Adams Morgan at the time, and discarded food from the neighborhood businesses was plentiful. Adams Morgan became the home to the homeless.
Workers from the Latino Community gave their time and skills to prepare the shelter to open.
Willie Vasquez (on left) was the Director of the Office of Latino Affairs at this time. Here he is counting mattresses with his co-worker.
On opening day in early March 1984, Reverend Annie Woodridge gave a blessing to the new shelter standing next to Mayor Marion Barry.
Nia Kuumba, 3rd from right, flanked by the shelter's newest residents, was instrumental in getting the shelter put into a city building in Columbia Heights.
By 1991, La Casa had moved from its 14th and Harvard Streets location to Irving Street near the corner of 14th Street.
One of LaCasa's most colorful residents was Aurelio, who was deaf, and the walking partner to Piloto, the most famous resident of LaCasa. A story about Piloto graced the cover of City Paper one week. http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/6924/the-potato
The beds were in rows, and, except for folks like Piloto and Aurelio, it was first come first served for the residents. That's why they would start lining up early in the afternoon for a 5pm opening. Piloto and Aurelio had the same bed waiting for them each night.
Throughout the 80s and 90s, La Casa stayed on Irving Street with no threat from the outside world.
By 2008, that had changed. Irving Street was changing. Developers had to have the LaCasa land to develop on. The new residents of Columbia Heights complained vociferously to the powers that be about the presence of homeless men hanging on Irving Street. As a result, the residents of La Casa shelter were forced to wait in the alley behind the shelter before they were allowed to go in each evening.
The lines began at 3pm and grew to the end of the alley by 5 or 6pm when the residents were allowed to go in.
Then suddenly, one day in the fall of 2010 right before hypothermia season, the sign on the door read, "La Casa Shelter is Closed." Little to nothing had been done to relocate the residents to another shelter. They were told there was space in a Ward 4 shelter, but many reported that was a lie.
The developers moved quickly.
Before the winter was over, LaCasa Shelter was turned into a heap of rubble.
This show will be visible this Sunday, June 23rd in the Lamont Street Park in Mount Pleasant, as part of an action/protest to support the homeless. It is being developed for a larger exposition in the DC Public Libraries sometime this coming winter.
