From the thousands of people in the Washington metropolitan area who have lost employment due to Trump-era cuts to the countless local families recovering post the historic federal government shutdown, and concerns about health care and housing, people in the nation’s capital have a lot of challenges they’d like to see addressed in the new year:
- Clarence Warren, Northeast D.C.
“For people to treat each other better. That s–t Trump doing is f–ked up. Firing everybody, I used to be a federal worker too.”
- Muriel Massenburg, Southeast D.C.
“[Lower] income for my apartment so I can stay where I am at and better health.”
- Pota, Southeast D.C.
“People like me. I’m homeless right now. You’ll look at me [and say]: ‘You don’t look like you’re homeless,’ but I am.”
- Richard Ramsey, Southeast D.C.
“My electricity is off — two and a half years of dealing with the cold weather. [I don’t] have no heat, I can’t warm up [any] coffee, I can’t do [anything]. The officials that are running stuff, to me, aren’t putting their foot down deep enough for the people that’re scamming people. Like Pepco came in and said: ‘We’ll help you with your kilowatts’…. Come to find out, the very next month, I got a bill for $6400 and I never had a bill over $100.”
- Deja Spencer, Southeast D.C.
“We have so [many] issues with the rental affairs in D.C., as far as the pricing of the rent and the places in the area.”