Christina Cole Interview, December 20, 2023
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- December 20th, 2023, we are at the Homeless Memorial Vigil at Freedom
- Plaza in Washington, DC.
- Could you tell us your name?
- Yes, my name is Christina Ashley Cole.
- And Christina, would you tell us what are the biggest cause of
- homelessness in D. C.? There's a wide range of the
- reasons homeless of why a lot poeple become homeless.
- A lot of it has to do with money, instability and planning.
- Most of the world, if not only the United States, is one paycheck
- away from becoming homeless themselves.
- For me, it was the pandemic.
- I lost my job and then I lost
- everything.
- I had to come to the streets and
- live with someone I didn't want to and began getting beaten.
- And ultimately, I was homeless for two and a half years before I
- could recover.
- If it can happen to me, it can
- happen to anyone.
- And what do you think would be the
- critical issues that we need to work on as a movement to end
- homelessness? Homelessness is a profitable
- industry.
- A lot of times those of us who are
- feeding us, who want to help us, don't know they're being used to
- further propagandize and to further homelessness.
- We don't need sugar, candy, donuts, and toilet paper.
- We need jobs.
- We need stability.
- We have worth.
- We have value.
- And housing is a human right.
- The cost of rent in D.C. is about
- $3,000 a month.
- Who could afford that?
- Who could afford that? The people that can't afford that
- right now are gentrifiers.
- I don't want to be calling my
- friends gentrifiers only because they have the means to pay for
- rent and I cannot.
- Why can't I pay for rent?
- Is it because I'm brown? Is it because I'm black?
- Is it because I'm a woman? Why?
- I'm a human, just like you.
- But you have a key and you can
- turn and close your bathroom door.
- You have privacy.
- You have security.
- You have stability.
- We don't have that in the streets of D.C. and this is our nation's
- capital.
- Something has to change.
- If you could get 50 people to join in with you on a protest to end
- homelessness, what would you do? I would gather 50 women.
- I would gather 50 women.
- I'd grab Bowser too.
- And I would say, you need to follow me through these streets.
- When you hear a woman crying, when you hear a woman screaming, she
- has been raped.
- She has been assaulted.
- She is mentally ill.
- Or maybe she's stable.
- But the conditions of our nation's capital, the wealthiest nation in
- all of mankind.
- Are you telling me that these
- women who are 50 plus, 60 plus, these grandmothers, your sisters,
- your aunties, your friends, your mothers, Do they deserve to be in
- these streets while you sleep in your bed warm at night?
- No, we have to do something.
- Our senior citizens are our
- libraries and they're dying.
- They're dying in the streets
- without being heard.
- History is being lost.
- And if you could build a better world, what would that world look
- like? It'd be like Aladdin and Jasmine.
- The first article I wrote for Street Sense was actually
- entitled, I don't remember, but you can look it up at
- streetsensemedia.org.
- I'm vendor 685.
- And the first piece that I wrote was what the world would look like
- if color didn't exist.
- If color didn't exist and they
- weren't trying to separate us by socioeconomic status, by our
- color, by anything that they can, by who you choose to sleep with,
- whether you sleep with a man or a woman, any way that this country
- can be divisive and have you at each other's throats is any way
- that they can keep us down.
- The modern and the middle class
- need to rise.
- Youngblood needs to get in the
- Senate, needs to get in Congress.
- We cannot change anything unless
- we change the laws.
- I wanted to go to law school, but
- I've given that up.
- Now it's about becoming part of
- non-profits.
- These people are giving away money
- faster than they can spend it.
- They're having contests on who can
- throw away the most money.
- Bill Gates is wiping his ass with
- more money than I've seen in the last three years.
- It sickens me.
- Today we're at the Homeless
- Memorial Vigil.
- Is there somebody you'd like to
- remember tonight? I have lost so many friends to
- suicide, to murder, to homelessness.
- The last person that died in these streets that really meant
- something to me used to sit next to me in his wheelchair.
- He was a veteran, a double amputee.
- His name was Alonzo.
- They murdered him because he was
- panhandling and making too much money.
- As a panhandler, they stabbed him in the heart.
- He was 67 years old and the kindest soul I'd ever met.
- I wish that you could remember people like him when you're out
- here spending money.
- I can't afford to eat in my city.
- An average meal costs $26 to get soda and a burger.
- Where they do that at? In DC.
- Your country, not mine.
- But it is.
- Is there anything you would like to leave us with tonight?
- Yeah, People for Fairness Coalition is an organization
- that's been around for 15 years.
- This is our 11th homelessness
- vigil, honoring those who lost their lives without the dignity of
- a home.
- But even furthermore, those who
- didn't have the dignity of a burial.
- This year, only this year after the pandemic, it's costing money,
- about $477 to get someone's ashes.
- Whereas during the pandemic and
- before that, it was of zero cost to pick up someone's ashes.
- They are profiting off of our deaths.
- Did you know that? Do you care?
- I do.