The Last Word: Doing Good and Getting Real

I was starving. I did not have money to buy food; I’m an intern. I did not have time to go home and grab something.

And then, a vendor offered me part of his Subway sandwich; I almost cried. It was deadline day and this meant a 12-hour-day, the usual internet hassles, laying out pages at the last minute and getting work done while vendors came and went. That tuna on wheat – it got me through the rest of the day.

As I came into this internship I hoped to make a difference, get some good clips, lay out pages. I did not expect that the relationship between vendors and interns would be a two-way street.

Sometimes it was. But sometimes it wasn’t. And sometimes it felt like social work. Somtimes I felt frustrated when that came into conflict with other work, like redesigning pages or writing a story. Sometimes I felt like people didn’t understand that if we didn’t get our work done, there would be no paper to sell.
Sometimes people would come in under the influence of drugs or alcohol. And some of those times I was here on my own with a volunteer and another vendor. I’ve never been trained in social work, so those situations could be nerve-wracking. But I knew that the volunteer and vendor would have my back.

I came into this a die-hard liberal, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, sure that homelessness and poverty are simply systemic, and always forgiving of the individual. I still believe this.

Now I recognize that people can have a part in their destiny. I began to feel frustrated when people occasionally came in asking for food or clothing, having received something by chance on an earlier occasion. But when we said no, we gave out everything, they would get angry. Or people would sometimes for their ten monthly emergency papers, inadvertently ask for more, and then say I needed to get in the “Christmas spirit.”

It was hard to keep my head on straight when I knew Street Sense did not have to give out the extra ten papers a month. Poverty and homelessness is systemic. But social service agencies are here to enable people to get back on their feet. There is a huge element of free will that goes into getting your own place that I see now, cannot be denied.

People sometimes come in with their issues off the street and dump those on us. At first, I did not know how to handle it. Now, I would not take it personally.
The Street Sense office is like a stereotypical WWII field hospital. Phones ring constantly, I never know what desk I’ll be sitting at when I come in, foot traffic is constant, no one can ever find the bathroom key, the mentally and physically disabled tell their woes or grumble about the woman who told him/her to get a “real job.”

After working in this half social-service agency, half-news room, I could work anywhere and deal with anyone. Before coming here I felt more comfortable in the presence of local political players and even celebrities. Now, I’m comfortable around ex-cons and guys who live on the street.

There have been so many times when I would go home grumbling to myself. But then, there were times when a guy gave each of us in the office a pink rose (the fulltime staff is all female). Or when I’ve run into vendors on the street and they’ve recognized me and given me a hug. Or the time a vendor gave me silver earrings on my birthday. Or when a vendor gave me half his sandwich.

Lisa V. Gillespie just finished a semester-long editorial internship and graduates in a week from the University of North Carolina at Asheville with a degree in mass communication. She plans on moving back to the District to pursue a career in journalism.