Arts & Entertainment
Bowser, city ‘committed’ to meeting needs of LGBT homeless
Shelter operators required to undergo competency training
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has made it known that addressing the city’s homeless problem remains a top priority. (Photo by Elvert Barnes via Wikimedia Commons)
(Editor’s note: The Washington Blade is one of many local media outlets partnering with Street Sense Media, a local news outlet that publishes a biweekly newspaper and other content in a mission to end homelessness in Washington, on its third annual media day.
Inspired by an 88-outlet collaboration in San Francisco in 2016, Washington had its first installment that same year with three outlets. Six outlets joined in 2017. This is the Blade’s first year participating.
Look for Street Sense on your favorite social media outlet (streetsensedc on Facebook or @streetsensedc on Twitter) for links to complementary coverage in other regional publications.
Street Sense’s mission is to end homelessness in Washington by empowering people in need with skills, tools and confidence to succeed. The Blade’s coverage spotlights how homelessness acutely affects Washington’s LGBT community. Find out more at streetsensemedia.org.)
The D.C. Department of Human Services, which oversees the city’s homeless programs, has put in place policies and procedures to ensure that LGBT homeless people, both adults and youth, are treated with respect and receive the services they need, according to two department officials.
DHS spokesperson Dora Taylor said that since taking office in 2015, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has made it known that aggressively addressing the city’s homeless problem, including specific issues pertaining to LGBT homeless people, are among her administration’s highest priority.
Taylor noted that among DHS’s actions since Bowser became mayor has been its implementation of the LGBTQ Homeless Youth Reform Amendment Act, which the D.C. Council passed unanimously in 2014. Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and then-Council member Bowser (D-Ward 4) were the co-introducers of the legislation.
Among other things, the measure allocates city funds for expanding existing homeless facilities, including shelters, to include additional beds for “youth who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning.”
The legislation also requires service providers, including operators of homeless shelters, to put in place “best practices for the culturally competent care of homeless youth” that identify as LGBT or questioning.
Taylor and DHS Senior Advisor Carter Hewgley said implementation of the law included a policy change adopted by DHS that requires all homeless shelters operated by the city or by city contractors to allow transgender people – youth or adults — seeking to enter a shelter to choose the one that is consistent with their gender identity.
The two noted that under the city’s shelter system, shelters are segregated by gender except for those designated for families with children.
Hewgley said DHS has an ongoing program for training shelter employees, including case managers, on how to appropriately deal with LGBT homeless people.
“The expectation is that you are meeting every person where they are and treating them with dignity and respect,” he said.
According to Hewgley, the shelter system has a comprehensive grievance process for situations where a shelter resident believes he or she has been treated improperly by a staff member or a fellow shelter resident.
He said DHS’s training programs are aimed at greatly minimizing if not completely eliminating reports from LGBT activists in the past about how LGBT shelter clients were bullied or harassed by other shelter residents because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Hewgley told the Blade that DHS and the Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs in September organized a joint “listening session” to obtain suggestions from LGBT activists familiar with the city’s homeless programs, along with other experts, on how to improve homeless services for LGBT people in need.
Sheila Alexander-Reid, director of the Office of LGBTQ Affairs, who described the listening sessions as focus groups, said her office has been involved in providing competency training for employees of all city agencies and is especially interested in assisting with trainings for shelter workers.
Hewgley said the listening sessions or focus groups were divided into four subgroups that discussed the needs and concerns of four categories of LGBT people using the city’s homeless shelter system – unaccompanied women, unaccompanied men, couples and families, and transgender and non-binary individuals.
He said the sessions resulted in a decision by DHS to prepare a 10-page report summarizing the findings and recommendations of the participants in the four groups called “LGBTQ+ Homeless Services: Identifying Service Gaps for LGBTQ+ Adults and Youth Experiencing Homelessness and Creating a Vision and Strategy for Improving Support to this Community.”
Among those who participated in the listening sessions were officials with LGBT and other organizations that provide services for homeless clients, including Casa Ruby, Whitman-Walker Health, SMYAL, the Wanda Alston House, Catholic Charities, HIPS, and the Fiscal Policy Institute.
Some of the recommendations of the participants include anecdotal reports by LGBT clients of shelters about instances of less than adequate treatment by staff and other shelter clients showing that improvement is still needed.
Books
Love or fear flying you’ll devour ‘Why Fly’
New book chronicles a lifetime obsession with aircraft
‘Why Fly’
By Caroline Paul
c. 2026, Bloomsbury
$27.99/256 pages
Tray table folded up.
Check. Your seat is in the upright position, the airflow above your head is just the way you like it, and you’re ready to go. The flight crew is making final preparations. The lights are off and the plane is backing up. All you need now is “Why Fly” by Caroline Paul, and buckle up.
When she was very young, Paul was “obsessed” with tales of adventure, devouring accounts written by men of their derring-do. The only female adventure-seeker she knew about then was Amelia Earhart; later, she learned of other adventuresome women, including aviatrix Bessie Coleman, and Paul was transfixed.
Time passed; Paul grew up to create a life of adventure all her own.
Then, the year her marriage started to fracture, she switched her obsession from general exploits to flight.
Specifically, Paul loves experimental aircraft, some of which, like her “trike,” can be made from a kit at home. Others, like Woodstock, her beloved yellow gyrocopter, are major purchases that operate under different FAA rules. All flying has rules, she says, even if it seems like it should be as freewheeling as the birds it mimics.
She loves the pre-flight checklist, which is pure anticipation as well as a series of safety measures; if only a relationship had the same ritual. Paul loves her hangar, as a place of comfort and for flight in all senses of the word. She enjoys thinking about historic tales of flying, going back before the Wright Brothers, and including a man who went aloft on a lawn chair via helium-filled weather balloons.
The mere idea that she can fly any time is like a gift to Paul.
She knows a lot of people are terrified of flying, but it’s near totally safe: generally, there’s a one in almost 14 million chance of perishing in a commercial airline disaster – although, to Paul’s embarrassment and her dismay, it’s possible that both the smallest planes and the grandest loves might crash.
If you’re a fan of flying, you know what to do here. If you fear it, pry your fingernails off the armrests, take a deep breath, and head to the shelves. “Why Fly” might help you change your mind.
It’s not just that author Caroline Paul enjoys being airborne, and she tells you. It’s not that she’s honest in her explanations of being in love and being aloft. It’s the meditative aura you’ll get as you’re reading this book that makes it so appealing, despite the sometimes technical information that may flummox you between the Zen-ness. It’s not overwhelming; it mixes well with the history Paul includes, biographies, the science, heartbreak, and exciting tales of adventure and risk, but it’s there. Readers and romantics who love the outdoors, can’t resist a good mountain, and crave activity won’t mind it, though, not at all.
If you own a plane – or want to – you’ll want this book, too. It’s a great waiting-at-the-airport tale, or a tuck-in-your-suitcase-for-later read. Find “Why Fly” and you’ll see that it’s an upright kind of book.
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Theater
Out actor Kevin Cahoon on starring role in ‘Chez Joey’
Arena production adapted from Broadway classic ‘Pal Joey’
‘Chez Joey’
Through March 15
Arena Stage
1101 Sixth St., S.W.
Tickets start at $93
Arenastage.org
As Melvin Snyder in the new musical “Chez Joey,” out actor Kevin Cahoon plays a showbiz society columnist who goes by the name Mrs. Knickerbocker. He functions as a sort of liaison between café society and Chicago’s Black jazz scene circa 1940s. It’s a fun part replete with varied insights, music, and dance.
“Chez Joey” is adapted from the Broadway classic “Pal Joey” by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. It’s inspired by John O’Hara’s stories based on the exploits of a small-time nightclub singer published in The New Yorker.
A warm and humorous man, Cahoon loves his work. At just six, he began his career as a rodeo clown in Houston. He won the Star Search teen division at 13 singing songs like “Some People” from “Gypsy.” He studied theater at New York University and soon after graduating set to work playing sidekicks and comedic roles.
Over the years, Cahoon has played numerous queer parts in stage productions including “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” “La Cage aux Folles,” “Rocky Horror” as well as Peanut in “Shucked,” and George the keyboardist in “The Wedding Singer,” “a sort of unicorn of its time,” says Cahoon.
Co-directed by Tony Goldwyn and the great Savion Glover, “Chez Joey” is a terrific and fun show filled with loads of talent. Its relevant new book is by Richard Lagravenese.
On a recent Monday off from work, Cahoon shared some thoughts on past and current happenings.
WASHINGTON BLADE: Is there a through line from Kevin, the six-year-old rodeo clown, to who we see now at Arena Stage?
KEVIN CAHOON: Anytime I want to land a joke in a theater piece it goes back to that rodeo clown. It doesn’t matter if it’s Arena’s intimate Kreeger Theatre or the big rodeo at the huge Houston Astrodome.
I was in the middle stadium and there was an announcer — a scene partner really. And we were doing a back and forth in hopes of getting laughs. At that young age I was trying to understand what it takes to get laughs. It’s all about timing. Every line.
BLADE: Originally, your part in “Chez Joey” Melvin was Melba who sings “Zip,” a clever woman reporter’s song. It was sort of a star feature, where they could just pop in a star in the run of “Pal Joey.”
CAHOON: That’s right. And in former versions it was played by Martha Plimpton and before her Elaine Stritch. For “Chez Joey,” we switched gender and storyline.
We attempted to do “Zip” up until two days before we had an audience at Arena. Unexpectedly they cut “Zip” and replaced it with a fun number called “I Like to Recognize the Tune,” a song more connected to the story.
BLADE: Wow. You must be a quick study.
CAHOON: Well, we’re working with a great band.
BLADE: You’ve played a lot of queer parts. Any thoughts on queer representation?
CAHOON: Oh yes, definitely. And I’ve been very lucky that I’ve had the chance to portray these characters and introduce them to the rest of the world. I feel honored.
After originating Edna, the hyena on Broadway in “The Lion King,” I left that to do “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” as standby for John Cameron Mitchell, doing one show a week for him.
Everyone thought I was crazy to leave the biggest musical of our time with a personal contract and getting paid more money that I’d ever made to get $400 a week at the downtown Jane Street Theatre in a dicey neighborhood.
At the time, I really felt like I was with cool kids. I guess I was. And I never regretted it.
BLADE: When you play new parts, do you create new backstories for the role?
CAHOON: Every single time! For Melvin, I suggested a line about chorus boys on Lakeshore Drive.
BLADE: What’s up next for Kevin Cahoon?
CAHOON: I’m about to do the New York Theatre Workshop Gala; I’ve been doing it for nine years in a row. It’s a huge job. I’ll also be producing the “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” opening on Broadway this spring; it’s a queer-centric uptown vogue ball with gay actor André de Shields reprising his role as “Old Deuteronomy.”
BLADE: There’s a huge amount of talent onstage in “Chez Joey.”
CAHOON: There is. I’m sharing a dressing room with Myles Frost who plays Joey. He won accolades for playing Michael Jackson on Broadway. We’ve become great friends. He’s a miracle to watch on stage. And Awa [Sal Secka], a D.C. local, is great. Every night the audience falls head over heels for her. When this show goes to New York, Awa will, no doubt, be a giant star.
BLADE: Do you think “Chez Joey” might be Broadway bound?
CAHOON: I have a good feeling it is. I’ve done shows out of town that have high hopes and pedigree, but don’t necessarily make it. “Chez Joey” is a small production, it’s funny, and audiences seem to love it.
The Capital Pride Alliance held the annual Pride Reveal event at The Schuyler at The Hamilton Hotel on Thursday, Feb. 26. The theme for this year’s Capital Pride was announced: “Exist. Resist. Have the audacity!”
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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