Migrant leaders plead with DC leaders for assistance

WASHINGTON D.C., DC — Migrant families in the District are pleading with leaders for additional assistance.

On Tuesday, roughly a dozen migrants and mutual aid volunteers gathered at the Wilson Building in downtown D.C. to ask officials to provide more emergency housing for families who have made their way to the nation’s capital.

The states of Texas and Arizona first started sending asylum seekers, by bus, to D.C. last April. Since then, some migrants, like Angela Gonzalez of Venezuela, have made the trek to D.C. by themselves.

However, families in need have run into trouble finding places to stay lately.

Gonzalez said she first stayed at a respite center for three days when she got to the D.C. area last Thursday. After that, she said she was told she would have to leave.

Gonzalez said she later sought housing inside a District funded family shelter, but due to space issues, she was turned away from that location too.

She said she is now worried about the well-being of her three-year-old daughter that she is caring for.

"I'm really worried. It's so hard to be on the street with the children,” Gonzalez said through a translator.

Gonzalez, other families, and the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network made stops at DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office and the Office of the Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services (DMHHS) during their trip to the Wilson Building Tuesday.

The group eventually met with DMHHS officials for more than an hour, but Madhvi Bahl, core organizer of the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, said they ultimately left disappointed.

"It was really sad and frustrating not to get any commitment to any kind of housing for these families and the families that come after them,” she said.

WUSA9 reached out to both the mayor’s office and DMHHS for a statement. It was told by a spokesperson in the mayor’s office that a statement on the group’s concerns is forthcoming.

Still, Bahl, said time is of the essence as more families like Gonzalez’s will continue to come to D.C. and have no where to call home.

“[The network] are trying to house some of the families but that is not a long-term solution,” she said. “Because we are just people and we don’t have the funds the government has.”

In the meantime, Gonzalez said she’s worried about what the future holds.

"If I could talk to the Mayor, I know that she too has children,” Gonzalez said. “Can she imagine what it would be like to be in our situation? Please help us.”

The families WUSA9 talked to are either staying with mutual aid volunteers or have been put up in hotels via charitable efforts.