House of Hope — Madeleine A Cook

Two decades of Wayne Ramsey’s life passed in a blur of “drugs and doing bad,” as he put it while smoking a cigarette on the porch of the hospice care facility where he’d lived for four months, on Dec. 18, 2018. Earlier that year, an infection almost killed Ramsey. He couldn’t get out of bed in the Motel 6 where he’d stayed on-and-off for years. For over 20 years, Ramsey had been drifting from place-to-place, homeless.

A social worker ushered Ramsey into Joseph’s House — a hybrid hospice facility and home for houseless folks with HIV/AIDS in Washington, D.C. and surrounding suburbs. Ramsey had come to die, peacefully. A particularly nasty bout of pneumonia sent him to the hospital, and a convoy of well-wishes from Joseph’s House went to visit him. “Y’all have come to visit me more than my real family,” he said and then paused. “Y’all are my real family.”

But Ramsey began to recover at Joseph’s House, under the diligent care of nurses, AmeriCorps members, and volunteers that endlessly cycled in-and-out of the ten-bedroom home. He called it his “house of hope.” His health improved, he began to recover from addiction and he reconnected with his family and God. He also became eligible for Title XIII to access affordable housing in the quickly-gentrifying District.

At 64, on May 12, 2019, Ramsey moved into the first apartment of his adult life. It’s a ten minute walk away from Joseph’s House.

Before a Valentine’s Day karaoke session for the residents of Joseph’s House, Ramsey and nurse Cathy scroll through apartments in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of D.C. Most exceed the $900 voucher he’ll depend on to pay his rent. “My disability check,” he said, “isn’t enough to last a week and I have to make it stretch longer. Sometimes people on the street help me out with a few bucks when I really need it.”

Half-wearing a mask, Ramsey walks to the 7-Eleven during a brief outing while recovering from an infection. After buying cigarettes and a tamale, he gave the rest of his change to a person panhandling outside. “It’s good karma,” he said with a wink.

An unidentified infection put Ramsey into the hospital for nearly a week, early into his stay at Joseph’s House in September 2018. Almost daily a group of current and previous residents and staff would visit Ramsey, bringing new clothes or snacks or books.

On his second trip of the day, Ramsey lights a cigarette outside of the liquor store where he buys lottery tickets. In the morning, mid-afternoon, and evening Ramsey checks his numbers. His most recent win was $40, which he split between more tickets and dessert to bring home to Joseph’s House.

Birds fly overhead as Ramsey struts away from a street vendor in a new ballcap. He is a diligent hat collector, buying one from a street vendor while walking from the Safeway back to Joseph’s House. His shelves at home are full of dozens.

Ramsey leaves a church service in an affluent neighborhood in Chevy Chase, Md. The congregation is largely white, middle-class and not Ramsey’s first choice. “But it’s still me talking with God,” he said. “And it’s the church I have a ride to.”

Melody settles on Ramsey’s lap at Joseph’s House before dinnertime. For years, they’ve had a loving but strained partnership — Ramsey worries she is too dependent on him, and Melody can find him aloof and hard to deal with.

Bundled up, Ramsey and Curtis, a former resident at Joseph’s House who visits almost daily, decide the cold weather won’t stop them from getting on the court. Fifteen minutes in, Ramsey is out-of-breath but determined to keep stealing. It’s taken many months for Ramsey to feel good enough to run up and down the court.

Ramsey kisses Melody goodbye, despite earlier bickering. He knows when he finds his own apartment, she will want to live with him, but he’s hesitant. A part of him wants to live by himself, keep working on his sobriety and have his very own space for the first time in his life.

Knowing he will soon move out, Ramsey sits on his bed at Joseph’s Housing after a visit with a case workers to find a new apartment. It’s been a challenge — housing prices are skyrocketing, there is discrimination against housing vouchers, and Ramsey is disabled and needs accessible housing.

Talking over the Metro Bus noice, Ramsey talks to the son he recently reconnected with after over a decade of estrangement. He’s reached out to all 7 of kids, and is trying to make amends for not often being in their lives. He has met three new grandkids this year.

Ramsey inspects the drawers of an apartment that could potentially be his. He is excited, but also fatigued by constant rejection — he’s viewed a half dozen apartments that seemed promising but then turned him down.

While waiting to catch the bus from Joseph’s House to his new apartment, Ramsey adjusts the collar of his sweatshirt. In the space of six months, Ramsey went from thinking he would die at Joseph’s House, to feeling healthy and moving himself into a new apartment.