THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2010


KLMNO


EZ SU Sent to the street, along with 15 tons of stuff Jobless and unable


to pay rent, woman is evicted in Northwest


BY THERESA VARGAS Evicted, Eloisa Diaz stood on


Otis PlaceNWonWednesday, her financial struggles and habit of collecting household goods – enough to crowd four street cor- ners – exposed for all to see. Evictions happen every day,


more so during a recession that has pushed unemployment and foreclosures to historic highs. But few evictions create such a dra- matic scene: jumbled mounds of goods, more than could be carted away by three moving trucks, each able to carry more than 10,000 pounds. “Everything,” Diaz, 50, said


standing at Otis and 11th Street, where she has lived for about 15 years. Strewed out for a constant stream of gawkers was “every- thing I got withmy sweat andmy money andmy heart.” A housekeeper for most her


life, she said she started collect- ing the items to send to relatives in Venezuela,Mexico and Colom- bia. “I cried when I went to Mexico to seemy family,” she said. “Look at how they live. I feel it’s my job to look out for them.” But for 21/2


years, she has been


unemployed, unable to pay rent, let alone the $5,000 she estimates it would cost to send a shipment of the size she envisions.


Sporadic payments According to D.C. Superior


Court documents, Diaz owed her landlord $10,096 and was unable to keep up with a payment sched- ule that required her to hand over $300 a month on top of her rent of $1,318. Records show she paid sporadically, sometimes $500 one month and nothing the next. On Saturday, Diaz said, she received a letter saying she could be evicted from the rowhouse as early as Sept. 21. So she was awake Tuesday morning when a crew of men arrived. Neighbors report seeing about two dozen men working from morning until evening clearing the house.


SUSAN BIDDLE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST


Eloisa Diaz says “everything I got withmy sweat andmy money andmy heart” was removed from her home.ASterling-based moving company, JKMoving&Storage, volunteered to cart away Diaz’s belongings and store them for a month without charge.


Whenthey were done, a chaot-


ic sight remained: vacuum clean- ers piled next to broken picture frames piled next to soup pots filled with Legos. A wet wipes warmer sat next to a Christmas- themed moose statue. Here, a book titled, “How to Survive the Loss of Love;” there, a broken lampshade. Every piece of furni- ture appeared broken or dam- aged. “Anything is usable,” Diaz said.


“Believe me.” She spent Tuesday night into


Wednesday standing guard, try- ing to carve out little corners of order amid the mess. She did not


sleep and went to the restroom only once, she said. Diaz’s roommate, Mosart Nk-


wemi, 45, who has lived in the house for twoyears, said he didn’t know about the eviction until he came home from his job as a computer programmer and saw his belongings tossed among Diaz’s. “Did you find your green


card?” Diaz asked him Wednes- day.


“No,” he mumbled. It was miss-


ing along with his clothes and three laptop computers that he planned to sell.


Kindnesses extended The owner of the property,


listed in court documents as Joanne Beasly, did not return a call for comment. A Sterling-based moving com-


pany, JK Moving & Storage, vol- unteered to cart away Diaz’s be- longings and store them for a month without charge. Workers filled three large trucks before telling Diaz that they couldn’t take the rest. “That’s a 30,000- pound local move,” said Jason Pulsifer, who was managing the move. “That’s the biggest we get.” As Diaz tried to decide what to do with the remaining pile before


heading to a shelter for the night, Tony Williams, 57, came by. He saidwatching Diazremindedhim of the half-dozen times he was evicted while struggling with drug addiction. “It’s embarrass- ing,” he said. “You feel helpless.” So Williams decided to help


Diaz in the only way he knew:He took her hands in his and prayed. “Heavenly Father,” he began,


praying for Diaz to find housing and be reunited with her belong- ings. “Let these trucks take it and bring it back to her, Father. It is hers. I don’t care what people say . . . but it’s hers, Father. It’s hers.” vargast@washpost.com


Mental health an issues amongD.C.’s young offenders Report finds that


juvenile facilities don’t address the problem


BY HENRI E. CAUVIN Many of the young people


who are arrested in the District havemental health issues that to go unaddressed by the juvenile justice system, according to a report to be presented Thursday by a group representing local mental health providers. The study by the D.C. Behav-


ioral Health Association found that despite increased attention to the mental health of children and adolescents in the city, ac- cess to social workers, psycholo- gists and psychiatrists appears to lag far behind the need. But the report said that the


fragmented structure of the juve- nile justice system, which spans


several entities and the executive and judicial branches of the D.C. government, made it difficult to paint a clear and complete pic- ture of the needs. Concerns aboutmental health


care for juveniles are among a number of issues likely to be aired Thursday when the D.C. Council holds a hearing on the District’s juvenile justice agency. It is the first hearing on the


Department of Youth Rehabilita- tion Services sinceMayor Adrian M. Fenty shook up the agency in July, ousting then-DirectorMarc A. Schindler, who had fallen out of favor with Attorney General Peter Nickles. With Fenty’s loss last week in


the Democraticmayoral primary to Council Chairman Vincent Gray, the hearing Thursday promises to be not just a discus- sion of the current state of DYRS but awindowintowhat its future would be under a Gray adminis-


tration. At least two dozen advocates


and experts have signed up to testify at the hearing, which begins at 11 a.m. at the Wilson Building, and they will no doubt be trying to shape the agency’s priorities for not only the next few months but the next few years. Robert Hildum, who was the


city’s chief juvenile prosecutor before being tapped by Fenty to take over DYRS in July, is to testify about a host of issues, includingmental health. In an interview Wednesday,


he said that that the agency wasn’t doing enough on mental health. Juveniles who are housed in


the department’s two detention centers generally receive good mental health care,Hildumsaid. But services for the hundreds of juveniles who are supervised by DYRS in the community, often


after a stay in a detention facility, are a different story. “I think we’re doing a superb job in the facilities, but we really need to make sure it follows themout the door,” Hildumsaid. Intensive individual and fami-


ly therapy programs have been “underutilized,” Hildum said, and instead, some juveniles who might have benefited from such interventions ended up in resi- dential treatment facilities out- side of the city. “I don’t think the services have been matched up as well as they should be,” Hildumsaid. At least four mayoral agen-


cies, not tomention a long list of private providers, have a hand in serving the mental health needs of the city’s most troubled youths. Along with DYRS, the Department of Mental Health, the Child and Family Services Agency, and the Department of Health Care Finance, which ad-


Duncan says chairman is passionate about education reform


BY NICK ANDERSON AND BILL TURQUE


Presumptive mayor-elect Vin-


cent C. Gray, facing the most keenly anticipated personnel de- cision of his administration-in- waiting, is scheduled to sit down with SchoolsChancellorMichelle A. Rhee on Thursday for a con- versation that is expected to address how long Rhee will re- main on the job. Rhee, an appointee of Mayor


AdrianM. Fenty (D), has signaled that she has no long-term inter- est in working for Gray, who challenged several of her key decisions and enjoyed heavy fi- nancial support from the Wash- ington Teachers’ Union. She campaigned against Gray


in this summer’s Democratic pri- mary. After hewon lastweek, she told an audience that the out- come of the contest was “devas- tating” for the city’s schoolchil- dren. She later said her comment was not a denunciation of the D.C. Council chairman but a lament that the results could be perceived as a blow against re- form. Sources in the Gray campaign


said he was not pleased with Rhee’s post-election analysis but that he remains steadfast in wanting to conferwith her before making a decision aboutwhether to look for a new chancellor. What’s not known is whether Thursday’s gathering will bring any closure to what often has been a tense, awkward relation- ship. Gray received two significant


statements of support Wednes- day for whatever he and Rhee might decide, one from the Obama administration and the other from a key player in the city’s business leadership. U.S. Education Secretary Arne


ministers Medicaid, each has a role, and that has made coordi- nation essential — and some- times elusive. D.C. Superior Court’s juvenile


probation agency,which is called Court Social Services and super- vises about 1,700 young offend- ers, is yet another key actor in the juvenile system. The report has extremely limited data about Court Social Services. Chief Judge Lee F. Satterfield


said Wednesday that the court has a number of mental health programs for juveniles and is constantly working to improve services for the juveniles under its supervision. Satterfield, who said he


learned of the reportWednesday, said he has asked staff to pull together whatever information the court has to address the concerns raised. cauvinh@washpost.com


Audit findswealth of unspent funds at Va. TransportationDept.


Hundreds of millions of dollars likely, governor expected to announce


BY ANITA KUMAR


richmond — Gov. Robert F. McDonnell is expected to an- nounce Thursday the findings of a new an audit of the Virginia Department of Transportation, which sources said has uncov- ered hundreds of millions of dollars in unspent funds spread across several accounts. Tucker Martin, a spokesman


for McDonnell (R), declined to comment Wednesday. But two sources familiar with the audit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to preempt the governor’s announcement, said the accounts could total $500million. Sen. John C.Watkins (R-Ches-


terfield) said Secretary of Trans- portation Sean T. Connaughton told him that the audit could bring in at least $300 million. According to Watkins, Con- naughton said those funds, near- ly $500million fromthe possible privatization of the state’s liquor system and a third, yet-to-be-an- nounced revenue source could


total $1 billion. The money is significant because the state has struggled for years to find road and transit funds. “All the stars have to be aligned right,” he said. In recentweeks, Connaughton


has hinted that the audit would bringmajor personnel and policy changes to the agency, even say- ing itwouldmake national news. “The biggest issuewe are look-


ing at is financialmanagement— money that was in the pipeline,” Connaughton told a business audience in Northern Virginia two weeks ago. “We had some indications that we were facing some challenges when we took office, and the auditors con-


firmed that those concerns were valid.” Connaughton briefedRepubli-


can senators about the audit — conducted by Cherry, Bekaert and Holland — at their annual retreat lastweekend inWilliams- burg, Sen. EmmettW. Hanger Jr. (Augusta) said. McDonnell, Connaughton and


VDOT Commissioner Gregory A. Whirley will announce the re- sults of the audit at an afternoon news conference at the state Capitol. Democrats are expected to im-


mediately counter that the mon- ey could not be used because state law prevents officials from


spending the funds until they are pooled from all revenue sources. The funds are in accounts used by localities to pay for transpor- tation projects, the sources said. Soon after his inauguration in


January, McDonnell called for four audits of VDOT, an agency that in the past three decades has undergonemore than 50 audits. In May, the first audit dealing


with public-private partnerships recommended that the state cre- ate a government office solely with those types of deals. kumaranita@washpost.com


Staff writer Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.


Duncan said that he was “a big fan” of Rhee’s and hoped that she would stay because urban educa- tion often suffers because of rapid turnover in school leader- ship. “I’d love to seeMichelle have a


10-year run inD.C.,”Duncan said. “Thatmay ormay not happen.” But Duncan, who appeared


with Fenty at a couple of high- profile Education Department events in the final days of the primary campaign, predicted that Graywould be a strong force for education reform in any event. “If Vince Gray becomes the


mayor, he’s going to be passion- ately committed to improving the quality of education,” he said at a breakfast by the Christian Sci- ence Monitor. “He knows what’s at stake here. D.C. has made tremendous progress. D.C. des- perately needs to continue to make significant progress. D.C. for a long time was frankly a national disgrace, educationally. It was an embarrassment.” Duncan added: “If you’re ask-


ing me, ‘Is reform going to con- tinue in D.C.?’ Absolutely.” Terence Golden, former chair-


man of the Federal City Council, an influential group of District business leaders, said in an inter- view Wednesday that although he hoped Rhee would remain, he had full faith in Gray’s commit- ment to the continued improve- ment of the school system. “Chairman Gray has been a


great supporter of education re- form,” Golden said, citing his work to generate support for mayoral control of the school system. Although Rhee “has done an


extraordinary job,” Golden said, he has not written or spoken to Gray since the primary urging that he seek to retain her. andersonn@washpost.com turqueb@washpost.com


Staff writer Nikita Stewart contributed to this report.


2 High Point students were racing before crash, Pr. George’s police say BY MATT ZAPOTOSKY Two boys — both students at


High Point High School, officials said — were seriously injured after they lost control of their car during a street race in Beltsville and veered into a guardrail and oncoming traffic, police said. A witness reported that the


teens, in a Toyota Scion, ap- peared to be racing another vehi- cle Wednesday in the 3100 block of Powder Mill Road when they lost control of their car around a curve, said Sgt.Michelle Reedy, a spokeswoman for the Prince George’s County Police Depart- ment. While the other vehicle drove away, the Scion, headed north,


veered toward oncoming traffic and collidedwith a guardrail and a Honda Accord traveling in the opposite direction, she said. The driver of the Scion was


trapped in the wreckage, and the passenger was thrown from the car, Reedy said. The boys, both 17,were expect-


ed to live, though their injuries were serious, police and fire offi-


cials said. It took firefighters about 10minutes to get the driver out of the car, authorities said. The driver of the Accord was


out of his car by the time police arrived,Reedy said.Hewas taken to a nearby hospital for a check- up but was not seriously injured, she said. Reedy said that no one had been charged or cited in the


crash. She declined to identify the people involved, because the boys are juveniles and all are possibly witnesses to a crime. The scene of the crash is less


than amile fromHigh Point, and Reedy said that she assumed the passenger in the Scion should have been at the school at the time of the crash, about 11 a.m. Darrell Pressley, a Prince


George’s County Schools spokes- man, said both teenagers were High Point students. “We’re still investigating the


reasoning behind themnot being in school,” he said. Reedy said police were search-


ing for the car thatwas racing the Scion, though she did not have a good description. zapotoskym@washpost.com


B5


Gray, Rhee to meet to discuss her future


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