ABCDE METRO tuesday, december 21, 2010 27, 9 a.m. 34, noon 36, 5 p.m. 33, 9 p.m.


Obituaries Walt Dropo, 87, won the 1950 American League Rookie of the Year award with the Boston Red Sox. B6


Preparing for a life off the welfare rolls


D.C. set to shrink benefits of long-term recipients, who are sizing up prospects for future


BY IAN SHAPIRA Navida Joyknowsshe needs to liberate


herself from the District’s dole for good. The divorced mother of three has been receiving city welfare checks on and off for six of the past 10 years. But Joy, who gets about $430 a month


in welfare checks and $440 in monthly food stamps, supports a controversial plan by theD.C. Council that would slash her benefits and those of other long-term welfare recipients. “The council’s move is the right idea,


but there are a lot of people out therewho depend on it and need welfare,” said Joy, 28, who lost her bartending job at T.G.I. Friday’s in August and takes medical coding classes at a local trade college to find work. “Right now, I am facing evic- tion because I can’t paymy rent. I’mnot as motivated as I should be. I’ve been dealing with a divorced family. But I am trying. I plan on getting off welfare and not begging for money.” Her life illustrates the hurdles the city


faces in pushing thousands of people off its welfare rolls. On Tuesday, the strapped D.C. Council


—facing a $188 million shortfall this year and a projected $440 million deficit in the next budget—is expected to approve cutting welfarepaymentsto singleunem- ployed parents who have been in the District’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program cumulatively for five or more years. Many are single motherswhodropped


out of high school. They often come from troubled families and have spotty work histories.Somealso struggle with alcohol or drug abuse or mental health issues. The cuts would have a deep impact on


the city’s poor, particularly its children. Among the 17,000 families in the city’s welfare program, about 40 percent — or 6,800 — have been getting benefits for more than five years, receiving an aver-


welfare continued on B4


In Md. town, anxiety over ‘revitalizing’


Some Kensington residents fear that development will mar village-like character


BY KATHERINE SHAVER Amid the sprawling Montgomery


County suburbs, the 116-year-old town of Kensington prides itself on its village charm. It’s a place where many of the 1,900 residents know each other and visitors can stroll between Antique Row and stately Victorian homes mixed with post-World War II colonials and ram- blers. Beyond its leafy neighborhoods and


historic district, Kensington’s business hub — the area that most people see as they drive through on frequently jammed Connecticut Avenue — consists largely of gas stations, garages and tired-looking stripmalls. Montgomery planners have proposed


redeveloping the area over the next 20 years into a vibrant town center where people live and work above storefronts and walk along tree-lined sidewalks to cafes, shops and public gathering spots. Such developments, which would in- cludemore tall buildings than residents are accustomed to, also would help communities in Montgomery’s densely populated southern areas absorb much of the county’s population growth, plan- ners say. While planners draft new regulations


governing such mixed-use develop- ments, some residents in Kensington, Takoma Park, Silver Spring and North Chevy Chase are questioning whether their communitieswill become high-rise mini-cities with even worse traffic jams and more children in their crowded


kensington continued on B8 First things first


Post columnist Tracee Hamilton discusses the most amazing and outrageous news from the world of sports. 9:30 a.m.


THEREGION Ex-teacher in custody


Federal marshals detain Kevin Ricks, a former Manassas teacher, as he leaves the Prince William jail after serving a one- year term for sexual abuse. B4


Metro’s board faces big


turnover 8 OF 14 SEATS IN QUESTION


Fallout a result of recent elections, critical reports


BY ANN SCOTT TYSON Metro’s board of directors is undergo-


ing amajor personnel shift—potential- ly one of the biggest in years — with the tenure of as many as eight of the 14 members in question. The turnover comes at a critical time


PHOTOS BY GERALD MARTINEAU FOR THE WASHINGTON POST Ayouth is escorted to Brookfield Elementary School past the ruined home.No injuries were reported in the explosion.


Gas blast destroys home in Chantilly area of Fairfax


Anapparent gas explosion destroyed a


house in western Fairfax County on Sunday night, the fire department said. The blast occurred about 9 p.m. at a


house on Lees Corner Road in the Chan- tilly area, said Battalion Chief Chris Schaff of the county fire and rescue service. No one was in the house at the time,


and no injuries were reported. Schaff said a gas leak in the two-story


house was ignited by something inside. The house was “taken down to the ground,” and neighboring houses re- ceived minor damage, Schaff said. He said the house was near the inter-


section with Pennsboro Drive. The site is less than a mile south of Route 50 and a few miles south of Dulles International Airport.


—Martin Weil Home owner Thuan Nguyen talks with county FireMarshal JoeVacchio.


for the Washington transit agency, which is within weeks of selecting a permanent general manager who will report to the board. Although some members say they welcome the fresh insights that would come from the changes, others are concerned about the loss of leadership experience. Some of the changeswere expected as


fallout from recent elections. But the departures are also a reaction to criti- cism leveled in two recent reports on Metro’s 1970s-era governance structure that describe the body as outmoded, lacking accountability and transparen- cy, parochial, and overly involved in day-to-day decisions. Several board members acknowledged frustration at serving in the time-consuming position for little or no pay or public apprecia- tion. Board members cannot be paid by


Metro, according to the compact that governs the transit agency. The jurisdic- tions provide widely varying compensa- tion, with Maryland providing $20,000 a year to voting boardmembers, Virgin- ia $50 per meeting and the District nothing, boardmembers said. “It’s equivalent to an honorarium or


expenses,” said board Chairman Peter Benjamin of Maryland. “I don’t make minimum wage on what the state pays me; it’s a non-amount.” Benjamin is expected to cede the


metro continued on B5 Disparities in deportation programraise questions


Many immigrants kicked out of Pr. George’s under system for criminals aren’t criminals


BY SHANKAR VEDANTAM Despite vows by the Obama adminis-


tration to focus its immigration enforce- ment efforts on criminals, a quarter of those who have been deported through a programcalled Secure Communities had not been convicted of committing any crime, government statistics show. And that percentage was vastly higher in


some jurisdictions, including Prince George’s County, where two-thirds of the 86 undocumented immigrants were not criminals. The Prince George’s rate of noncrimi-


nal deportation was the second-highest in the country among counties or cities with at least 50 removals, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforce- ment figures through the end of July, the latest numbers made available. By comparison, 15 percent of the 105


immigrants removed from Prince Wil- liam County, which has taken a much tougher stance toward illegal immi- grants than Prince George’s, were not criminals. EvenMaricopa County in Ari-


zona—home to Joe Arpaio, the self-pro- claimed “toughest sheriff in America” — deported noncriminals at a rate of less than half that of Prince George’s. The disparities have left local authori-


ties puzzled and immigrant rights activ- ists outraged. Immigration officials declined to ex-


plain the disparities but defended Secure Communities, which is becoming the nation’s central immigration enforce- ment mechanism. Homeland Security Secretary Janet


Napolitano recently credited the pro- gram with helping to produce a more than 70 percent increase in deportations of criminals, including gang members,


murderers and drug traffickers. “Secure Communities has resulted in


the arrest of more than 59,000 convicted criminal aliens, including more than 21,000 convicted of major violent offens- es likemurder, rape,andthe sexual abuse of children,” Napolitano said. Immigration rights groups say the


programhas led to the removal of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who have committed far less serious crimes or none at all. “The numbers out of Prince George’s


are absurd,” said Gustavo Andrade, orga- nizing director of CASA ofMaryland, an


deport continued on B6


In rural Md., the homeless are hidden from view but just as desperate


I NIKKI KAHN/THE WASHINGTON POST


MatthewThomas, 72, is homeless and lives in the woods in Brandywine.He uses kerosene purchased by a nonprofit group to heat his dilapidated camper.


n her four-wheel-drive pickup truck, Claudia Raskin is bumping over the muddy dirt road on an unusual


mercymission. She’s an organic farmer, foodie and


formerManhattanite who helps run a food bank in rural Prince George’s County. This isn’t theWegmans/


Redskins/cash-filled bra part of the county. This is what used to be tobacco country, where roadside signs advertise goatmeat and discount pig stalls. And we’re only 23miles fromtheWhite House. Here, the deeply impoverished aren’t


lined up outside a soup kitchen on a busy city street. Instead, they are living in trailers, dumped campers and tents, even when it’s 23 degrees outside. “It’s not like New York here,” Raskin


PETULA DVORAK


tellsme as we bounce between potholes. “There, you can be literally stepping over the homeless. It’s right there, right up in your face. Here, it’s hidden.” And it’s not just food, blankets and


clothing they need. On this biting-cold December day,


we’re delivering 10 gallons of kerosene to a 72-year-oldman living in a


dvorak continued on B5 B EZ SU


JOHNKELLY’SWASHINGTON ‘A very special patient’


Though not quite 3 years old, Kellen Googin has been to the brink of death and back. His mother credits a doctor at Children’s Hospital who was the boy’s “guardian angel.” B2


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