The Mary Cosby Art Gallery presents...

United States and in the District of Columbia..... There are as many as 1.35 million homeless children nationwide. –Urban Institute, 2001

Reasons for homelessness include rising rent costs, landlords selling property, family crises like job loss, parental incarceration, domestic violence, medical problems, mental health problems, fire, and often a combination of factors. – Homeless Children’s Playtime Project

Prior to closing, DC Village was the largest homeless shelter for families in our nation’s capital where more than 50 families and 150 children called home at any given time. – Homeless Children’s Playtime Project
DC lost 2,400 affordable rentals and 9,400 affordable homes in just the period between 2003 and 2004. DC gained 4,600 high-cost rentals and 10,800 high-value homes over the same time period. –DC Fiscal Policy Institute, 2005

Poverty in the District is at the highest level in nearly a decade. One in five DC residents — 110,000 people — live in poverty. – DC Fiscal Policy Institute, 2007
Washington, D.C. has the widest income gap between rich and poor of any city in the country, with the poorest fifth of D.C. residents earning an average of $6,126 a year, while the richest fifth earn an average of 31 times that much, $186,830 – DC Fiscal Policy Institute, 2007

Since with the late 1990s, some 27,000 more DC residents have fallen into poverty.
Many DC workers earn poverty-level wages. The bottom fifth of working DC residents earned $10.81 per hour or less in 2006. This wage level is barely enough to keep a family of four with a full-time worker above the poverty line of roughly $21,000. – DC Fiscal Policy Institute, 2007