Melvine Perkins has spent years trying to pull herself out of poverty — working temp jobs, applying for rental aid, and doing everything possible to stay in housing. But in a city where rent costs outpace wages and assistance often runs dry, each step forward seems to push her two steps back. Now, after years of fighting to stay in her one-bedroom apartment, she’s again facing eviction.
“It’s just by the grace of God that I have the mental bandwidth to not crash and burn. I’m telling you I have been through it,” she told Street Sense/The 51st. “I’m not in this situation because I want to be.”
Perkins spent nearly a decade cycling in and out of homelessness after losing her Maryland house and her nail salon business during the 2008 financial crisis. She lived for several years in a women’s shelter in Northwest D.C. It wasn’t until 2020, when she got a job tracing COVID-19 cases for the city and received a housing subsidy from the city’s Rapid Rehousing Program that she was able to move into a Ward 6 apartment that cost $1,800 a month…