HIPS in the News

How to Decarcerate DC Effectively (Medium)

5/7/2020

Article by:
Tamika Spellman, HIPS Advocacy & Policy Associate

This is a good way for DC to be a shining example for the country to aspire to if they get ahead of what could be a disaster in the making. Or we can continue doing the same thing policing the hell outta marginalized communities expecting different results. [Read Article]

"We have an opportunity to not only save lives by not allowing traumatic experiences to tarnish lives during and following this pandemic, but to change them for the better in the long run. Instead of policing the people to death, we can be proactive and give them a hand up during the pandemic that can last beyond the crisis."

A Call to Action: Establish DC’s First Safe Consumption Space (Medium)

4/6/2020

"Shane Sullivan, HIPS Community Outreach Specialist, wrote a piece on Medium about the need for Washington, DC's first safe consumption space. [Read More]

"Highlighting naloxone access within the past couple of years has forced us to acknowledge the painful reality that we’ve already lost so many DC residents to preventable overdoses. We need to name that for what it is: a systematic failure of people who use drugs, particularly those most vulnerable due to racism, poverty, disability, and related social factors."

D.C. clears longtime homeless encampment near Union Station (Washington Post)

1/16/2020

(Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

Two blocks from the razed encampment, Jessica Kiaraliza Martinez, a homeless advocate with D.C.-based nonprofit HIPS, stood across the street from Kittie Kagona’s tent at its new M Street location. Kagona, who has lived along K Street for about two years, is hoping her days along NoMa’s underpasses are numbered. "We’re trying to make sure homeless people’s property isn’t destroyed,” Martinez said. “When you’ve lost everything, you deserve to have something. I feel like this is the city saying homeless people don’t deserve anything.” [Read Article]

Trans Women of Color Organizers Are Building a Movement to Decriminalize Sex Work in D.C. (Autostraddle)

12/13/2019

Article By:
NEESHA POWELL-TWAGIRUMUKIZA

Imagine you’ve grinded for years as a member of a community coalition to get a hearing for a historic bill that will drastically improve your life if passed. A hearing is finally granted, and when the big day arrives, you scramble to get your John Hancock at the top of the list to give testimony. Once the hearing begins, hours go by without your name being called. Although you signed up before them, representatives of organizations from other parts of the country and from other countries get their time at the mic before you. Worse, their speeches are denouncing the bill that you and other local grassroots organizers have put your blood, sweat, and tears into, labeling it harmful instead of helpful. This was our reality on October 17th's hearing date. [Read Article]

“A lot of the groups that worked with this movement were put at the trailing end of the hearing, and it was a 14-hour-plus hearing. Those voices should have been heard well ahead of them, and if anything, those that were from out-of-state should have been put at the end. Accommodating them because they’re from out-of-state made absolutely no sense to a movement that is local."

Tamika Spellman, HIPS Policy & Advocacy Associate

Tamika Spellman, Policy & Advocacy Associate at HIPS is interviewed (Black Women Radicals)

12/9/2019

FULL DECRIMINALIZATION IS FULL FREEDOM: TAMIKA SPELLMAN ON BELONGING AND TOWARDS BLACK SEX WORKER LIBERATION By Jamiee A. Swift

Tamika Spellman’s interview is a part of ‘Voices in Movement’ December 2019 theme, ‘On Belonging.’ To read the descriptor of ‘On Belonging’, please click here.
Trigger Words: Police violence, violence against women.

A pioneering activist and advocate, Tamika Spellman (she/her/hers) is leading a movement so that present and future Black and Brown sex workers in Washington, D.C., can truly know what full freedom and Belonging is and means in a world that tries to criminalize and control their bodily and political autonomy and agency. [Read Article]

Police Reports Raise Questions about MPD’s Tactics During Undercover Prostitution Stings (Washington City Paper)

10/17/2019

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“Nefarious people look for the weakest link,” says Tamika Spellman, who is a policy and advocacy associate at the harm-reduction nonprofit HIPS and has been a sex worker by choice for more than 35 years. “And they know there’s a lack of concern for sex workers.” She analogizes the situation to mobsters killing people during Prohibition, or gun crime associated with marijuana—two industries that were very violent so long as they were illegal. “The root cause [of violence] is not the sex worker. It’s the crime that surrounds the sex worker. I’m not a violent person, but I’ve had a lot of violence happen to me,” Spellman says. “People are going to do what they’re going to do. So we can try to at least make them safe when they’re doing it.” [Read Article]

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HIPS Testimony at City Council of DC on the Community Safety and Health Amendment Act of 2019

10/17/2019

HIPS staff members Cyndee Clay, Alexandra Bradley, and Jessica Martinez deliver powerful testimony at DC's City Council hearing on the Community Safety Act of 2019. Decriminalizing sex work would prevent some of the city’s most marginalized members—trans women of color, in particular—from entering the criminal justice system for engaging in consensual sex.

Stop Criminalizing Survivors (Washington City Paper)

10/3/2019

Tamika Spellman, HIPS Policy and Advocacy Associate Credit: Darrow Montgomery/file

#I’ve found another family with the people I organize with. We were proud to join the legacy of freedom fighters like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, who called to decriminalize sex work and invest in community in the 1970s. And we knew that to fully decriminalize sex work in the District, we had to shift hearts and minds. Through DECRIMNOW, we started uplifting the stories and perspectives of the countless Black and brown trans sex workers who experienced violence and wanted to be safe. Now, after decades of fighting to be respected and supported, the D.C. Council is starting to take the needs of people in the sex trades seriously.
[Read Article]

LGBTQ advocates deliver letter to DC council members calling for sex work decriminalization (Metro Weekly)

10/2/2019

Activists advocating for decriminalization of sex work in D.C. submit a letter, signed by 72 organizations, outlining their position to D.C. Councilmember Elissa Silverman, I-At-Large (left). – Photo: Sex Worker Advocates Coalition.

LGBTQ activists and advocates has dropped off copies of a letter addressed to members of the D.C. Council, signed by 72 different organizations, advocating for a bill that would decriminalize sex work in the District of Columbia. The four key arguments in favor of the bill are that decriminalizing sex work will 1) allow sex workers, particularly transgender individuals who otherwise can’t obtain jobs due to discrimination, a way to make money to survive; 2) decrease the incidence of violence and harassment that sex workers face at the hands of clients, criminals who target sex workers for money, or even police; 3) decrease rates of HIV by allowing transgender people more time and space to negotiate condom use; and 4) allow sex workers to access resources, government benefits, and employment opportunities that they would otherwise be denied if they have a criminal conviction for prostitution. [Read Article]

Transgender sex workers feel under attack. These women are working to protect their own. (Washington Post)

9/16/2019

From left, Emmelia Talarico, Bianca Bonita Carter and Tamika Spellman cruise the streets checking up on sex workers in the early-morning hours in Northeast Washington. (J. Lawler Duggan/For The Washington Post)

With a bag of condoms and a stack of business cards, Tamika Spellman, HIPS Policy and Advocacy Associate, began a route she knew by heart, peering out the window of her Lincoln sedan at dark sidewalks where she once stood. Spellman rolled down the window,“Ya’ll got condoms?” she called. On the corner of 51st and Meade street, they found a woman wearing a pink tank top and a fanny pack. Spellman offered her condoms. “I just want to make sure you’re safe while you’re working,” said Spellman. “Don’t worry, I question them before getting in the car,” the woman said. “I know, but you can’t ever tell these days,” Spellman said. “Too many other girls have been killed, and I just want to make sure you out here being safe, sugar.” [Read Article]

<<Previous

How to Decarcerate DC Effectively (Medium)

A Call to Action: Establish DC’s First Safe Consumption Space (Medium)

D.C. clears longtime homeless encampment near Union Station (Washington Post)

Trans Women of Color Organizers Are Building a Movement to Decriminalize Sex Work in D.C. (Autostraddle)

Tamika Spellman, Policy & Advocacy Associate at HIPS is interviewed (Black Women Radicals)

Police Reports Raise Questions about MPD’s Tactics During Undercover Prostitution Stings (Washington City Paper)

HIPS Testimony at City Council of DC on the Community Safety and Health Amendment Act of 2019

Stop Criminalizing Survivors (Washington City Paper)

LGBTQ advocates deliver letter to DC council members calling for sex work decriminalization (Metro Weekly)

Transgender sex workers feel under attack. These women are working to protect their own. (Washington Post)

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