Through The Cracks | Episode 8: New Year, Old Wounds (Transcript)

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:00:00] I'm Jonquilyn Hill and from WAMU and PRX, this is
Through The Cracks, a podcast about the gaps in our society and the people who fall
through them. [00:00:10]

Relisha Rudd: [00:00:14] R-E-L-I-S-H-A. [00:00:14]

Melissa Young: [00:00:14] I think, you know, this is my dedication and my tribute to
help deal with the situation. [00:00:21]

Patrick Madden: [00:00:22] I think everyone realized they effed up. Everyone and no
one wanted to take responsibility for this. [00:00:29]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:00:30] This season on Through The Cracks, we're investigating the
disappearance of Relisha Rudd. [00:00:34]

[00:00:37] Relisha disappeared when she was eight years old and her family was
living in a homeless shelter in southeast D.C. It took 18 days for anyone to realize she
was missing. We've looked at Relisha's family, how they were evicted from their
home. [00:00:50]

Ashley Young: [00:00:51] My sister, her kids and her baby father were staying with
me in a one bedroom. It was small, but I didn't want them in a shelter. [00:00:59]

Antonio Wheeler: [00:01:00] It was good when we first got into the shelter. You
know, everybody was nice. [00:01:04]

[00:01:06] I ain't want to be there. I ain't want my kids there. [00:01:09]

Lakia Barnett: [00:01:10] Well, the horror stories for me was the fact that we had to
get patted down when we come in the building. And it was almost like jail. [00:01:16]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:01:17] We've looked into Kahlil Tatum, who knew him, how he
came to work at D.C. General, and how Relisha ended up in his care. [00:01:24]

Antonio Wheeler: [00:01:25] And I said, no, no, no I know no Dr. Tatum; I know a Mr.
Tatum. And he looked at me like with a stupid look on his face, like oh, shit. [00:01:31]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:01:33] We've looked at why people blame Relisha's mother
Shamika, and whether focusing solely on Shamika is keeping us from changing the
systems meant to protect kids like Relisha. [00:01:43]
Judith Sandalow: [00:01:45] To figure out how we could prevent a child like Relisha
from going missing really requires us to go back in time to the experience that their
parents had growing up and their grandparents. [00:01:56]

Jonathan Rosnick: [00:01:57] I would say that every system in place that could or
should have protected Relisha Rudd essentially failed her. [00:02:06]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:02:07] On this episode, the last episode of the season, was
Relisha's disappearance preventable? And, what has D.C. done to keep other children
from falling through the cracks? [00:02:17]

Community member: [00:02:33] And I want to lead us in prayer. Father, right now,
we come before you... [00:02:37]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:02:41] One of the last pre-pandemic reporting trips I did was an
anniversary vigil for Relisha. It was March 1st, 2020, exactly six years after Relisha was
last seen. It was cloudy, but warm. Like D.C. was about to skip the spring and head
straight to summer. [00:02:57]

Community member: [00:02:59] Relisha, if you hear us, we want you to know that
we will never, ever stop searching for you. [00:03:05]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:03:06] A couple dozen people gathered across the street from the
Days Inn on New York Ave., one of the last places where Relisha was seen. I spotted
Relisha's grandmother, Melissa Young, pretty quickly. She was standing near a fence,
toward the edge of the group. There were lots of other news reporters there to cover
the anniversary, but no one was talking to Melissa yet. [00:03:25]

Melissa Young: [00:03:29] Lot of memories. It was six years, so... [00:03:32]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:03:35] I'm really sorry. [00:03:36]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:03:36] Melissa was really emotional and started crying once we
started speaking. She was Relisha's only relative there. [00:03:44]

Melissa Young: [00:03:46] I appreciate what everybody's doing. Don't nobody else in
my family say they appreciate it; I'm one of the ones that will say I appreciate it. I'm
very thankful, so, you know, I couldn't I couldn't have got this far, couldn't have kept
her name out without nobody out here. [00:04:02]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:04:04] Including police officers and press, this was a small crowd.
People didn't gather just to remember Relisha. They were also there to give out an
updated missing person's poster to drivers, pedestrians and nearby businesses. Like
I've said before, people haven't forgotten her. [00:04:21]
[00:04:22] They recognized Relisha's case as soon as they saw the fliers. [00:04:41

[00:04:42] Melissa wasn't pleased with the enhanced photo, which tried to show how
Relisha might look at the age of 14. [00:04:47]

Melissa Young: [00:04:49] I just don't like the picture they got on there. It don't
resemble...To me, it don't resemble her at all. Not what I think she would look like.
[00:05:01]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:05:08] This event is held every year. And every year, the old
wounds open up again and the old questions do to. How did this happen? [00:05:17]

Patrick Madden: [00:05:17] And obviously, you know, this is difficult. There are these
different agencies that have to somehow figure out how to communicate. You have
HIPAA stuff. You have, you know, young children, I mean, so obviously there are
barriers to sharing records and communicating. None of this is easy. [00:05:35]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:05:37] You heard this voice before. This is Patrick Madden, a
former WAMU reporter who covered Relisha's disappearance and one of the first
people I ever interviewed for this podcast. And I wanted to come back to that
conversation just for a minute, because we circled around this question. [00:05:54]

Patrick Madden: [00:05:56] And also, I mean, was anyone actually held accountable
for what happened? I mean, it doesn't appear to be because the report concludes
that the government couldn't have prevented this tragedy. [00:06:08]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:06:10] He's talking about the D.C. government's report released in
September 2014, six months after Relisha went missing. And it has a massive
contradiction written right into it. The review team "did not find evidence that these
tragic events were preventable." But then it offers 15 findings. For example, the lack
of background checks at D.C. General or Relisha's many absences from school. And
for every finding, there're recommendations for how the city can improve.

I know terrible things can happen to people even when there are guardrails to
protect them. But to say Relisha's disappearance was unpreventable almost sounds
like the city is saying it was inevitable, as though nothing could have been done to
keep her safe. And these findings, they feel like admissions. Patrick Madden and I
looked at every finding in the report, even the ones with so many redactions, you can
barely tell what they say. [00:07:11]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:07:12] Number eight is super redacted. "The review found limited
interventions to address the redacted allegations between redacted and redacted
and their alleged redacted." [00:07:20]
Patrick Madden: [00:07:22] Right. I mean, there is no way to know what that means.
[00:07:25]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:07:26] Now that you've heard seven episodes of this podcast, you
could probably write the report yourself. The school didn't report Relisha's absences
quickly enough. No one enforced the fraternization policy at the shelter. There was a
complicated family dynamic and the institutions responsible for Relisha weren't
communicating well. [00:07:44]

Patrick Madden: [00:07:45] This is like the response to a lawsuit, right? These are all
the reasons why it's not our fault. That's what this report is basically saying. The
other issues...this report doesn't address any of the conditions that led up to the
disappearance. You know, how did Relisha Rudd get into that situation to begin
with? And it seems like if you don't do that, then you're just, you know, who's to say
that there aren't other situations happening right now across this city? [00:08:10]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:08:12] But the report was, and still is, a useful jumping off point. In
2014, what problems did the District see and try to fix? [00:08:21]

NBC 4 Washington TV Anchor: [00:08:27] More than a decade, it served as a home

for families who had no place else to go. Today, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser closed the
door at D.C. General for the very final time. [00:08:38]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:08:43] The city closed D.C. General on October 31st, 2018. And just
after she literally locked the doors to the shelter with a long metal chain, Mayor
Bowser made a reference to Relisha. [00:08:55]

Muriel Bowser: [00:08:56] We as a city have said we don't want to lose another
child. We want families who are experiencing emergencies to have a safe place to
land so that they can take care of employment, take care of health, take care of
training. [00:09:11]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:09:12] But this was four years after the report was published. It
took four years for the city to close a dysfunctional shelter in a disused former
hospital with far too many families packed inside and serious issues with staff
discipline. Four years. After D.C. General closed, families who would have gone there
were placed in hotels. Meanwhile, new, smaller shelters were built, one in each of
D.C.’s eight wards. The last one opened in February 2021. [00:09:43]

[00:09:54] Producer Patrick Fort and I went to visit one called The Triumph in the
Washington Highlands neighborhood, the same neighborhood where Relisha lived
with her family before they got evicted in 2012. We got a tour from one of the people
who works there. [00:10:07]
The Triumph employee: [00:10:08] You have a basketball court with a hoop, and
then we have our play area with a little jungle gym. And then we have a little
playhouse for our smaller kids that have a little smaller sliding board. [00:10:18]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:10:19] Yeah, it's very cute. Very cute. [00:10:21]

The Triumph employee: [00:10:21] Thank you. It's important for kids to be able to be
kids. [00:10:24]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:10:25] It's wildly different from D.C. General. There, families were
crowded. Here, they have space. There, there was a fight for a playground. Here,
there's been a playground from the very beginning. That's the case at all eight of the
new shelters. There's art on every wall and there are spaces to study and meet inside
the shelter. Places to play. [00:10:55]

[00:10:56] It's easy to see down the hallways. Something I later learned is important
for security. If you build clear sight lines into the shelter, you don't need such a heavy
security presence. The goal was to get rid of the feeling of being policed while you're
in a shelter. [00:11:09]

[00:11:14] At the Triumph, I sat down with Laura Zeilinger, the head of D.C.'s
Department of Human Services, which is responsible for D.C.'s shelter system.
[00:11:27]

Laura Zeilinger: [00:11:28] So my job is to bust those barriers that get in the way of
people realizing those hopes and dreams. [00:11:35]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:11:36] Laura became the head of DHS in January of 2015. She was
appointed by Mayor Bowser, who had beaten former Mayor Vincent Gray.
Coincidentally, the campaign for mayor took place at the same time as the Relisha
Rudd story was breaking. The primary election, which decides everything in this
Democrat-dominated city, took place the same day that Kahlil Tatum's body was
found: April 1st. It doesn't seem like the Relisha Rudd story had an effect on Bowser's
victory. But when Bowser took office, she pledged to end chronic homelessness in
the District. That is, she promised to house people like Antonio and Shamika, who
have experienced homelessness for longer than a year. And she chose Laura
Zeilinger to lead the charge. [00:12:25]

Laura Zeilinger: [00:12:26] We have to have shelter and it's okay to invest in shelter,
but we need to do it in a way that people aren't staying here for years. That they can
come into a safe place where they feel welcomed and that they can also feel
supported to move to a place of permanency that is their own. [00:12:46]
Jonquilyn Hill: [00:12:47] The Triumph feels like a really nice college dorm. It has 206
beds and rooms of various sizes. No kitchens in the rooms. Families come down to
the multipurpose room to eat. During the pandemic, meals have been served
grab-and-go to try to prevent the spread of coronavirus. About 50 kids were staying
there when I visited. D.C. General had about 600 children living there at its peak.
Laura says a small shelter has huge advantages. [00:13:14]

Laura Zeilinger: [00:13:16] There is something in the size that creates a sense of
follow-up, where there's the opportunity for informal conversations, for feeling seen
and known and heard and just, "How are you? How are your kids doing right now?
What's going on? I saw from the school that your child missed a couple of days of
school this week. What's going on? I didn't realize that. Or do you need help with
getting to the doctor or whatever? What's happening there?" So it allows us to be a
different kind of advocate, a different kind of support for people and build trust.
[00:13:50]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:13:52] As she was saying this, I thought about Relisha's school and
how they didn't realize something was wrong for so many days. I also thought about
Kahlil Tatum, who with his criminal record, should never have been employed at D.C.
General and should have never been allowed to get so close to Relisha's family.
[00:14:08]

Laura Zeilinger: [00:14:10] So one of the things that was our recommendation that
was in the Relisha Rudd report, that changed certainly immediately, but we have
carried forward into every single contract since is: There are a whole series of
background checks that are required for every single staff person. We also do
training and require training on boundaries, and certain things that make it really
clear that there is a no frater–that support our no frat-er-ni-zation policy. [00:14:38]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:14:40] Fraternization. I struggle with that word too. That took, like,
five takes. [00:14:45]

[00:14:47] Anyhow, Laura's talking about providers and contractors and without
getting too deep into the weeds, yes, there are still layers of bureaucracy behind
every shelter in the District. That matters because in Relisha's case, there were no
clear lines of responsibility for her well-being. There was nobody in city government
in charge of navigating the system for her. Different institutions involved in her life
weren't communicating. The school social worker wasn't talking to the shelter and
no one in the shelter helped Shamika and Antonio find the child care they needed so
they wouldn't have to rely on someone like Kahlil Tatum. Zeilinger says this has
changed, and that in spite of privacy laws, different layers of the bureaucracy are
communicating better. But, the system is still set up for a parent to be the person
ultimately in charge, which is probably fine in many cases. But what if that parent is
incapable of performing that duty, of pulling together all the support and care that a
child needs in order to thrive in difficult circumstances? Shamika wasn't such a bad
parent that the city wanted to take her children away and put them in foster care.
But they didn't give her the support she needed either.

I once interviewed someone who had gotten out of the shelter system and found
housing. She told me that you have to have drive and not take no for an answer. Put
your big girl hat on, she said, go get it. But what about people who are just not
capable of navigating the system? Who don't instinctively have that hustle? They're
at the system's mercy. [00:16:20]

[00:16:28] After the break: What is the city doing to keep people out of the shelter
system in the first place? [00:16:32]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:16:53] This is it, the last episode. I can't believe that after years of
work, our first season of Through The Cracks is ending. But don't worry, I'm already
figuring out what Season Two will be. However, we won't be able to fully dedicate
ourselves to this ongoing project without your help. Investigative podcasts like this
one take a ton of work, and listeners like you make that work possible through
voluntary contributions. If you're ready to support the investigative reporting that
powers this podcast, give at WAMU.org/SupportThroughTheCracks. And thank you
so much for your generous support of this work. [00:17:29]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:17:36] Over the time I've been working on this podcast, I've gotten
to know Relisha's family pretty well. Except for Shamika, who said she'd talked to me
but never did. I got to know others who deeply cared about Relisha, too. And along
the way, I've talked about this story with a lot of people. Friends, colleagues,
acquaintances, strangers. And they tend to fall into two groups. Many people just
blame the family – Shamika in particular. After all, how could a family lose track of
one of their children for over two weeks? But when I talk to professionals, people
who work in social services, I get a much more nuanced reaction to this story.
[00:18:16]

Judith Sandalow: [00:18:18] I think that we, as a society, tend to blame individuals
for being homeless, for not having a high paying job, for not being able to provide
food every day for their children. [00:18:31]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:18:33] Judith Sandalow is the director of the Children's Law Center,
an organization that advocates for child welfare in D.C. In the last episode, she
described how experiencing trauma changes a child's ability to attach to a parent
and even affects their cognitive development. I keep thinking about one thing
Judith told me –what a couple experts told me, actually– because it gets at the root
of the way they think about homelessness and poverty and systems meant to
protect children like Relisha. [00:19:03]

Judith Sandalow: [00:19:04] I think blaming individuals takes the blame off of us as
a community. And makes it feel as if there's there's no choice. To say that nobody
was at fault for Relisha going missing misses that the entire community is at fault.
Not that each of us individually could have saved Relisha, but that as a collective
group, we could insist that our city have a child welfare system that gives parents
support. [00:19:36]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:19:37] Judith says that homelessness isn't the only problem for
families who can't afford the rent. [00:19:41]

Judith Sandalow: [00:19:43] Children who are homeless are living in deep poverty, so
they are often not getting enough to eat. Their parents are focused on finding work
and may have less time for them. They have to leave them alone. There may be
health problems that are caused by stress. So there's a whole range of issues other
than just homelessness. I will say once a family becomes homeless, it's much harder
to solve the other problems. We know how to solve most of these problems. We just
need to have the political will to do it. [00:20:18]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:20:20] I heard something similar from Beth Mellen Harrison, the
attorney with Legal Aid, who walked me through Shamika's eviction records at the
beginning of the season. [00:20:28]

Beth Mellen Harrison: [00:20:30] There is so much more that D.C. could do to
protect tenants and address these issues. You know, it's an uphill battle because of
the power dynamics and the economic dynamics. [00:20:41]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:20:41] Because of the pandemic, evictions have been on pause,
but that's not going to last forever. When I talked to Beth, she was already worried
about the coming flood of eviction proceedings she would need to tackle. Families
who would need her help in order to keep their housing. And Beth says that the
people who likely will get evicted and end up unhoused, they follow a trend.
[00:21:04]

Beth Mellen Harrison: [00:21:06] The whole eviction system is an example, certainly,
of systemic racism and other isms being reflected in what we do. And overall, it is
that eviction happens to a group of people who are powerless in general in the
system and are marginalized. And that has to do with, you know, all kinds of
patterns of discrimination and inequality going back generations. [00:21:28]
Jonquilyn Hill: [00:21:31] One thing we haven't talked about is D.C. is expensive. The
rent is just too damn high for a lot of families. It's one of the drivers of homelessness.
Most renters in D.C. spend more than half their income on housing. [00:21:45]

[00:21:46] On top of that, there are fewer and fewer apartments big enough for
families. Developers convert row homes to one bedroom apartments because
they're the most profitable. The D.C. government has been funding the construction
of affordable units, but many of these are also too small for families. To be fair, before
the pandemic, in spite of the high cost of housing, D.C. was making progress in
reducing homelessness. Shorter stays in shelters, a rapid rehousing program which
fast tracks people into subsidized apartments...they've helped. [00:22:21]

[00:22:22] But also, anecdotally, we've heard from several sources that some families
in poverty simply left the city. [00:22:28]

[00:22:30] So D.C. possibly could have prevented Relisha from going missing, but not
with the system that was in place at the time. And now, are the city's efforts to
improve shelters and prevent homelessness enough? Are they enough to prevent
another kid ending up in the same situation as Relisha all these years later? Well, I'd
love to have a definitive answer, but it's too soon to tell. [00:22:55]

[00:23:04] A few weeks ago, I went to another anniversary event, the seventh
anniversary vigil for Relisha. Same location, across the street from the Days Inn
where she was last seen. There's a lot of traffic, as usual, and it was cold out. I
instantly regretted not bringing gloves once I set up my microphone. Between the
cold and the coronavirus, there weren't a lot of people out. [00:23:26]

Henderson Long: [00:23:28] We are still waiting for a few of the commanders to get
here. [00:23:30]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:23:30] Okay. [00:23:30]

Henderson Long: [00:23:31] And once they get here, we're going to start. Whoever's
here, whoever's not here... [00:23:34]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:23:37] That's Henderson Long. He runs D.C.'s Missing Voice, an
advocacy organization he founded after his niece went missing about 20 years ago.
[00:23:45]

Henderson Long: [00:23:45] I know you know us. You came last time. [00:23:47]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:23:50] Right, right. [00:23:50]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:23:50] Henderson's wearing a shirt with Relisha's photo
emblazoned on the front. It's purple, her favorite color. He's the one who's organizing
these events for Relisha. And I wanted to hear his reflections on what had happened.
Like a lot of social workers I've been talking to, he put Relisha to a larger context.
[00:24:06]

Henderson Long: [00:24:07] When you look at the Relisha Rudd's family, you look at
the amount of opportunity that they had. The grandmother, Relisha Rudd's
grandmother. You can imagine what chance Relisha's mother had. When you look
at some of the triggers that should have triggered an alert to go out sooner for her,
that didn't happen. And we still really haven't really addressed it and corrected it.
[00:24:34]

[00:24:36] And just so many people failed Relisha Rudd. On all levels. [00:24:39]

Jonquilyn Hill: [00:24:41] The event was brief. And as it wound down, I realized this
year nobody from Relisha's family was there. But I wasn't surprised. They've been
going through a lot. [00:24:52]

[00:24:54] Shamika is working and her remaining kids are in foster care. Two of them
with one foster family. The other is with another. [00:25:01]

[00:25:02] Antonio and Shamika are no longer together. He's working too. He's a cook
in Prince George's County and he's fighting for custody of their two sons. [00:25:10]

[00:25:12] Melissa has had a tough year. She's lost her beloved father and a cousin to
COVID, and her partner was killed toward the end of 2020. [00:25:20]

[00:25:22] I reached out to Ashley to see how she's doing, but she hasn't responded
yet. [00:25:26]

[00:25:30] I've been thinking a lot about Relisha as this season of the podcast comes
to a close. Even more than I usually do. I never set out to find her, but there's still a
part of me that wanted to be able to say that we found her. To say, here she is. In
school with lots of friends and hobbies and hopes and fears and dreams, an answer
to what happened to her. I can't lie and say that's not a fantasy I had when I started
this podcast. That someone, somewhere would have information. But deep down, I
also thought it would turn out just like it has. With lots of complex questions left
unanswered and still no sign of Relisha Rudd. [00:26:12]

[00:26:32] Through The Cracks is a production of WAMU and PRX. This podcast was
made possible in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private
corporation funded by the American people and also by the Fund for Investigative
Journalism. Patrick Fort is our producer. Ruth Tam is our digital editor. And Poncie
Rutsch is our senior producer. Our editor is Curtis Fox. Mike Kidd mixed this episode.
Osei Hill designed our logo. Monna Kashfi oversees all the content we make here at
WAMU. You can find out more about the show, look at photos of Relisha and read
transcripts of our episodes at WAMU.org/ThroughTheCracks. You can also sign up for
email updates. That way you'll be the first to hear about future seasons of the show.
This podcast would not be possible without the generosity of listeners like you. To
support the investigative reporting that goes into Through The Cracks, give at
WAMU.org/SupportThroughTheCracks. And finally, a special thank you to every
single person who made this season possible, Stephanie Kuo, Julia Karron, Daisy
Rosario, Phyllis Kim, Morgan Givens, Lindsay Foster Thomas and the entire Project
Catapult cohort. An additional thanks to Martin Austermuhle, Rachel Sadon and
Rachel Kurzius. Thank you to Paige Osburn, Rupert Allman and the entire 1A team.
Thank you to Kimbriel Kelly for the FOIA advice and Ron Nixon and the entire Ida B.
Wells Society for Investigative Reporting. [00:28:15]

[00:28:17] A special thank you to all of our family, friends and colleagues who listened
and offered advice. We also spoke to a lot of people who you didn't hear from, people
who have experienced housing instability or assist people navigating homelessness
and poverty. We could not have done this without you. [00:28:34]

[00:28:37] This podcast is dedicated to Black girls everywhere. You matter. [00:28:41]

[00:28:43] I'm Jonquilyn Hill. Thanks for listening. [00:28:43]