HOMELESS PEOPLE, ADVOCATES HEADING TO DISTRICT FOR 'HOUSING NOW' RALLY

Twelve months ago, Ronnie and Jerry Childress were a working couple with three children living in a Roanoke apartment. Ronnie was a plumber and Jerry worked in a shipping and receiving department of a mail order company. They were secure, in love and "living the American dream," Ronnie said.

But the dream soured in January when they were injured in an automobile accident. For several weeks they were unable to work and, because of that, they were eventually fired, said Ronnie Childress. Unable to make ends meet with unemployment checks, the couple said, the Childresses became homeless.

"We couldn't believe it could happen to us," Ronnie Childress said. "We're not crack addicts or alcoholics, we're just a family. We know now that our case is common . . . it can happen to anyone."

On Saturday, the Childresses and thousands from across the country will flock to Washington to take part in a rally for the homeless, according to rally organizers. Marchers said they will demand to be heard as they chant a battle cry: Housing Now.

Homeless people have already started marching toward Washington from Roanoke and New York for the rally. A group coming from Los Angeles is expected to bring in scores more homeless people.

"We're going to open the eyes of America and make them realize that the country needs affordable housing," Ronnie said when interviewed in Front Royal last week, where he and other marchers from Roanoke had stopped.

"We're calling this the 'New Exodus,' " said the Rev. David Hayden, organizer of a group of Washington-bound marchers from the South. "No longer will people who aren't poor or oppressed be able to speak for those who are . . . . The rally and these marches are very significant."

The rally is sponsored by "Housing Now!", a coalition of more than 175 national organizations and hundreds of local groups.

"D.C. Housing Now!," a local chapter of the coalition, sponsored a "Walk Across Washington" march yesterday from Northwest to Southeast Washington, calling for affordable housing for the city's more than 20,000 homeless people.

Hayden said his group of about 150 marchers, including the Childresses, left Roanoke Sept. 15 and will reach Washington on Thursday after stops this week in Centreville, Fairfax and Arlington.

Organizers said the group has been the target of insults and other verbal abuse from bystanders and even the Ku Klux Klan as it has marched north on Route 11, which parallels Interstate 81.

People "feel very threatened when faced with the realities of homelessness," Hayden said. "I think the response is so angry because people know how close they are to it."

It's not all negative. Jerry Childress said she has been touched by the sympathetic people they have met on the road. She said that several times the marchers have met poor people who dig in their pockets for "their last bit of change for us. That means a lot more than these wealthy people who say they'll pray for us . . . . A prayer doesn't feed your children, clothe them or pay your bills and, if you're thrown out in the street, it doesn't house you," she said.

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