Practice
The DC Street Soccer Club practices every Thursday at 6 p.m. at the National Mall at 3rd and Madison streets, NW.
If you are interested in joining us e-mail soccer@streetsense.org or call 202-347-2006 and ask for Laura.
Players
Maurice King
Michael Knight
Jose Hiddekel
What is the DC Street Soccer Club?
The DC Street Soccer Club started in May 2007 as a project of Street Sense, D.C.’s newspaper about poverty and homeless issues. The team is comprised of homeless and formerly homeless individuals.
The volunteer-run project is coached by Brad Terry, Megan Hustings, Aaron Hannah and Katie Wiley. The team practices every week and belongs to a league on Capitol Hill.
The participants of the DC Street Soccer Club not only get the health and community-building benefits that come from participating on a soccer team, they also get access to services to help them out of homelessness.
What is Street Soccer?
Street Soccer is a mini-version of soccer. The field is typically “street” – concrete or some modified hard surface – and is about the size of a tennis court. Four players compete on each side (one goalie and three on the field) during games that last for 15 minutes each. While the games are short, they are very fastpaced with four and five goals easily scored by one team.
The term “street soccer” was coined in 2003 during the First Homeless World Cup. (Read below for more info.) This event brought together dozens of homeless men and women from across the world to compete while also improving their lives. They choose “street soccer” as opposed to regular soccer as the smaller-sided games with smaller fields are the norm for those who play pick-up games in streets across the world.
The first homeless street soccer program began in New York in 2004 and a program in Charlotte followed a year later. Currently there are 10 other homeless street soccer programs in development. All the teams come together each year to compete in the Homeless USA Cup.
Homeless USA Cup
The first Homeless USA Cup was held in Charlotte in 2006 and was attended by 10 teams and 55 players, including a team from Washington, D.C. In 2007, Street Soccer USA and the Urban Ministry Center held a mini-tournament in Charlotte. Each of these tournaments determined the U.S. homeless national team to be sent to the Homeless World Cup that year.
In July 2007, a conference was held in conjunction with the mini-tournament to form Street Soccer USA, which is now the organizing body for the Homeless USA Cup.
Street Soccer USA, along with Street Sense and the National Coalition for the Homeless, will be hosting the 2008 Homeless USA Cup in Washington, D.C., in June 2008. About 100 players from 16 teams are expected to attend. The winning team from this tournament will play in the Homeless World Cup 2008 in Melbourne, Australia.
Homeless World Cup
The Homeless World Cup, held since 2003, is a catalyst for lasting change through the development of street soccer worldwide. It aims to create a maximum social impact for the players involved – socially excluded, homeless people and people living in poverty.
The 2007 Homeless World Cup, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, hosted nearly 500 players from 48 nations. Sponsors of the tournament include Nike and Manchester United, among others.
Research of Homeless World Cup participants has revealed that 73 percent change their lives for the better after participating. Such changes include coming off drugs and alcohol, moving into jobs, education, homes, training, reuniting with families. Some players even go on to become players and coaches for professional or semi-professional soccer teams. The research attributes these improvements in players’ lives to the feeling of belonging, the challenge of working in a team, the process of regaining a health-oriented attitude toward life and, last but not least, the experience of fun.
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