Larry Smith, 64, who was 7 when his father died, said he hopes that new technology will help find his father’s grave site at Woodlawn. (Photo By Katherine Frey — The Washington Post)

Larry Smith has been looking for his father’s grave for 40 years.

Smith knows that his father, Reginald William Smith, was buried in 1950 in Section C of the historic, 22.5-acre Woodlawn Cemetery, the final resting place of many prominent African American figures of the late 19th century and most of the 20th. But badly kept records and a lack of maintenance for many years after the cemetery was abandoned in the 1960s have prevented Smith and others from locating their loved ones.

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The Washington Post, May 17, 2009

BY: YAMICHE ALCINDOR

Seas of caps and gowns. Eagerly turned tassels. Crowds of proud families. And an economic recession that has many graduates from the area’s universities still searching for a job, feeling anxious and vulnerable about the future.

Student strategies have ranged from tirelessly sending out dozens of résumés to waiting out the storm in graduate schools. Some say they are lucky to find an extended internship.

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Albertha Boone, at home in Southeast Washington, has been going to hospital emergency rooms for primary health care for 20 years. (By Marcus Yam — The Washington Post)

The Washington Post, July 13, 2009

By Yamiche Alcindor
Hospital emergency departments across the region are overflowing with patients who have been battered by the recession and are increasingly using hospitals as their primary source of health care, according to local and national health officials.

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The Washington Post, September 6, 2009
BY: Yamiche Alcindor

For the first time in nearly a decade, the majority of court-supervised ex-offenders in the District are unemployed.

Although the exact number of out-of-work ex-offenders in the District and nationwide is unclear, community leaders, city officials and former felons agree that a poor economy decreases the odds of an ex-offender landing a job.

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The Washington Post, November 17, 2009
BY: Yamiche Alcindor

When Heather Huckett fell in love with Nickolas Mueller, she thought he was too good to be true. He made sure to open doors for her, bought her lavender roses and lilies, and liked spending time cooking and cuddling with her in their apartment in Savannah, Ga.

“I’d never been in love before, so everything we did together was the most amazing thing in the world,” Huckett said. “I knew every morning I would wake up next to him and every night he would come home to me.”

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The Washington Post, December 21, 2009
BY: Yamiche Alcindor

Martha Holmes’s small, frail body often bumps into things in her new apartment, which seems like a maze to the 87-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s disease. In the last month, she has been hospitalized twice, and police have found her wandering the streets, attempting to walk back to the public housing apartment in Alexandria that she called home for more than 40 years.

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