Walking into the Community Action Group’s office in the historic Carriage House by the Old Naval Hospital on Capital Hill is a shock to the senses.
The scent of Marlboros would hit you immediately. Now you get a puff of air freshener.
The gravely voice of the rough crusader who co-founded CAG 20 years ago would growl into the phone. The new voice is softer but no less powerful.
His round face with its mustachioed lip and stout body no longer occupies the CEO chair. Now the sweet woman he loved is seated there.
Harold “Hal” Gordon, the face and force behind CAG, died August 5 in a boating accident. His wife, Janice, who co-founded CAG, has taken his seat, his title, his crusade.
“CAG lost its leader, but his legacy lives on,” Janice Gordon told me yesterday. “I was always at his side. CAG remains strong and will continue for another 20 years.”
I find myself writing back to back columns about pillars of D.C. who passed recently.
Leonard “Bud” Doggett died last week. The parking lot mogul’s funeral Tuesday was packed with cops, in part because he had set up Heroes, Inc., an organization that cared for families of fallen officers and firemen. Gordon’s service at Holy Comforter St. Cyprian Church was jammed with members of the CAG community — reformed drug addicts and alcoholics who put their lives back together thanks to CAG.
Cops make for a picturesque crowd; we would rather our drug addicts remain out of sight — especially now that the nation’s capital is becoming more white and wealthy.
But Hal and Janice Gordon have kept their eyes and hearts on this neglected community since they founded CAG in 1988, a year after they married.
They started caring for a few downtrodden folks at Holy Comforter, their Catholic church. With their own sweat and money, they turned the Carriage House, abandoned for nearly a century, into CAG’s headquarters. CAG grew and succeeded and expanded. It now has 200 clients, about half residential.
CAG has succeeded because it goes far beyond treating addiction. “We teach life skills, reading, parenting. We teach respect. We deal with the whole person.”
When news spread that Gordon had died, “Caggers” flocked to Janice’s side. A nurse from Florida came to the funeral and told her: “You guys saved my life.” The church on East Capitol Street was so packed the line wrapped around the corner.
“I have a family that is so large,” Janice Gordon told me. But she has to go on without her man. He fell madly in love with her in 1982, chased her for two years, finally convinced her to marry him. They ran CAG as a tag team: Hal riding herd from the office; Janice adding ideas and support and running workshops.
CAG will continue and thrive, but where? Forced to leave the Carriage House, it could be homeless, which would be a slap at Hal Gordon. Seems to me the village the Gordons have healed must find and fund CAG’s new home.
