Tag: no-latest

Vice President JD Vance and his family are raising chickens at their residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory. The family has a dozen hens pecking inside a custom-made coop on a 72-acre federal observatory — but many other details about their experiment in raising chickens are unknown.

The coop was designed to mirror the Queen Anne-style architecture of the vice president’s residence at Number One Observatory Circle. As such, the henhouse is not cheap: It cost between $100,000 and $120,000, according to the owner of the North Carolina company that built the structure. But U.S. taxpayers didn’t foot the bill. The coop was donated by the company.

So who exactly will be raising the hens? And why are the Vances taking on this project? For eggs? For educational purposes? For feathered pets? A spokesperson for Vance did not respond to multiple emails seeking comment.

The Washington Post turned to former and current backyard chicken keepers to gather insights on what may be going on at Number One Observatory Circle. We also talked to the guy who built the pricey coop. We even checked with a city official to discuss whether the Vances are following the proper protocols to raise hens in Washington.

Who built the Vances’ coop?

The henhouse and run were custom-built by Carolina Coops, which specializes in high-end structures for those looking to pamper their backyard birds. Owner Matt DuBoise said Fox & Friends Weekend co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy, wife of Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy, recommended him to the Vances. DuBoise had built a coop for the Duffys.

The Vances’ henhouse is elevated — about 2 feet off the ground — and situated inside a shed that is protected from the elements, DuBoise said. The design is such that the owner does not have to walk through “chicken droppings and chicken bedding” to tend to the birds. The keeper can access the hens via interior shed doors. The attached run is predator-proof, DuBoise said, and includes a solid roof, which helps prevent avian flu from spreading to the flock, as it can be “transmitted with migratory birds flying overhead,” he said.

Why are the Vances raising chickens?

In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Vance raised alarms about the high cost of eggs, which was apparently affecting his family’s budget. He and his wife, Usha, have three children. At a supermarket stop in Reading, Pa., Vance turned to his kids and said, “These guys actually eat about 14 eggs every single morning. Is that right?”

“Yeah!” one child responds, off-camera.

The family’s daily consumption is probably a joke, but it highlighted a possible reason the Vances wanted a coop: In their prime, the second family’s 12 hens may each lay up to six eggs a week, nearly enough to cover the Vances’ daily needs. Like many hen keepers, the Vances will have to figure out what to do with their eggs: Eat some, give away some, maybe even donate some to a food bank that will accept them.

The addition has led to speculation that there may be political motivations behind the flock’s appearance. It’s a theory that resonates with Danny Bowers, who keeps 19 chickens on a suburban property in Utah County, Utah. Bowers, who uses they/them pronouns, points out that some conservatives have embraced the values espoused by “trad wife” influencers, many of whom raise chickens.

Who will do the actual work of raising the hens?

It’s not clear, but Usha Vance, who is due to deliver the family’s fourth child later this month, may be off the hook for a little while — numerous state health departments say pregnant women should avoid handling chickens, especially chicks, because of the risk of salmonella infection.

DuBoise said he expects the family to take a hands-on approach with the chickens. When he was at the Naval Observatory, installing the coop, the Vance children were “very, very active, asking great questions,” DuBoise said. “That’s always a great sign when the kids are very curious and wanting to get involved.”

Is it legal to raise chickens in D.C.?

Yes, but chicken keepers must meet some requirements before the city will issue them a permit. Every coop in Washington must be located at least 50 feet from a building “used for human habitation,” according to regulations. A henhouse and run must also be at least 250 feet from any property line or, failing that, the owners must get written permission from all neighbors located within 100 feet of their property line.

There’s also a rule that you can’t keep roosters, said Tony Tomelden, the D.C. hospitality veteran who owns the Pug on H Street NE. Tomelden and his family raised chickens in their Brookland backyard for years, starting in the 2010s. Tomelden said it’s not easy to determine whether your chicks are cockerels (male) or pullets (female), unless you’re trained to know the difference. It’s only later, when a cockerel matures into a rooster, that owners learn — the hard way.

“What they say is, ‘You’ll know it’s a rooster when it lets you know,’” Tomelden said. “And so one of them did.”

I tried to confirm the regulations with a few people at D.C. Health. No one returned my calls or responded to my emails. But one city official said D.C. regulations don’t typically apply to federal property. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to talk to the media.

But locals don’t follow the rules, either, the official said. “I know we have plenty of people in the city that are raising chickens on properties that don’t meet [the] requirements,” he said.

Are there benefits to raising hens aside from eggs?

Backyard keepers often develop an emotional attachment to their chickens. Take Clara Cho. Her parents, Yon and Francie, have raised hens at their suburban New Jersey home, outside New York City, since Clara, now 27, was a senior in high school. Clara had grown up with dogs and cats.

The chickens “weren’t as affectionate as the cats or the dogs,” Clara remembered. “But they’d come for pets, and they would come out when you called them from the coop and everything. It was definitely sad when they passed away.”

Bowers, the Utah chicken keeper, thinks of their hens, especially a bearded white Silkie bantam named Karen, almost as emotional support animals. When Bowers is having a particularly bad day — they suffer chronic pain from several autoimmune disorders — they will cuddle up with Karen.

“You wouldn’t think a chicken could be such a comfort,” Bowers said. “But all I know is she’s 6 years old, and she better live to be, like, 20.”

Is this the first time a president or vice president has raised livestock in office?

Plenty of presidents have had livestock at the White House, including horses and cows, but the White House Historical Association found only one instance of a president raising chickens.

According to White House chief usher Irwin Hood “Ike” Hoover’s 1934 memoir, Forty-Two Years in the White House, an admirer sent two dozen live chickens to the White House during Calvin Coolidge’s presidency in the 1920s. Coolidge apparently kept the chickens near a mint patch that Theodore Roosevelt started for his mint juleps.

The White House Historical Association has not been able to verify the account from other contemporary sources.

DuBoise, however, believes Vance will be the first to raise chickens at the vice president’s residence.

Will the Vances save money on eggs by raising their own hens?

It depends on how you crunch the numbers.

The Post’s Unearthed columnist Tamar Haspel raised chickens for 15 years with her husband, Kevin, on their property in Cape Cod, Mass. If you read Haspel’s book To Boldly Grow, you quickly learn she and Kevin know how to stretch a dollar when it comes to raising birds.

I asked Haspel to calculate how much it would cost the Vances to produce a dozen eggs, based on the best information we could gather. She figured a laying hen would produce about 24 dozen eggs a year, which, based on feed costs alone, would come to $1.46 per dozen. That’s more than 70 cents cheaper than the average price per dozen of large white Grade A eggs, which stood at $2.19 in May.

But that price doesn’t factor in expenses such as water, supplemental feed, bedding, and the cost of the chicks. Nor does it factor in the price of the fancy coop, which the Vances did not pay for, but most Americans would. Haspel said that if you amortize the coop over the remaining months of the Trump administration, it would add $139 to every dozen eggs. If you amortize the structure over 10 years, it adds $35 to every dozen eggs.

In other words, it wouldn’t be a bargain.

“If you get a coop like that,” Haspel wrote via email, “don’t ever expect to make up the money in eggs. But mostly that’s not why people get chickens.”

SEATTLE — Crow Harmony never felt at ease living in Florida as a transgender guy. The state has some of the most restrictive anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the country, and Harmony said he struggled to find employers willing to hire trans people. Last fall, after Harmony’s boyfriend transitioned, the couple lost their housing.

They were just 21 and 20 with no money or job prospects, so Harmony reached out to a Seattle nonprofit for help getting out of Florida. The nonprofit, a trans-led organization called Traction, welcomed the couple with a place to sleep and money for moving.

But unbeknownst to Harmony, Traction was struggling, too.

Since the 2024 election, Traction has helped 1,500 trans people flee red states — more than 20 times the 70 people it aided in the 18 months before the election. And it’s just one of several Seattle nonprofits whose leaders say they don’t have the resources to help the number of trans people who’ve left their homes for the safety of the Pacific Northwest.

Though trans people make up just 1% of the population in Washington state, the nonprofits that help them say their budgets are drained and their staffs are stretched so thin that last month the Seattle LGBTQ Commission asked Mayor Katie Wilson (D) to declare a civil state of emergency. Such a declaration would free up general fund dollars to bolster the nonprofits’ finances as they help transplants find housing and jobs.

“The conditions,” the commission wrote in a June 2 letter to Wilson and the City Council, “are an urgent policy concern and a life-and-death matter for internal displaced persons fleeing to Seattle for safety.”

Though no one tracks the migration of LGBTQ+ people from one place to another, a poll conducted by NORC suggests that roughly 400,000 trans adults fled red states in the six months after the 2024 election, a time when President Donald Trump issued a slew of executive orders aimed at restricting nearly every facet of trans life. Another 1.2 million trans people were estimated to be considering such moves.

In the year since, the need for aid has skyrocketed, nonprofit leaders say, as states such as Kansas and Idaho have stripped trans people of their drivers’ licenses and threatened to jail them if they didn’t use bathrooms that conform to the sex they were assigned at birth. Meanwhile, private donations have shrunk and grant opportunities have disappeared as Trump warns against using federal funding to “promote gender ideology.”

Wilson has said she will decide by the end of August whether to authorize a state of emergency, which could free up $2.1 million and create a program to help LGBTQ+ newcomers navigate the city’s social services. In a nearly three-hour council committee meeting in late June, commission members said that without the declaration, some LGBTQ+ organizations might close, further straining the city’s already overtaxed safety net.

“We need help,” LGBTQ Commissioner Kody Allen told the City Council. “Our community needs help. And this is the only place we can get it.”

Seattle has long been known as one of the country’s most trans-friendly cities. It banned discrimination on the basis of gender 40 years ago. Its hospitals were among the first to offer gender transition care to young people. And Washington state was the first in the nation to allow trans athletes to compete.

Those protections have always drawn trans people from elsewhere, but in the years before Trump won reelection, nonprofit leaders say, the numbers were small enough, and the newcomers so prepared, that organizations could easily help people settle in. Most arrived with jobs and rental agreements. But after Trump took office and further emboldened conservative lawmakers to strip trans people of rights, Seattle leaders say they began to hear from people with no plan, only a desperate need to move immediately.

“Most people don’t come to us saying, ‘I want to move to Seattle.’ They say, ‘I need to get the hell out now,’” said Aspen Coyle, a program manager for Traction. “It’s been chaos. We have been scaling up as fast as we can, but there is so much need out there. It is this massive, massive wave of people coming in.”

Nearly 400 people have asked for help in the past two months alone. For a nonprofit that took in less than $84,000 in revenue before the election, those requests can feel “immense.” But Coyle and Traction founder Michael Woodward said securing money has become increasingly difficult under Trump. Last year, the organization applied for a dozen grants and won only two small ones — worth just $17,500. Individual donors have stopped giving as much, too, and some are afraid to donate to organizations Trump might consider part of “a radical ideology.”

When Harmony and his boyfriend contacted Traction last year, the couple had nearly no resources to rebuild their lives. They were too young to have amassed any real savings, and they were leaving all of their friends and most of their possessions behind.

A Traction peer navigator met the couple at the airport. Three different couples who volunteer with the group offered to house Harmony and his boyfriend for weeks at a time. The navigator helped Harmony sign up for health insurance and food benefits, and eventually, Traction helped the couple find jobs and enroll in college. A few months ago, the couple signed a lease for their own apartment.

“For the very first time, I felt like I didn’t have to do it all myself,” Harmony said. “We never had to wonder, ‘What are we going to do now?’ They were already thinking ahead of what we might need.”

In a council committee meeting in late June, dozens of trans people told similar stories. A person from Kansas said they lost their job driving a bus after the state forced trans people to surrender their licenses. Others from New Orleans and Georgia said they lost access to medical care. And several described themselves as “refugees” who would have been homeless if not for Seattle’s nonprofits.

Leaders from multiple nonprofits told the council that they were now hearing “every day” from people who were afraid to continue living elsewhere. But Taylor Farley, the executive director of the Queer Power Alliance, said they worried local groups don’t have the resources to help everyone who needs it.

“Our costs are rising nearly twice as fast as our funding is coming in,” said Farley. “Our community is under attack, and organizations protecting LGBTQIA+ people are struggling to survive.” (One conservative influencer in Seattle decried the “emergency” as an attempt by left-wing groups to tap public tax dollars unnecessarily.)

Declaring a civil emergency would be a “significant step,” commission members acknowledged in a letter to Wilson this spring — one that could cost the city $2.1 million if it addresses the immediate needs. Seattle is facing a nearly $500 million shortfall over the next three years, and some city officials have told commission members they worry about the financial feasibility of declaring an emergency. But it’s not without precedent: Eight months ago, city leaders set aside $8 million in discretionary dollars to declare a state of emergency after the federal government cut food stamp funding.

In a written reply to the commission, Wilson said that even though the city is facing “challenging budget restraints,” she will “proactively search for ways” to meet the need and ensure Seattle remains “a place of safety, dignity, and inclusion” for LGBTQ+ newcomers.

Wilson, whose office did not respond to a request for comment, has convened an interdepartmental group that now meets every other week to evaluate the needs and the city’s capacity to address them. She has said that group will make a recommendation by August.

If the city chooses not to declare a state of emergency, commission leaders said, they worry what will happen not only to Seattle’s LGBTQ+ organizations but also to ones that help all city residents. Many of the newcomers need shelter, food aid, and subsidized healthcare. And the city’s homeless population has already reached a record high this year.

Allen, who also works for a youth homeless shelter, said his organization is turning away at least 10 young trans people a night from the shelter because it doesn’t have space.

The one positive nonprofits say they have seen is an uptick in volunteers. Early last year, Traction had only three or five volunteers. Now it has more than 70, including Harmony. In the months since his life stabilized, Harmony has helped other newcomers navigate Seattle. Many have told him they don’t want to leave their home states, but they have to.

“If there’s no state of emergency, we’re still going to have an influx of trans people who have been displaced from their homes, their lives,” Harmony said. “Half of them have no connections. They just want to be able to live safely. So it’s up to us to say, ‘Here is your chance. You deserve one.’”