Photo by Hamzat Sani
Two days after learning the details of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s initiative to end homelessness in the District, Ward 6 residents crowded inside a church in Southwest last night to receive more information and voice their concerns.
With a plan to close the dilapidated family shelter at D.C. General by 2018 and replace it with smaller shelters in each of the District’s wards, the city’s family homelessness problem can become “rare, brief, and non-recurring,” Bowser said in her opening remarks. “But not if we don’t change anything in our system,” she continued.
For Ward 6 residents, that change comes in the form of a multi-level facility with 50 units at 700 Delaware Avenue SW, adjacent to the Blind Whino arts space. After brief words, Bowser exited the floor (and the building before audience questions), leaving Kristy Greenwalt of
Interagency Council on Homelessness and Christopher Weaver of the Department of General Services to share additional details.
Greenwalt began with the landscape of homelessness in the city. “Seven thousand individuals experience homelessness in D.C. on any given night,” she said. And last night, over 200 families slept at D.C. General—including 400 children, she continued, adding that the Northeast shelter is not an ideal place for families to lay their heads.
After 26 site proposals were submitted, the eight locations were chosen based on size and capacity, access to services and transportation for residents, and whether or not properties were already owned by the city or easy to lease or purchase, Weaver said.
The plan’s next steps include a public hearing, a vote by D.C. councilmembers, the completion of designs and blueprints, a review of permits and zoning, site developments, creating good neighbor agreements, opening the new facilities, and finally, the closing D.C. General, Greenwalt explained.
After the presentation, questions commenced that were very similar Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie’s concerns about Ward 5’s location—its proximity to a men’s shelter and the Virginia Williams Center.
The Southwest location is within blocks of Greenleaf Gardens, James Creek, and Syphax Gardens—low-income and public housing complexes that house hundreds of residents, echoed nearly a dozen people at the meeting.
This concentration of sites could deter future development, present safety issues, lower property values, endanger children, and strip resources from local schools, among other concerns, they said.
In response, said Weaver, the city worked hard to choose the best location based on their criteria.
The Bowser administration held meetings about the citywide plan in each ward last night. After retreating Southwest, the mayor popped in on Ward 1 residents who were widely in support of their shelter locale at 10th and V Streets NW, the Washington Post reported, although some Ward 1 residents told DCist otherwise. Bowser made her final appearance at Ward 5’s meeting, which got pretty heated, according to The Post.
While the majority of Ward 6 residents were in opposition to the location, a few were in support, including a Ward 6 woman who lives in Hill East, across the street from D.C. General. She said she’s volunteered with the shelter’s youngest residents for years. “Those children give me hope, they show me what life would be if I I have nothing,” she said. “I’d rather be a little it uncomfortable with them in my neighborhood” than to not help them at all.
