The city plans to put a family shelter on this lot at the corner of 10th and V Streets NW. (Photo by UStreetShuffle)

Mayor Muriel Bowser outlined the specifics of her plan to close D.C. General and replace it with smaller, neighborhood shelters earlier this week to nearly unequivocal support from the D.C. Council. As expected, it wasn’t long before opposition cropped up. But several neighbors in Wards 1 and 5 say that their fears aren’t reactionary NIMBYism so much as concern for the specific locations of the plan—and the way the mayor rolled it out.

Not long after the announcement, a flyer immediately began circulating that listed “congestion, loitering, safety, and decreased property values” as among the worries for a proposed shelter located on the site of a former church at 10th and V Streets NW in Ward 1. It also noted that the decision was made without neighbors’ input.

“It feels like the administration is trying to steamroll any opposition,” says one resident who lives nearby and who wished to only be identified as Alex for fear of possible retribution from the community. “Everything is moving blindingly fast, which seems to be the point here.”

The lot is owned by SORG architects and has sat vacant for years. At one point, it had been slated for a six-story condo unit.

Several independent groups with concerns about the newly announced plan have already formed in Ward 1, and Alex says he’s been trying to get them to coalesce. Although he didn’t make the flyer that circulated online, he passed out a different one alerting neighbors about the meeting. And with the help of his wife, he created a website to track the project—and the opposition to it. “I’m not an activist or experienced with any of this stuff, but I was compelled to act because the way the government is sort of handling this to me seems absurd,” he said, citing the two day’s notice for a major community meeting.

Although he has multiple concerns, chief among them is the way that decision-making has gone so far. “They’re leveraging the fact that their goal is to help the homeless, which everyone can agree on, and using that to push forward a development project that has received no meaningful feedback from the community,” he says. “The location is the first of many very important aspects of this project, and it was decided behind closed doors … that gives me no faith that anything else is going to be presented for meaningful feedback.”

A Bowser spokeswoman said that the mayor has been “very open and transparent” about the plan to set up smaller shelters across the city. “It’s not new,” said LaToya Foster. She didn’t respond to additional requests for comment about the decision-making process behind choosing the sites, though.

When asked about the community’s input after the announcement, Bowser anticipated and dismissed the opposition: “Well, the sites are going to go in somebody’s neighborhood, right? So if you tell me ‘this neighbor doesn’t want it, move it to the next neighbor’, then the next neighbor is going to have the same complaint, would they not?” So what we have decided as a community is that we can do better by families that need a break, they need a safe place to get their lives in order.”

Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau has expressed her support for the project, and certainly not all residents are opposed. “Living at 11th & W NW I’m proud my neighborhood will provide safe new home,” attorney David Muraskin tweeted.

Meanwhile, opposition is also brewing further east. Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie immediately voiced opposition to the proposed shelter’s site in Ward 5. Located on 25th Place NE, around the corner from Echostage and Bladensburg Road, it isn’t far from a number of other social service facilities.

“While I wholeheartedly support, the decision to close DC General, I am opposed to the proposed location of the Ward 5 shelter,” he said in a statement that cited its proximity to a men’s shelter on New York Avenue, the Adams Place shelter, and the Virginia Williams Center, among others. “No one ward or neighborhood should be forced to provide significantly more services or shelter space than another.”

Neighbors have echoed his sentiments, and in some cases gone even further.

“There is no oversight, no neighborhood input, and it seemed an undercover operation by our so-called elected officials to put these programs in our neighborhood,” says Deborah Rollins, a lifelong Washingtonian who lives in Riggs Park and trained at DC General Hospital before it closed and became the family homeless shelter. “At least wards 1 and 2 supposedly will be asked to sacrifice but we will see if that happens. Wards 5 and 7 have had enough of these so-called help thy neighbor programs.”

All eight meetings are scheduled for 6:30 p.m. tonight. Mayor Bowser is slated to be in attendance in Ward 6.