New DC Data re: Risk Factors & Crime

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And this is why we should be talking at least as much about attendance/truancy rates at public schools as we do about test scores. Kids who fall out of the public school system are at huge risk, to themselves and others. Kids need to be in school. We should be doing everything we can to keep kids in schools.

I get increasingly angry about how little focus was placed on this during the pandemic and how people continue to turn a blind eye to it even now that we see what a terrible impact school closures have had on the most at-risk kids in the city. Maybe next time we have a public health emergency and some of us say "let's do whatever it takes -- outdoor school, abbreviated schedules, sending kids to school with coats and open windows in the winter -- to keep kids in school," consider that we are speaking from a plan of knowledge and care, not just disregarding teacher concerns. School is really, really, really important for high risk kids. It is often their only source of consistency and stability.

Which political party exclusively runs the D.C. government, including DCPS ?

“How’s that working out for you?” (as Dr. Phil would say).

Sigh. We KNOW. The democrats. Yes, Democrats have a problem admitting that school closures were bad, and are having lasting repercussions in DC.

But come ON. There are literally no other options in DC.

I swear there is one poster who comes into every thread and reminds people that “the democrats did it!” when that point wasn’t even up for debate.

[Anonymous]

Holy crap. Being removed from the home by social services is actually worse than documented cases of abuse than nearly 2X? We need to revisit that tactic ASAP.

That just goes to show that being with a bad parent is still better than being stripped away from a bad parent which definitely blows my mind.

I don't think that's what that statistic is showing. The policy of revolving door CFSA ---i.e., prioritizing reunification with bad parents---leads to this. Kids are removed, then returned, rinse and repeat. Kids in that situation are unable to form secure attachment bonds with one set of stable foster parents, nor do they get stability with the inconsistent biological parent. Add to that fact that many kids removed because of parental substance abuse issues also have impacts such as fetal alcohol exposure which also, absent stable, supportive and therapeutic environments, will result in criminality as FASD kids are unable to process cause & effect, and have emotional dysregulation and impulse control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holy crap. Being removed from the home by social services is actually worse than documented cases of abuse than nearly 2X? We need to revisit that tactic ASAP.

That just goes to show that being with a bad parent is still better than being stripped away from a bad parent which definitely blows my mind.

Can we check what happens when they are not removed? Because a dead kid can’t commit crimes.

[Anonymous]

The issues of moving people from parks and Union Station directly into large NW apartment buildings full of families and the vulnerable elderly are obvious.

https://twitter.com/kevinvdahlgren/status/1637845136255365120

However, HUD funded "Housing First," a program that began in CA and which became federal under Bush, does not allow any conditions for vouchers. No treatment for mental health or addiction can be required. Property managers do not have the skills to manage what in essence can become private public housing or shelters, just without rules or security. Residents paying market rate have no recourse. There are no caps on number or % of vouchers per building.

The City can offer services, but participation and acceptance are completely voluntary. A tenant with a voucher does not have to undergo treatment for addiction or mental illness, train for a job, or even open the door to a social worker.

[Anonymous]

New piece today: another real world effect of the current housing voucher model, it's reducing affordable housing overall and transferring a lot of public money into private hands. This has been known since 2019 when it was discussed in a hearing before Bonds.

https://twitter.com/mhbaskin/status/1637797584092684290

[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

The issues of moving people from parks and Union Station directly into large NW apartment buildings full of families and the vulnerable elderly are obvious.

https://twitter.com/kevinvdahlgren/status/1637845136255365120

However, HUD funded "Housing First," a program that began in CA and which became federal under Bush, does not allow any conditions for vouchers. No treatment for mental health or addiction can be required. Property managers do not have the skills to manage what in essence can become private public housing or shelters, just without rules or security. Residents paying market rate have no recourse. There are no caps on number or % of vouchers per building.

The City can offer services, but participation and acceptance are completely voluntary. A tenant with a voucher does not have to undergo treatment for addiction or mental illness, train for a job, or even open the door to a social worker.

You forgot to add that under DC Landlord Tenant law, it is essentially impossible to evict a tenant for anything other than non-payment of rent, and the rent of voucher tenants is guaranteed. That leaves building managers and owners in a terrible position---they can't evict tenants who create a disruptive and threatening environment, and a disruptive and threatening environment will result in market rate tenants moving out. And the building cannot charge higher rates for voucher tenants, even though the building may have to spend significant money in extra security to handle chronically disruptive and/or mentally ill tenants.

[Anonymous]

^ Ugh, see link above, my attempt to embed was not successful.

This is not new news. The city overspending has impacts on the rental market for all and means that fewer are helped and for shorter periods than would be the case if the program was better managed. As is, it is a huge boondoggle shifting public funds to private real estate hands.

https://www.foresthillsconnection.com/home-front/apartment-updates-the-post-confirms-dc-overpays-many-landlords-getting-rent-subsidies-rent-stabilized-buildings-could-see-large-rent-hikes-this-year/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The issues of moving people from parks and Union Station directly into large NW apartment buildings full of families and the vulnerable elderly are obvious.

https://twitter.com/kevinvdahlgren/status/1637845136255365120

However, HUD funded "Housing First," a program that began in CA and which became federal under Bush, does not allow any conditions for vouchers. No treatment for mental health or addiction can be required. Property managers do not have the skills to manage what in essence can become private public housing or shelters, just without rules or security. Residents paying market rate have no recourse. There are no caps on number or % of vouchers per building.

The City can offer services, but participation and acceptance are completely voluntary. A tenant with a voucher does not have to undergo treatment for addiction or mental illness, train for a job, or even open the door to a social worker.

You forgot to add that under DC Landlord Tenant law, it is essentially impossible to evict a tenant for anything other than non-payment of rent, and the rent of voucher tenants is guaranteed. That leaves building managers and owners in a terrible position---they can't evict tenants who create a disruptive and threatening environment, and a disruptive and threatening environment will result in market rate tenants moving out. And the building cannot charge higher rates for voucher tenants, even though the building may have to spend significant money in extra security to handle chronically disruptive and/or mentally ill tenants.

Evictions DO happen for this reason. The vouchers have different requirements depending on who administers them. I believe that DOBH and Office of Returning Citizen vouchers are both 100%. Of course the severely mentally ill and those formerly incarcerated may have the hardest time acclimating to commercial building communities and may pose risks to other tenants. Other voucher do require 30% of rent to be paid by tenants and when this does not happen they tend to be evicted and move to another bldg in NW (CP, FH, CH, Palisades, etc, typically big buildings but condo owners who rent also participate. In that case there is often not any staff at all to try to manage problems.) Sometimes there have been evictions for things like sex work in bldg, setting fires, violent behavior, etc. But for a lot of anti-social behavior there is not much of a remedy. The WP series on Sedgewick Gardens in 2019 captured some of this and The Forest Hills Connect has covered it too. In fact disruptive tenants causing those paying market rate or long time rent control tenants (many elderly or NP workers) is a WINDFALL for those owners as some vouchers pay a multiple of market rate. See links above.

[Anonymous]

^tenants to MOVE OUT

Wish there was an edit button.

If middle class tenants move out (and many buildings do become majority voucher fairly quickly) then there is no one to exercise TOPA rights if owners decide to turn the building condo.

Every which way the owners are making far more than they could imagine back in 2018 and it is paying tenants who lose. Many of the vouchers are only for a year, not really long enough to stabilize a life, esp re: families who have childcare, etc. Ironically those same people were more able to find rentals before this incarnation of the voucher program drove up rents. Buildings in my neighborhood had been offering several months of free move in special type deals in 2018. Then this was launched.

It does tend to put a target on the back of anyone not using a voucher to pay since those rents are less, in many cases, for long time tenants, substantially so. And remember, what triggers a rent increase in DC is turn over of a tenant. So it is WELCOMED by owners of older buildings. And not just slumlords, buildings on Connecticut, Wisconsin, in Palisades, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The issues of moving people from parks and Union Station directly into large NW apartment buildings full of families and the vulnerable elderly are obvious.

https://twitter.com/kevinvdahlgren/status/1637845136255365120

However, HUD funded "Housing First," a program that began in CA and which became federal under Bush, does not allow any conditions for vouchers. No treatment for mental health or addiction can be required. Property managers do not have the skills to manage what in essence can become private public housing or shelters, just without rules or security. Residents paying market rate have no recourse. There are no caps on number or % of vouchers per building.

The City can offer services, but participation and acceptance are completely voluntary. A tenant with a voucher does not have to undergo treatment for addiction or mental illness, train for a job, or even open the door to a social worker.

You forgot to add that under DC Landlord Tenant law, it is essentially impossible to evict a tenant for anything other than non-payment of rent, and the rent of voucher tenants is guaranteed. That leaves building managers and owners in a terrible position---they can't evict tenants who create a disruptive and threatening environment, and a disruptive and threatening environment will result in market rate tenants moving out. And the building cannot charge higher rates for voucher tenants, even though the building may have to spend significant money in extra security to handle chronically disruptive and/or mentally ill tenants.

Voucher payments are often a multiple of current market rent, that is one of the distortions that is actually LESSENING the amount of affordable housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The issues of moving people from parks and Union Station directly into large NW apartment buildings full of families and the vulnerable elderly are obvious.

https://twitter.com/kevinvdahlgren/status/1637845136255365120

However, HUD funded "Housing First," a program that began in CA and which became federal under Bush, does not allow any conditions for vouchers. No treatment for mental health or addiction can be required. Property managers do not have the skills to manage what in essence can become private public housing or shelters, just without rules or security. Residents paying market rate have no recourse. There are no caps on number or % of vouchers per building.

The City can offer services, but participation and acceptance are completely voluntary. A tenant with a voucher does not have to undergo treatment for addiction or mental illness, train for a job, or even open the door to a social worker.

You forgot to add that under DC Landlord Tenant law, it is essentially impossible to evict a tenant for anything other than non-payment of rent, and the rent of voucher tenants is guaranteed. That leaves building managers and owners in a terrible position---they can't evict tenants who create a disruptive and threatening environment, and a disruptive and threatening environment will result in market rate tenants moving out. And the building cannot charge higher rates for voucher tenants, even though the building may have to spend significant money in extra security to handle chronically disruptive and/or mentally ill tenants.

Voucher payments are often a multiple of current market rent, that is one of the distortions that is actually LESSENING the amount of affordable housing.

Plus, until DC closed the loophole a few years ago, landlords who took voucher residents were allowed to take their units out of the rent-control system when the voucher residents moved out, further hurting affordable housing. Thousands of units became uncovered by rent control before the asleep-at-the-wheel Council did anything about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Holy crap. Being removed from the home by social services is actually worse than documented cases of abuse than nearly 2X? We need to revisit that tactic ASAP.

That just goes to show that being with a bad parent is still better than being stripped away from a bad parent which definitely blows my mind.

You're assuming that the kids removed by social services don't also have the very worse documented cases of abuse. To determine if being removed in itself is worse you would need to compare just cases of comparable abuse with one group staying with parents and the other group going to foster homes.

Exactly, it's SUPER hard to actually get a kid removed from bio-parents. Likely most if not all kids who are being removed are being removed exactly because of many documented cases of abuse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holy crap. Being removed from the home by social services is actually worse than documented cases of abuse than nearly 2X? We need to revisit that tactic ASAP.

That just goes to show that being with a bad parent is still better than being stripped away from a bad parent which definitely blows my mind.

The foster care system in this country is truly horrifying. I have a sibling with PTSD from being in foster care.