Bowser Spreads the Wealth opens homeless shelters in each DC ward

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While the reasons are all good on paper, I agree with everyone comparing it to the ems debacle. What you will end up with is eight shiny new fiefdoms who, given enough ropw, will probably all spend as much as DC general and then some. Having a centralized place like DC general funneling PERMANENT housing into all right wards would be smart. Splintering your case records so that eight different fiefs are calling hotels in Maryland to place homeless families is just going to be inefficient. Although I guess the eight new fiefdoms chiefs are probably happy.

Ok, well I suggest that they place this centralized location on Wisconsin Avenue. Maybe the city can purchase Fannie May and make a great big housing complex for the homeless.

Fannie Mae location as housing for those with limited incomes would be great! But- it is a long walk o metro. Or 25% of units could be available for purchase for lower income -next 25% tier first dibs public servants- 25% non public servants [but same incomes]. Use space for public daycare-pre-K, playground, etc. Sad Sidwell got the Washington Home.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing makes me or my family "special", however education makes me have different values. I grew-up with several girls who had abortions while they were still young teens...they used to gently tease me because I chose not have sex while in high school. I went on to college and carefully planned my family. The homeless are in the position of being homeless because they lack an education...that is what needs to change first. Placing them in an expensive neighborhood without helping them learn the values and skills that will keep them and their children out of poverty does not do anyone any good. Money should be spent on job training and improving schools in poor neighborhoods...not buying million dollar lots and building fancy buildings and then hoping that the education and values of those who surround them will simply rub-off on those who had the misfortune of growing-up poor and uneducated. BTW, lest someone accuse me of racism- - the poor neighborhood that I grew-up in was multi-ethnic and plenty of the boys I knew who went to jail (and some of the girls who had abortions as teens) were white. So it's not about race, but low SES and the accompanying lack of education.

DC General allows the homeless to be out of sight and out of mind. If there is mismanagement, lack of services, etc., few notice and even fewer try to do anything about it. If nothing else, spreading the homeless facilities throughout the city is making this issue a problem for more people. Many in DC are going to be invested in the homeless issue whether they like it or not. So, rather than using your energy to complain or try to interfere with the plans (plans your Council Member supports), you are likely better off using your political and economic strength to push for good management and delivery of the type of services you suggest. That approach could easily turn out to be a win-win.

I can't think of too many examples of where taking mismanagement and spreading it around ever solved much.

Think about the situation with DCPS. Wealthy areas have been much more successful at getting their needs met than less wealthy areas. Do you think it is an accident that Janney has had multiple renovations in the same time period that many schools have had none? If that same sort of energy is used to ensure that the needs of the homeless are met so that that the new facilities are not problematic to their neighborhoods, there probably won't be mismanagement.

Sounds like the kind of situation where the wealthiest ward will then get their homeless problems "solved" after it's spread their way, while the others get ignored. That's what happened with DCPS.

That may well be, but that is better than none of the homeless problems getting solved. I think "I live in an expensive neighborhood and if we are going to have a homeless shelter, there better be proper management and services" is a better argument than "I live in an expensive neighborhood and I don't want a homeless shelter here".

Yeah. And let me tell you about something that happened in DC where I used to live. In our gentrifying neighborhood was a home for mentally disabled adults. Low-income. The place was a MESS--trash everywhere, drug users hanging out, abandoned car, etc. Wondered why the place was always such a dump. Found out a few things: (1) employees who work there got something close to minimum wage, little training, little oversight. (2) no employee was encouraged to call the cops when they saw drug use or dealing--it would just bring on harassment. (3) social workers representing some of the residents also complained. So now the community starts to step up. Pictures of the trash, etc. But the best part was starting to advocate for the folks in the home, offering to volunteer, clean up trash, etc. I'm sad to say the private-contractor sh!theads running this operation chose to move rather than have neighbors poke around and question how they ran things. But it could've been the start of something great. One thing I learned, is it takes a helluva lot of energy, effort, noisemaking to make jerks do the right thing. If you're barely hanging on or if you're essentially disenfranchised, it is so hard to push push push all the time. Think Flint MI. If you have the money, time and sense of injustice and desire to do good, don't sit quietly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, say good bye to that nice Guy Mason playground. It's going to be fun to see litter and people sleeping all over it at 3pm. I am a firm believer in NIMBY. What next, a methadone clinic?

Oh, and whatever schools these shelters will be inbounds for, prepare for those schools to go downhill fast.

So you are saying that homeless shelters should not be spread throughout the city and should be concentrated in less affluent neighborhoods? Well, the people in Ward 5 and Ward 6, who have shouldered the majority of the burden thus far, want to know what makes your ward so special? This is everyone's burden to bear. Sorry.

What I have not seen in this whole discussion is where those folks are coming from. From outside DC? Mostly from DC itself? If so, from which Ward? Sorry, but if (imagine) all homeless people were raised in Ward 5, and that's what they know best, it makes no particular sense to spread them across all Wards. If they all come from (say) Virginia, why should DC wear the burden?

If Bowser trying to help existing homeless people or to disrupt a number of neighborhoods and potentially bring even more homeless into the city? Those are different objectives

Bowser is trying to close DC General, the existing family shelter that houses ~230 families. These new shelters are for families who are living there, or in the NY Ave motels. I understand that there is the perception that homeless people are flocking to DC for our amazing homeless services, and while there is some truth to that, these families are overwhelmingly DC residents. I met with a man yesterday who is homeless and mentally ill from Ward 3 (born, raised, lived there when he had an address). He's not the target population of these shelters because he is a single adult male, but he is not a poor black man from Ward 8. Many of these young women are from SE, from Brookland, from Trinidad. There is an argument that if you house people in a community with better examples - working people, good schools, easily accessible grocery stores (vs. high unemployment, failing schools, and an overabundance of stripmall 7-Elevens) - they will be better situated to get out of poverty.

These are not shelters to "bring more homeless into the city." They are shelters to rehouse the people living in the toxic human rights violation that is DC General into humane living conditions and help them break the cycle of homelessness.

I wish I wrote for the Washington Post so that I could write that into the first line of every single story, since so many of you seem to think that these are shelters for individual adults from other jurisdictions.

If it is true that many of the homeless are "from SE, from Brookland, from Trinidad," that's where they should be taken care of. That's what community-based services means -- you serve people within their community. You don't just take them and spread them to random places.

This is especially relevant when talking about temporary housing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The housing should come with daycare vouchers and job interviews - there are tons of businesses of Wisconsin ave. These homeless parents could work at while their kids are in school/daycare and start the move to independence.

Now this is something that I think most people can agree. But, why are people only concerned about Ward 3. Are the people in Ward 3 more precious than the citizens in the other 7 Wards where these facilities will be placed. The answer to that is "Hell to the No".

Because the illustrious residents of Ward 3 are more likely than the residents of Ward 7 to view homeless families as inherently different and something that needs to be protected against. You need look no further than the very sincere poster above who worked really hard to shelter her kids so that they would never have to interact with poor people to realize this.

Also, there are a lot of retail opportunities up and down Wisconsin Avenue, whereas parts of Ward 7 lack retail of any kind other than the odd corner store and Boost Mobile place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, say good bye to that nice Guy Mason playground. It's going to be fun to see litter and people sleeping all over it at 3pm. I am a firm believer in NIMBY. What next, a methadone clinic?

Oh, and whatever schools these shelters will be inbounds for, prepare for those schools to go downhill fast.

So you are saying that homeless shelters should not be spread throughout the city and should be concentrated in less affluent neighborhoods? Well, the people in Ward 5 and Ward 6, who have shouldered the majority of the burden thus far, want to know what makes your ward so special? This is everyone's burden to bear. Sorry.

What I have not seen in this whole discussion is where those folks are coming from. From outside DC? Mostly from DC itself? If so, from which Ward? Sorry, but if (imagine) all homeless people were raised in Ward 5, and that's what they know best, it makes no particular sense to spread them across all Wards. If they all come from (say) Virginia, why should DC wear the burden?

If Bowser trying to help existing homeless people or to disrupt a number of neighborhoods and potentially bring even more homeless into the city? Those are different objectives

Bowser is trying to close DC General, the existing family shelter that houses ~230 families. These new shelters are for families who are living there, or in the NY Ave motels. I understand that there is the perception that homeless people are flocking to DC for our amazing homeless services, and while there is some truth to that, these families are overwhelmingly DC residents. I met with a man yesterday who is homeless and mentally ill from Ward 3 (born, raised, lived there when he had an address). He's not the target population of these shelters because he is a single adult male, but he is not a poor black man from Ward 8. Many of these young women are from SE, from Brookland, from Trinidad. There is an argument that if you house people in a community with better examples - working people, good schools, easily accessible grocery stores (vs. high unemployment, failing schools, and an overabundance of stripmall 7-Elevens) - they will be better situated to get out of poverty.

These are not shelters to "bring more homeless into the city." They are shelters to rehouse the people living in the toxic human rights violation that is DC General into humane living conditions and help them break the cycle of homelessness.

I wish I wrote for the Washington Post so that I could write that into the first line of every single story, since so many of you seem to think that these are shelters for individual adults from other jurisdictions.

If it is true that many of the homeless are "from SE, from Brookland, from Trinidad," that's where they should be taken care of. That's what community-based services means -- you serve people within their community. You don't just take them and spread them to random places.

This is especially relevant when talking about temporary housing.

Corralling the poor into poor neighborhoods is not the solution. The jobs aren't in those neighborhoods. The good schools are not in those neighborhoods. Concentration of poverty only ensures there will be more generations who are born into it, grow up surrounded by it, and live out their lives like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, say good bye to that nice Guy Mason playground. It's going to be fun to see litter and people sleeping all over it at 3pm. I am a firm believer in NIMBY. What next, a methadone clinic?

Oh, and whatever schools these shelters will be inbounds for, prepare for those schools to go downhill fast.

So you are saying that homeless shelters should not be spread throughout the city and should be concentrated in less affluent neighborhoods? Well, the people in Ward 5 and Ward 6, who have shouldered the majority of the burden thus far, want to know what makes your ward so special? This is everyone's burden to bear. Sorry.

What I have not seen in this whole discussion is where those folks are coming from. From outside DC? Mostly from DC itself? If so, from which Ward? Sorry, but if (imagine) all homeless people were raised in Ward 5, and that's what they know best, it makes no particular sense to spread them across all Wards. If they all come from (say) Virginia, why should DC wear the burden?

If Bowser trying to help existing homeless people or to disrupt a number of neighborhoods and potentially bring even more homeless into the city? Those are different objectives

Bowser is trying to close DC General, the existing family shelter that houses ~230 families. These new shelters are for families who are living there, or in the NY Ave motels. I understand that there is the perception that homeless people are flocking to DC for our amazing homeless services, and while there is some truth to that, these families are overwhelmingly DC residents. I met with a man yesterday who is homeless and mentally ill from Ward 3 (born, raised, lived there when he had an address). He's not the target population of these shelters because he is a single adult male, but he is not a poor black man from Ward 8. Many of these young women are from SE, from Brookland, from Trinidad. There is an argument that if you house people in a community with better examples - working people, good schools, easily accessible grocery stores (vs. high unemployment, failing schools, and an overabundance of stripmall 7-Elevens) - they will be better situated to get out of poverty.

These are not shelters to "bring more homeless into the city." They are shelters to rehouse the people living in the toxic human rights violation that is DC General into humane living conditions and help them break the cycle of homelessness.

I wish I wrote for the Washington Post so that I could write that into the first line of every single story, since so many of you seem to think that these are shelters for individual adults from other jurisdictions.

If it is true that many of the homeless are "from SE, from Brookland, from Trinidad," that's where they should be taken care of. That's what community-based services means -- you serve people within their community. You don't just take them and spread them to random places.

This is especially relevant when talking about temporary housing.

I don't disagree, but we're not talking about "random places." We're talking about building shelters in various parts of the city so that not all services are clustered in one neighborhood. We're not talking about sending them away to other cities - we're talking about spreading services around to multiple parts of one city.

There are already plenty of services in those neighborhoods. That's why the Ward 5 council member is objecting. The proposed location for his ward already has a lot of such services clustered around it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The housing should come with daycare vouchers and job interviews - there are tons of businesses of Wisconsin ave. These homeless parents could work at while their kids are in school/daycare and start the move to independence.

Independence? Are you sure they want that?
Independence or in their case low paying jobs will bring them a rental in the slums and bad schools they'll have to move to. Once they relocate to Wisconsin Ave they have every incentive to stay jobless and produce more kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, say good bye to that nice Guy Mason playground. It's going to be fun to see litter and people sleeping all over it at 3pm. I am a firm believer in NIMBY. What next, a methadone clinic?

Oh, and whatever schools these shelters will be inbounds for, prepare for those schools to go downhill fast.

So you are saying that homeless shelters should not be spread throughout the city and should be concentrated in less affluent neighborhoods? Well, the people in Ward 5 and Ward 6, who have shouldered the majority of the burden thus far, want to know what makes your ward so special? This is everyone's burden to bear. Sorry.

What I have not seen in this whole discussion is where those folks are coming from. From outside DC? Mostly from DC itself? If so, from which Ward? Sorry, but if (imagine) all homeless people were raised in Ward 5, and that's what they know best, it makes no particular sense to spread them across all Wards. If they all come from (say) Virginia, why should DC wear the burden?

If Bowser trying to help existing homeless people or to disrupt a number of neighborhoods and potentially bring even more homeless into the city? Those are different objectives

Bowser is trying to close DC General, the existing family shelter that houses ~230 families. These new shelters are for families who are living there, or in the NY Ave motels. I understand that there is the perception that homeless people are flocking to DC for our amazing homeless services, and while there is some truth to that, these families are overwhelmingly DC residents. I met with a man yesterday who is homeless and mentally ill from Ward 3 (born, raised, lived there when he had an address). He's not the target population of these shelters because he is a single adult male, but he is not a poor black man from Ward 8. Many of these young women are from SE, from Brookland, from Trinidad. There is an argument that if you house people in a community with better examples - working people, good schools, easily accessible grocery stores (vs. high unemployment, failing schools, and an overabundance of stripmall 7-Elevens) - they will be better situated to get out of poverty.

These are not shelters to "bring more homeless into the city." They are shelters to rehouse the people living in the toxic human rights violation that is DC General into humane living conditions and help them break the cycle of homelessness.

I wish I wrote for the Washington Post so that I could write that into the first line of every single story, since so many of you seem to think that these are shelters for individual adults from other jurisdictions.

If it is true that many of the homeless are "from SE, from Brookland, from Trinidad," that's where they should be taken care of. That's what community-based services means -- you serve people within their community. You don't just take them and spread them to random places.

This is especially relevant when talking about temporary housing.

I don't disagree, but we're not talking about "random places." We're talking about building shelters in various parts of the city so that not all services are clustered in one neighborhood. We're not talking about sending them away to other cities - we're talking about spreading services around to multiple parts of one city.

There are already plenty of services in those neighborhoods. That's why the Ward 5 council member is objecting. The proposed location for his ward already has a lot of such services clustered around it.

But it is equally uprooting people from their communities, their comfort zones, the places they know, their networks, and placing them in completely new surroundings to them. They are not going to spend the whole day in the shelter, correct?

This is the opposite of community-based work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The housing should come with daycare vouchers and job interviews - there are tons of businesses of Wisconsin ave. These homeless parents could work at while their kids are in school/daycare and start the move to independence.

Independence? Are you sure they want that?
Independence or in their case low paying jobs will bring them a rental in the slums and bad schools they'll have to move to. Once they relocate to Wisconsin Ave they have every incentive to stay jobless and produce more kids.

I'm so glad that you know what homeless families want and what their priorities and intentions are!

Maybe you'd enjoy if we speculated about your priorities and intentions, since apparently that is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, say good bye to that nice Guy Mason playground. It's going to be fun to see litter and people sleeping all over it at 3pm. I am a firm believer in NIMBY. What next, a methadone clinic?

Oh, and whatever schools these shelters will be inbounds for, prepare for those schools to go downhill fast.

So you are saying that homeless shelters should not be spread throughout the city and should be concentrated in less affluent neighborhoods? Well, the people in Ward 5 and Ward 6, who have shouldered the majority of the burden thus far, want to know what makes your ward so special? This is everyone's burden to bear. Sorry.

What I have not seen in this whole discussion is where those folks are coming from. From outside DC? Mostly from DC itself? If so, from which Ward? Sorry, but if (imagine) all homeless people were raised in Ward 5, and that's what they know best, it makes no particular sense to spread them across all Wards. If they all come from (say) Virginia, why should DC wear the burden?

If Bowser trying to help existing homeless people or to disrupt a number of neighborhoods and potentially bring even more homeless into the city? Those are different objectives

Bowser is trying to close DC General, the existing family shelter that houses ~230 families. These new shelters are for families who are living there, or in the NY Ave motels. I understand that there is the perception that homeless people are flocking to DC for our amazing homeless services, and while there is some truth to that, these families are overwhelmingly DC residents. I met with a man yesterday who is homeless and mentally ill from Ward 3 (born, raised, lived there when he had an address). He's not the target population of these shelters because he is a single adult male, but he is not a poor black man from Ward 8. Many of these young women are from SE, from Brookland, from Trinidad. There is an argument that if you house people in a community with better examples - working people, good schools, easily accessible grocery stores (vs. high unemployment, failing schools, and an overabundance of stripmall 7-Elevens) - they will be better situated to get out of poverty.

These are not shelters to "bring more homeless into the city." They are shelters to rehouse the people living in the toxic human rights violation that is DC General into humane living conditions and help them break the cycle of homelessness.

I wish I wrote for the Washington Post so that I could write that into the first line of every single story, since so many of you seem to think that these are shelters for individual adults from other jurisdictions.

If it is true that many of the homeless are "from SE, from Brookland, from Trinidad," that's where they should be taken care of. That's what community-based services means -- you serve people within their community. You don't just take them and spread them to random places.

This is especially relevant when talking about temporary housing.

I don't disagree, but we're not talking about "random places." We're talking about building shelters in various parts of the city so that not all services are clustered in one neighborhood. We're not talking about sending them away to other cities - we're talking about spreading services around to multiple parts of one city.

There are already plenty of services in those neighborhoods. That's why the Ward 5 council member is objecting. The proposed location for his ward already has a lot of such services clustered around it.

But it is equally uprooting people from their communities, their comfort zones, the places they know, their networks, and placing them in completely new surroundings to them. They are not going to spend the whole day in the shelter, correct?

This is the opposite of community-based work.

As you can see, there will be shelters in multiple locations. They are not relocated all of DC General to Ward 3. Also, do you truly believe that "Glover Park" is a "completely new surrounding?" Do you spend all day in the neighborhood where you live, or do you get up in the morning, take your kids to school and then go to work somewhere else in the city? I know I do.

I get the feeling that people think that homeless people just sit around all day with nothing to do. Everyone has down time, but people also meet with case managers, take classes (life skills, GED, etc.), take their children to and from school, go to medical appointments, etc.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if any of you supporting this live within a city block of one of the proposed shelters, in a strictly residential zoned neighborhood, having chosen the neighborhood as a safe alternative to raise young children. In one fell swoop, both the safety and value of our homes will decrease significantly. I would love to support a shelter in Ward 3 as well, and if it wasn't so close to my young family, I'd be criticizing all the NIMBYs trying to make it go away, too. But when it so significantly has a negative effect on my family's well-being, then it is a serious problem. The Wisconsin Avenue site is unacceptable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have had plenty of experience with poor people, thank you very much. I have had the wonderful experience (actually several times) of having poor, drunk men fall on me on the bus, which I used to ride for two hours, each way, every day, while commuting to college. I once had a boy in my neighborhood put a knife to my throat and say he wanted money as a joke. Have you had those experiences? If not, then don't talk to me about avoiding poor people. As I stated...I worked hard so that my children do not have the experiences that I had.

Better work harder so you can move to Great Falls to find a better class of POORS.

People live in Great Falls for semi rural ambiance. 3 small shopping centers and nowhere to walk or bus. You want the county to pay for cabs? Bunk them at the fire and rescue with the staff who do dangerous potomac river rescues? Why would you put a homeless shelter there? All over NW Dc are halfway houses for alcohol and drug rehab. At least 1 organization owns studio condos and rents apt's for homeless with psychiatric problems. Transitional shelter for homeless families supervised by the city is mild. We do have a metro problem with a potentially off meds DC homeless person-habit of threatening at top of an escalator...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Public housing and homeless shelters are not the same. There's no shortage of public housing in Ward 6. Off the top of my head, there's Potomac Gardens, Kentucky Courts, Greenleaf Gardens, Sursum Corda, Hopkins, James Creek, Syphax, and Sibley Plaza. Then there's mixed-income developments like the Eliot-Hine development, Townhomes on Capitol Hill (Ellen Wilson) and Capitol Quarter and Bixby (Capper-Carrolllsburg) and the other DCHA projects slated to be near Canal Park. Plus the low-income senior buildings adjacent to the Marine Barracks and the Navy Yard. As to shelters, DC General speaks for itself as does the nearby methadone clinic and the facility that offers drug and mental counseling adjacent to the Eastern Market Metro Plaza.

Yup, the new shelter in Ward 6 will be a stone's throw from 2 of those housing projects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The housing should come with daycare vouchers and job interviews - there are tons of businesses of Wisconsin ave. These homeless parents could work at while their kids are in school/daycare and start the move to independence.

Independence? Are you sure they want that?
Independence or in their case low paying jobs will bring them a rental in the slums and bad schools they'll have to move to. Once they relocate to Wisconsin Ave they have every incentive to stay jobless and produce more kids.

I'm so glad that you know what homeless families want and what their priorities and intentions are!

Maybe you'd enjoy if we speculated about your priorities and intentions, since apparently that is a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

My intentions are not a burden on taxpayers.
Is there going to be any accountability on their part?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if any of you supporting this live within a city block of one of the proposed shelters, in a strictly residential zoned neighborhood, having chosen the neighborhood as a safe alternative to raise young children. In one fell swoop, both the safety and value of our homes will decrease significantly. I would love to support a shelter in Ward 3 as well, and if it wasn't so close to my young family, I'd be criticizing all the NIMBYs trying to make it go away, too. But when it so significantly has a negative effect on my family's well-being, then it is a serious problem. The Wisconsin Avenue site is unacceptable.

Read my above post. Halfway houses on more residential blocks than Wisconsin.