Bowser Spreads the Wealth opens homeless shelters in each DC ward

[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.

LOL. You would be criticizing NIMBYs, but now that it might be you, you are are NIMBY. At least you own your hypocrisy.

[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.

Imagine if you lived near one of the proposed sites that already had concentrations of poverty and public housing nearby. Sorry if I don't have pity for you.

[Anonymous]

Folks, you better get to Mary Cheh and express your wishes for job training, supports, etc. She is committed to making this happen in Ward 3, so find a way to make your peace. I have already spoken to her office to express my support for the plan.

[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.

I live in Ward 1 within half a mile of 2 different family homeless shelters. You would not know them to be homeless shelters, as they are located in apartment buildings that look exactly like the other apartment buildings on the block. One is on Harvard and one is on Park Road. I have volunteered at both and occasionally have seen moms and their kids out shopping in Columbia Heights.

They look exactly like every other young woman pushing a stroller, PP. And the home values have been doing nothing but increasing in the area. Safety in Columbia Heights is obviously something that we discuss a lot, but the young women pushing strollers and their kids who go to school with my kid are not contributing to that issue, full stop.

Your fundamental assumption is that the location of a 40-unit family shelter in your neighborhood will have a negative effect on your family. It sounds like your objection stems from that concern, which has not been my experience at all. We have experienced plenty of negative effects from drunk white 25-year-olds and absolutely none from the 2 homeless shelters. I don't remember exactly how many families live in each shelter, but it's a similar number to the proposed WI Ave shelter.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Folks, you better get to Mary Cheh and express your wishes for job training, supports, etc. She is committed to making this happen in Ward 3, so find a way to make your peace. I have already spoken to her office to express my support for the plan.

Exactly. Great advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

If you feel this strongly, you should contact Mary Cheh and have your neighbors do the same, as she is fully supporting the plan [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

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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.

1) As you can see, there will be shelters in multiple locations. They are not relocated all of DC General to Ward 3. 2) Also, do you truly believe that "Glover Park" is a "completely new surrounding?" 3) 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.

4) 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.

1) Yes, I see that. My point has to do with all Wards, not just Ward 3. "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."

2) Yes, I certainly believe that moving from Brookland to Glover Park or to other communities in different wards equals "completely new surroundings" from the perspective of the homeless person likely to need those services. As you know we live in a highly segregated city (which is a separate problem -- for that, perhaps we need some kind of inter-Ward affordable housing preferences? more and higher-value school vouchers?)

3) Yes, we commute and travel between different areas. Which is a pain, and often stressful. Why inflict pain and stress on people at their most vulnerable? Again, this is the opposite of community-based wrap-around services

4) I believe the opposite, which is why community is so important...

5) Finally, something I don't understand with the proposed model. Say you take someone from Brookland and take him or her to a temporary shelter at Ward 1. Or at Ward 8. What happens next? Is the assumption that people will rent an apartment and start living in those areas, perhaps close to the shelter? Or they will move elsewhere?

[Anonymous]

Thinking about what homeless people will do after the temporary shelter would make too much sense. So no, they haven't thought of that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thinking about what homeless people will do after the temporary shelter would make too much sense. So no, they haven't thought of that.

What makes you think that?

[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.

Conservative here. I fully agree. And should also come with some kind of psychological counseling and job training/educational enhancements. If you are going to provide aid, do it right so you can launch people into independence. Those that don't comply? You have case to remove the children from the parent(s) and find them better circumstances.

Why do you assume that these parents aren't employed or need psychological counseling? There are many reasons that a family can become homeless. Taking children away? Perhaps you could benefit from intensive counseling to address your lack of empathy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

LOL. You would be criticizing NIMBYs, but now that it might be you, you are are NIMBY. At least you own your hypocrisy.

+100. Yeah, make it some other family's problem (likely a family with less money than this PP). Your precious snowflake family is more important than theirs, right?

[Anonymous]

WTF is wrong with you people? Are you dense? These are shelters to provide temporary, safe housing for homeless DC families. The residents will not be so thunderstruck by the glories of this strange, new land of Wisconsin Avenue that they will not be able to function.

How will families be assigned to shelters? Good question, and one that will likely be answered at tonight's meetings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Don't bother. PP is a hyperventilating loon.

[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.

Please tell us about all these wonderful incentives to "produce" kids. And could you tell me where these "slums" are located? I can't seem to find any of them on Google Maps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thinking about what homeless people will do after the temporary shelter would make too much sense. So no, they haven't thought of that.

What makes you think that?

The initial shallow, lazy and shortsighted plan.
It would make so much more sense to invest in current bad neighborhoods by subsidizing businesses, mortgages for local residents, clean ups etc. but it's hard. Speeding them out and unloading the headache onto other responsible citizens is a lot easier.