New Ward 3 Homeless Families Shelter Site

[Anonymous]

Putting a shelter in ward 3 is like putting an outpatient treatment center for pedophiles next to an elementary school. This is a very bad thing for the affected neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Putting a shelter in ward 3 is like putting an outpatient treatment center for pedophiles next to an elementary school. This is a very bad thing for the affected neighborhood.

Yeah guess folks better move

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In Logan Circle, the shelter residents would commit crimes against the people in the surrounding neighborhood. It was not uncommon to see a resident defacating in a public
trash can or on the sidewalk. Is anyone concerned that may happen with the Shelter in Ward 3?

I thought the shelter residents would be primarily for single parent families with children experiencing homelessness not violent parolees.

DC also said that it would be temporary, as families find more permanent housing. But DC quickly dialed that back. There also was the suggestion that the building is just "phase 1" of an eventually much larger project. DC owns all of the land behind the shelter and the police station.

[Anonymous]

Where does the Cathedral Commons homeless shelter fit into this shamelessly pretentious video?

https://vimeo.com/13018930

[Anonymous]

Betta hide ya kids, hide ya wife bc they raping everyone up in here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People work all of their lives to get AWAY from the poors and their propensity for violence, criminality and indolence. And Chey sticks a shelter for the poors right next to them.

Guess you should have built a moat then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People work all of their lives to get AWAY from the poors and their propensity for violence, criminality and indolence. And Chey sticks a shelter for the poors right next to them.

If Cheh were so committed to the shelter, she would have put it in her own neighborhood of Forest Hills. Not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People work all of their lives to get AWAY from the poors and their propensity for violence, criminality and indolence. And Chey sticks a shelter for the poors right next to them.

Here's an idea. Vote her out. Why are ward 3ers so afraid to do this? Another idea, let's have a Republican represent ward 3. You can bet the shelter would be 6 months with work/school requirement and for families as originally stipulated. Fwiw I was on medicaid in DC while I completed school as a single parent. I am very grateful. Medical and daycare supports that allow families to work/study to get on their feet are incredibly crucial. These supports are meant to help you get from point a to point b, not hang out in between. However the glorification of the chronically homeless in DC is beyond me. These are often deeply dysfunctional families and individuals who need very clear and structured support to transition. And some of them need treatment and hospitalization (including involuntary) which is why they should have transformed dc general into a state of the art facility, rather than sell it off to the highest bidder. Bleeding heart ward 3, You'd better demand to know what requirements come with this shelter. The kids should be in school all day and the parents should be in school or a job - with a requirement they put away money. Has the city come up with matching funds? Private public partnerships with Giant or the neighbor hood restaurants? A work or schooling or treatment contract? Or just plonking a shelter in a functional neighborhood and hoping that somehow solves everything and people miraculously transition to independence, ability to pay rent, find transport, and childcare provisions so they may work , in 6 months? Ask for the details of the off ramp from the shelter. What does the transition process look like? Spell it out city council and Cheh. As someone whose been there, that's the only way you are actually helping. When you have the requirements and supports to move these families from their dependence and misery. And please vote in some political diversity ward 3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People work all of their lives to get AWAY from the poors and their propensity for violence, criminality and indolence. And Chey sticks a shelter for the poors right next to them.

If Cheh were so committed to the shelter, she would have put it in her own neighborhood of Forest Hills. Not.

I'm not much of a Cheh fan, but you can't accuse her of hypocrisy here: Before the current site was selected, she did propose a Forest Hills site that is just 2 blocks from her house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People work all of their lives to get AWAY from the poors and their propensity for violence, criminality and indolence. And Chey sticks a shelter for the poors right next to them.

If Cheh were so committed to the shelter, she would have put it in her own neighborhood of Forest Hills. Not.

I'm not much of a Cheh fan, but you can't accuse her of hypocrisy here: Before the current site was selected, she did propose a Forest Hills site that is just 2 blocks from her house.

Not really, and she knew that the site was privately owned when her position was that the shelter should be built on private land. She proposed the 2D site and then rushed approvals through without full hearings and a public consideration of alternatives.

The real question is why she so quickly turned against the original site of the Ward 3 shelter in Massachusetts Heights, citing neighbor (perhaps major donor?) concerns. Yet then she proceeded to ignore the concerns of residents in Cathedral Heights/McLean Gardens about the Idaho Ave. location, saying that any site would face opposition and so DC just needed to push forward.

Cheh has long pretended to be a good government type, but her recent "shady" private tree bill for a favored developer suggests that her opposition to the Mass. Ave. site was also to do a favor for a crony.

[Anonymous]

Construction hasn't even started and its already a mess. Probably because there's not enough parking for all their cruisers on that little strip of Idaho Ave they've reserved outside the station. Just wait till all the construction crews and their vehicles arrive, it's going to be a disaster.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People work all of their lives to get AWAY from the poors and their propensity for violence, criminality and indolence. And Chey sticks a shelter for the poors right next to them.

If Cheh were so committed to the shelter, she would have put it in her own neighborhood of Forest Hills. Not.

I'm not much of a Cheh fan, but you can't accuse her of hypocrisy here: Before the current site was selected, she did propose a Forest Hills site that is just 2 blocks from her house.

Not really, and she knew that the site was privately owned when her position was that the shelter should be built on private land. She proposed the 2D site and then rushed approvals through without full hearings and a public consideration of alternatives.

The real question is why she so quickly turned against the original site of the Ward 3 shelter in Massachusetts Heights, citing neighbor (perhaps major donor?) concerns. Yet then she proceeded to ignore the concerns of residents in Cathedral Heights/McLean Gardens about the Idaho Ave. location, saying that any site would face opposition and so DC just needed to push forward.

Cheh has long pretended to be a good government type, but her recent "shady" private tree bill for a favored developer suggests that her opposition to the Mass. Ave. site was also to do a favor for a crony.

I disagree. Here are Cheh's two public letters on the site selection and other issues:

May 2016: http://marycheh.com/letter-from-councilmember-cheh-on-the-proposed-ward-3-shelter-for-families-experiencing-homelessness/
April 2017: http://marycheh.com/april-2017-letter-from-councilmember-cheh-on-the-proposed-ward-3-shelter-for-families-experiencing-homelessness/

What she says here - and my own recollection of the discussions when these issues were debated - is that after Bowser tried to jam her original Wisconsin Avenue site onto everyone, many people rose up to complain about (1) how stupid Bowser's plan was generally, and (2) how ridiculously and needlessly expensive and wasteful it would be. Cheh supports Bowser's plan generally, but even Cheh had to respond to the many complaints from her constituents. So Cheh responded by proposing several alternative locations for the Ward 3 site. The one that eventually "won" was the 2D location on public land, primarily because it would be the least expensive and wasteful of all the terrible alternatives proposed for Ward 3. Indeed, IIRC, the cronyism complaint was aimed at Bowser for trying to force the Wisconsin Avenue site that would benefit her developer contributors who were planning to get rich on the arrangements with the City; the 2D sites makes their cronyism harder because it's on public land.

I continue to think Bowser's plan is stupid, and Cheh is wrong in supporting it. I'm all for finding ways to fix the DC General problem, and for taking steps to help those in need to get their lives back on track. If knowledgeable people think that smaller shelters will be more effective than larger ones, then I've got no objection to trying it (although I frankly doubt that the size of the shelter it really the tipping factor that will allow homeless residents to change their lives, and I suspect the money would be better spent on other services for the homeless). But arbitrarily forcing each Ward to adopt a shelter is just injecting politics needlessly into a difficult situation, and it makes the whole plan more expensive and less likely to succeed. I fault Bowser and Cheh for that.

As an aside, when I re-read Cheh's letters, my blood pressure creeps up all over again at her disingenuous claims about how minor the impact will be on overcrowding at Eaton school. Cheh claims only 2-4 children from the shelter will actually attend Eaton. Would she be willing to bet on that claim?: I seriously doubt it. Then Cheh claims that "even assuming that all of those children [the shelter children] want to attend Eaton," then Eaton can simply adapt by making "adjustments ... to decrease the number of new out-of-boundary students who are enrolled, opening up spots for children in the shelter." That's not going to work because the enrollment lottery will have occurred many months earlier, so all the OOB students who won the "right" to attend Eaton will be locked in. This is definitely going to add to the overcrowding at Eaton. All just another reason that forcing 50+ more families into a crowded and expensive Ward 3 neighborhood is dumb.

Cheh never explained why she jumped behind Bowser's plan to put a shelter in Ward 3. She should be criticized for that. But I don't think she should criticized for the selection of the 2D location over other alternatives, because at least that part of the process was conducted in public.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People work all of their lives to get AWAY from the poors and their propensity for violence, criminality and indolence. And Chey sticks a shelter for the poors right next to them.

If Cheh were so committed to the shelter, she would have put it in her own neighborhood of Forest Hills. Not.

I'm not much of a Cheh fan, but you can't accuse her of hypocrisy here: Before the current site was selected, she did propose a Forest Hills site that is just 2 blocks from her house.

Not really, and she knew that the site was privately owned when her position was that the shelter should be built on private land. She proposed the 2D site and then rushed approvals through without full hearings and a public consideration of alternatives.

The real question is why she so quickly turned against the original site of the Ward 3 shelter in Massachusetts Heights, citing neighbor (perhaps major donor?) concerns. Yet then she proceeded to ignore the concerns of residents in Cathedral Heights/McLean Gardens about the Idaho Ave. location, saying that any site would face opposition and so DC just needed to push forward.

Cheh has long pretended to be a good government type, but her recent "shady" private tree bill for a favored developer suggests that her opposition to the Mass. Ave. site was also to do a favor for a crony.

I disagree. Here are Cheh's two public letters on the site selection and other issues:

May 2016: http://marycheh.com/letter-from-councilmember-cheh-on-the-proposed-ward-3-shelter-for-families-experiencing-homelessness/
April 2017: http://marycheh.com/april-2017-letter-from-councilmember-cheh-on-the-proposed-ward-3-shelter-for-families-experiencing-homelessness/

What she says here - and my own recollection of the discussions when these issues were debated - is that after Bowser tried to jam her original Wisconsin Avenue site onto everyone, many people rose up to complain about (1) how stupid Bowser's plan was generally, and (2) how ridiculously and needlessly expensive and wasteful it would be. Cheh supports Bowser's plan generally, but even Cheh had to respond to the many complaints from her constituents. So Cheh responded by proposing several alternative locations for the Ward 3 site. The one that eventually "won" was the 2D location on public land, primarily because it would be the least expensive and wasteful of all the terrible alternatives proposed for Ward 3. Indeed, IIRC, the cronyism complaint was aimed at Bowser for trying to force the Wisconsin Avenue site that would benefit her developer contributors who were planning to get rich on the arrangements with the City; the 2D sites makes their cronyism harder because it's on public land.

I continue to think Bowser's plan is stupid, and Cheh is wrong in supporting it. I'm all for finding ways to fix the DC General problem, and for taking steps to help those in need to get their lives back on track. If knowledgeable people think that smaller shelters will be more effective than larger ones, then I've got no objection to trying it (although I frankly doubt that the size of the shelter it really the tipping factor that will allow homeless residents to change their lives, and I suspect the money would be better spent on other services for the homeless). But arbitrarily forcing each Ward to adopt a shelter is just injecting politics needlessly into a difficult situation, and it makes the whole plan more expensive and less likely to succeed. I fault Bowser and Cheh for that.

As an aside, when I re-read Cheh's letters, my blood pressure creeps up all over again at her disingenuous claims about how minor the impact will be on overcrowding at Eaton school. Cheh claims only 2-4 children from the shelter will actually attend Eaton. Would she be willing to bet on that claim?: I seriously doubt it. Then Cheh claims that "even assuming that all of those children [the shelter children] want to attend Eaton," then Eaton can simply adapt by making "adjustments ... to decrease the number of new out-of-boundary students who are enrolled, opening up spots for children in the shelter." That's not going to work because the enrollment lottery will have occurred many months earlier, so all the OOB students who won the "right" to attend Eaton will be locked in. This is definitely going to add to the overcrowding at Eaton. All just another reason that forcing 50+ more families into a crowded and expensive Ward 3 neighborhood is dumb.

Cheh never explained why she jumped behind Bowser's plan to put a shelter in Ward 3. She should be criticized for that. But I don't think she should criticized for the selection of the 2D location over other alternatives, because at least that part of the process was conducted in public.

Two points are incorrect in this thoughtful posting. First of all, the 2D location "won" after Cheh chose it. There was no public process around various alternatives or even around the 2D location. There was one public forum (in which supporters of the mayor's plan were given prominent seating) and then a rushed council hearing to vote on all of the locations as a package. Cheh never consulted with the police department (as the 2D commander admitted) before the decision was made. And now the site has become very expensive indeed, with a multi-million dollar parking garage to be constructed because the shelter will take the police parking lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Two points are incorrect in this thoughtful posting. First of all, the 2D location "won" after Cheh chose it. There was no public process around various alternatives or even around the 2D location. There was one public forum (in which supporters of the mayor's plan were given prominent seating) and then a rushed council hearing to vote on all of the locations as a package. Cheh never consulted with the police department (as the 2D commander admitted) before the decision was made. And now the site has become very expensive indeed, with a multi-million dollar parking garage to be constructed because the shelter will take the police parking lot.

I'm the PP you responded to. I'm not clear what the two points are that you think I got wrong. I'm open to the possibility that I misunderstand or fail to recall certain aspects, but I'm pretty sure I'm correct about the ones I described.

I do think the process of selecting the 2D location was a public one. Maybe you and I have different definitions of what constitutes a "public" process. I mean the discussion was "public" in the sense that people were allowed to know what locations were being considered, and were given the chance to weigh in. Even your post describes a public meeting on the topic. Here are a few hundred articles from around the time:
http://dcist.com/2016/04/ward_3.php
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US751&biw=1280&bih=933&tbm=nws&ei=ndkeWv3WCsfk_QbnxqaACw&q=ward+3+%22homeless+shelter%22+police+wisconsin+bowser+public&oq=ward+3+%22homeless+shelter%22+police+wisconsin+bowser+public&gs_l=psy-ab.3...17472.18424.0.18808.7.7.0.0.0.0.106.596.4j2.6.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..1.0.0....0.oopZawLHTcI

Maybe by "public" you're hoping for a process where people could actually hope to change the result? I totally agree with you that there was no way to change the result that a shelter would be built in Ward 3, and there was no way that shelter would be at any location other than the 3-4 proposed locations that were being discussed. Bowser and Cheh and others had decided long before any of this was made public that they'd force through a Ward 3 shelter, no matter the cost or waste of that decision.

I totally agree with you that the 2D site and its construction costs are incredibly expensive and wasteful. I think the other proposed locations in Ward 3 would have been just as expensive and wasteful - perhaps more so. The flaw in the plan is forcing a shelter into Ward 3, where land is just incredibly expensive and overcrowding is intense.

Maybe Ward 3 should have done what most other Wards did, and push the shelter to the very corner of the Ward, so it's essentially adjacent to another Ward. Ward 3 should have proposed a site somewhere east of the National Zoo, or perhaps at the edge next to Adams Morgan.


It's just a stupid plan that pitted all the Wards against each other. Bowser should have spent less time playing politics, and more time figuring out how to get the most benefit possible for the homeless with the dollars she had available. Stupid and wasteful.

[Anonymous]

You realize that Bowser's main impetus to close DC General isn't to enhance services for homeless families? (The mayor has yet to explain how DC will deliver services more capably and efficiently on a vasty decentralized basis when it was incapable of delivering them in one principal location.) No, the main reason, dear readers, is that Bowser's developer cronies want to redevelop the DC General property for upscale housing and mixed-use.