Homelessness in DC- has it gotten worse?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve worked at the same downtown office for 20 years. The visible homeless in the parks downtown have definitely increased. I personally think the invisible homeless are more tied to the dearth of affordable housing. The visible homeless (the ones you see in tents on a busy sidewalk or sleeping on a bench) have different problems. The opioid epidemic is definitely part of it. I think the closure of some large DD institutions such as diversion of most of st Elizabeth to other uses, closure of DC general shelter, etc. how many people remember the enormous housing projects that surrounded the whole area that is now nationals park? Those were all closed in the 2003–05 time frame. They were pretty awful looking and I think basically an open air drug market but obviously provided housing for a LOT of people at least some of which probably did not have the capacity to maneuver the housing market even if they got the housing subsidies they were promised.

Today there was a guy strolling down the middle of 15th street entirely naked except for a diaper. Affordable housing is not his biggest problem, I think.

We need a complement of different kinds of solutions.

+1

This is very well stated. And DC has a lot of supports and programs for the invisible homeless. The visible we do not have good supports or solutions for.

Legalize panhandling and trespassing, problem solved.

Provide funding to hire cleaning crews to pick up trash and human waste from 6 am to 8 pm every day. Bring a truck with water to power-wash urine on solid surface. Or organize high school student volunteers to do the job.

One solution to address the spike is fir DC to offer people living on the street a bus ticket to destinations at least 1000 miles away and a prepaid cash card for $1000 that only works in ATMs at a distance of ar least 1000 mikes from DC.

Push the problem down and spread it around - that’s a real Trumpian way to address an issue (without really solving anything)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve worked at the same downtown office for 20 years. The visible homeless in the parks downtown have definitely increased. I personally think the invisible homeless are more tied to the dearth of affordable housing. The visible homeless (the ones you see in tents on a busy sidewalk or sleeping on a bench) have different problems. The opioid epidemic is definitely part of it. I think the closure of some large DD institutions such as diversion of most of st Elizabeth to other uses, closure of DC general shelter, etc. how many people remember the enormous housing projects that surrounded the whole area that is now nationals park? Those were all closed in the 2003–05 time frame. They were pretty awful looking and I think basically an open air drug market but obviously provided housing for a LOT of people at least some of which probably did not have the capacity to maneuver the housing market even if they got the housing subsidies they were promised.

Today there was a guy strolling down the middle of 15th street entirely naked except for a diaper. Affordable housing is not his biggest problem, I think.

We need a complement of different kinds of solutions.

+1

This is very well stated. And DC has a lot of supports and programs for the invisible homeless. The visible we do not have good supports or solutions for.

Legalize panhandling and trespassing, problem solved.

Provide funding to hire cleaning crews to pick up trash and human waste from 6 am to 8 pm every day. Bring a truck with water to power-wash urine on solid surface. Or organize high school student volunteers to do the job.

One solution to address the spike is fir DC to offer people living on the street a bus ticket to destinations at least 1000 miles away and a prepaid cash card for $1000 that only works in ATMs at a distance of ar least 1000 mikes from DC.

Push the problem down and spread it around - that’s a real Trumpian way to address an issue (without really solving anything)

The fact is that certain cities attract more than their share of homeless people, often those with some type of mental illness. Also, if a jurisdiction is seen as more lenient or offers more benefits than surrounding locales, it may be an attraction. There is nothing wrong with DC trying to reduce the disproportionate number of homeless people through incentives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The fact is that certain cities attract more than their share of homeless people, often those with some type of mental illness. Also, if a jurisdiction is seen as more lenient or offers more benefits than surrounding locales, it may be an attraction. There is nothing wrong with DC trying to reduce the disproportionate number of homeless people through incentives.

How do you determine a city's share of homeless people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The fact is that certain cities attract more than their share of homeless people, often those with some type of mental illness. Also, if a jurisdiction is seen as more lenient or offers more benefits than surrounding locales, it may be an attraction. There is nothing wrong with DC trying to reduce the disproportionate number of homeless people through incentives.

How do you determine a city's share of homeless people?

The only good thing that Marion Barry did when he was DC Mayor for Life is that one night he had a bunch of DC police cars herd a large number of prostitutes across the 14th St bridge to Virginia. Hmmm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve worked at the same downtown office for 20 years. The visible homeless in the parks downtown have definitely increased. I personally think the invisible homeless are more tied to the dearth of affordable housing. The visible homeless (the ones you see in tents on a busy sidewalk or sleeping on a bench) have different problems. The opioid epidemic is definitely part of it. I think the closure of some large DD institutions such as diversion of most of st Elizabeth to other uses, closure of DC general shelter, etc. how many people remember the enormous housing projects that surrounded the whole area that is now nationals park? Those were all closed in the 2003–05 time frame. They were pretty awful looking and I think basically an open air drug market but obviously provided housing for a LOT of people at least some of which probably did not have the capacity to maneuver the housing market even if they got the housing subsidies they were promised.

Today there was a guy strolling down the middle of 15th street entirely naked except for a diaper. Affordable housing is not his biggest problem, I think.

We need a complement of different kinds of solutions.

+1

This is very well stated. And DC has a lot of supports and programs for the invisible homeless. The visible we do not have good supports or solutions for.

Legalize panhandling and trespassing, problem solved.

Provide funding to hire cleaning crews to pick up trash and human waste from 6 am to 8 pm every day. Bring a truck with water to power-wash urine on solid surface. Or organize high school student volunteers to do the job.

One solution to address the spike is fir DC to offer people living on the street a bus ticket to destinations at least 1000 miles away and a prepaid cash card for $1000 that only works in ATMs at a distance of ar least 1000 mikes from DC.

Push the problem down and spread it around - that’s a real Trumpian way to address an issue (without really solving anything)

The fact is that certain cities attract more than their share of homeless people, often those with some type of mental illness. Also, if a jurisdiction is seen as more lenient or offers more benefits than surrounding locales, it may be an attraction. There is nothing wrong with DC trying to reduce the disproportionate number of homeless people through incentives.

Warmer climates = more homeless. Fact.

[Anonymous]

There werre always homeless tents all over DC, not loads of them, but some permanent installments in a few places for sure. Sometimes they get removed and at some point they come back. I guess every city eventually wakes up and starts doing something aboout it, mainly removing the encampments. NYC had gotten pretty bad after Covid and now they are cleaning up, it's noticeable. Hopefully DC will wake up too

[Anonymous]

There are more people on the planet.
More people means more poverty, illness, criminality, and anti-social behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are more people on the planet.
More people means more poverty, illness, criminality, and anti-social behavior.

Does that include more immigration? At what point is america wanting to stay at a certain population?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are more people on the planet.
More people means more poverty, illness, criminality, and anti-social behavior.

Does that include more immigration? At what point is america wanting to stay at a certain population?

I don’t know who exactly is homeless. There seems to be some debate about that.

[Anonymous]

How about having actual encampments where homeless people are free to live? With port a potties? Leave them alone but do service the port a potty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC has to be careful. It is a magnet for folks whose mental illness is triggered by the industrio-political-military complex. They are attractefld.to DC to lodge their complaints. It also risks being overly generous with the social responsibilities of our neighbors (MD and VA), much like the early days of Covid vaccines. DC should take care of DC residents, and by take care of I mean shelter or hospitalize (including involuntarily). If someone is recently arrived from somewhere else and plops on the sidewalk, bus tickets home.

Everyone I know in DC got their vaccine in MD.

Yep. Until about May, Bowser couldn’t get DC’s act together. We know Washingtonians who drove to Winchester, Norfolk, Roanoke, even NC.

I received my first shot in Northeast, Woodridge DC in March and the second shot in April. DH received his at the Southeast Entertainment Arts Center in March and April. Early on, Bowser was vaccinated people from MD and VA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC has to be careful. It is a magnet for folks whose mental illness is triggered by the industrio-political-military complex. They are attractefld.to DC to lodge their complaints. It also risks being overly generous with the social responsibilities of our neighbors (MD and VA), much like the early days of Covid vaccines. DC should take care of DC residents, and by take care of I mean shelter or hospitalize (including involuntarily). If someone is recently arrived from somewhere else and plops on the sidewalk, bus tickets home.

Everyone I know in DC got their vaccine in MD.

Yep. Until about May, Bowser couldn’t get DC’s act together. We know Washingtonians who drove to Winchester, Norfolk, Roanoke, even NC.

I received my first shot in Northeast, Woodridge DC in March and the second shot in April. DH received his at the Southeast Entertainment Arts Center in March and April. Early on, Bowser was vaccinated people from MD and VA.

Then you were almost certainly in one of the favored DC zip codes, not one of the zip codes being punished for our perceived privilege. In March and April, the rest of us had to go elsewhere because our city disavowed us as valid constituents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC has to be careful. It is a magnet for folks whose mental illness is triggered by the industrio-political-military complex. They are attractefld.to DC to lodge their complaints. It also risks being overly generous with the social responsibilities of our neighbors (MD and VA), much like the early days of Covid vaccines. DC should take care of DC residents, and by take care of I mean shelter or hospitalize (including involuntarily). If someone is recently arrived from somewhere else and plops on the sidewalk, bus tickets home.

Everyone I know in DC got their vaccine in MD.

Yep. Until about May, Bowser couldn’t get DC’s act together. We know Washingtonians who drove to Winchester, Norfolk, Roanoke, even NC.

I received my first shot in Northeast, Woodridge DC in March and the second shot in April. DH received his at the Southeast Entertainment Arts Center in March and April. Early on, Bowser was vaccinated people from MD and VA.

Then you were almost certainly in one of the favored DC zip codes, not one of the zip codes being punished for our perceived privilege. In March and April, the rest of us had to go elsewhere because our city disavowed us as valid constituents.

+1. We took two days off of work to drive to Salisbury.

[Anonymous]

The Interagency Council on Homelessness shows a slight decrease in DC. The numbers are about the same as in 2010. Homelessness increased the most in California and New York.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about having actual encampments where homeless people are free to live? With port a potties? Leave them alone but do service the port a potty.

This sounds good. Preferably out in a warehouse area. The social service organizations that receive city grants (Friendship Place comes to mind) could go there and do outreach. Help move anyone to shelters or hospitals who had enough.