Reply to Stabbing at The Brandywine in 4500 block Connecticut Ave. NW DC

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It seems to me that the voucher program (meaning putting people in apartments for free) is only useful for newly-homeless people.  Those who have experienced homelessness for less than a year or so because they will be able to better adapt to living in that setting.  I suspect most people who have been on the street for a year or more need an intermediate step (something more like a halfway house or shelter) where they can get services they need and learn to live and work independently again. I think we've seen that sticking those people in apartments without extensive services does not work at all.  Many of the panhandlers we see in this area are voucher holders.  They have apartments but no jobs or sources of income.[/quote]

Read the Forest Hills Connection article linked upthread, it describes who gets the vouchers. It's long term homeless, typically also released convicts "returning citizens," the mentally ill or addicts. Your ideas make sense but the tenants of Housing First (thanks CA and George Bush!) are in opposite to them, literally designed that way.

They are under NO obligation to accept or participate in "services." And with no accountability, vouchers are never yanked, just transferred, change is unlikely to put it kindly. The "services" everyone speaks of - what "services" would turn the man who strangled his girlfriend in front of their toddler and threw her out the window of the Connecticut House, she's paralyzed, what "services" would make that man Mr. Rogers?

The no jobs = a lot of free time = magnet for drug dealers. Visible drug dealing in the neighborhood has significantly increased. Drugs, cash and weapons are crime magnets. [/quote]

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