Reply to Shooting at Brandywine & Connecticut Ave NW This Afternoon

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I just can’t get my head around the fact that DC is using the Saratoga for housing homeless people.  MANY middle class Ward 3 residents would love to be able to afford to live in a building that nice.  What about the rest of us?[/quote]

^ That was my point above. The working poor, people who are invested, people who try their best, are essentially invisible. Fall out and be a mess, and THEN you'll get support. [/quote]

Heartily agree, but the "you" is curiously conditional.

The wait list for Section 8 is officially closed and decades long. These vouchers are being offered to people in encampments, among others, many of whom have no longstanding ties to DC and who may come from lower cost of living areas, drawn by the tolerance for open air drug scenes and how vouchers are implemented here. I hesitate to speculate how they not only vaulted to the front of the line ahead of lifelong DC residents, but get private buildings, not poorly managed and maintained DC properties on offer.

Someone posted on the CP listserve about a young woman they met who was moving into a building in Cathedral Heights with a voucher. She said she might get a job at Giant and go back to school. Instead she was arrested for prostitution weeks later and "associates" were openly dealing near the building. The shelter for women and children on Idaho has also been a draw of men engaged in criminal and sometimes violent behavior.

As people in 12 step programs are wont to say, a "geographic "cure fixes nothing. HF is a philosophy designed to benefit developers, landlords and those who get kickbacks. Without providing any carrots or sticks to the recipients or requiring treatment or steps toward becoming self sufficient it seems to enable continued addiction. It just does not seem financially feasible over the long run, many of the voucher recipients appear quite young. Wouldn't progress in stability and bettering one's prospects for one's kids lead to better self esteem, stronger families and a more stable community?

I can see why these buildings draw dealers if they have a large concentration of people not only home all day, but idle. Was the same for Days Inn during covid when it was a homeless quarantine shelter, dealing nearby visibly ticked up. Often people who don't pay their portion of the rent are evicted in month 7 and just move to a different nearby building, they have no skin in the game, no consequences and often, no legitimate sources of income.

Some buildings have kids who don't attend school regularly. Despite CPS visits, nothing changes. It's really stressful for other residents who try to get help for the kids who may be left alone for days, who try to get help for people severely mentally ill, etc. It's not a great environment for regular families, even before the safety issues are factored in. And rents in these older buildings, often without a lot of amenities, are at all time highs. [/quote]

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