Reply to Bowser Spreads the Wealth opens homeless shelters in each DC ward

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Normally I would be the among the first to cry for public comments on issues and plans that affect neighborhoods. However, given the mean-spirited comments made during the DCPS boundary revision process about at-risk set asides and low income students on this board, I'm glad that the mayor didn't open this up for people to weigh in.

It's a crisis, and I strongly suspect that many of the people in upper NW who are up in arms about this shelter are having their first experience with the crisis. I live in a part of the city with multiple shelters, public housing, and social services, plus I work in social services, so none of this is news to me. It's insulting when people like the PP who described the problem in pretty accurate detail is told by other posters that he/she doesn't know what he/she is talking about. I also think it's ridiculous that the criticism of that poster is basically "You must not know what you're talking about vis-a-vis the homeless crisis because you did not also mention corruption, cronyism, etc., and therefore you must be a party hack."

I don't know about the PP, but personally, I think that the human rights crisis facing thousands of DC citizens of all ages is more important. I choose to focus on that. If you'd like to focus on political corruption and a lack of democratic process, that's up to you, but when I see children living in unsafe and unhealthy living conditions, I'm more interested in getting those children and their parents into a safe environment and getting them started down the road to self-sufficiency. The other stuff is important, but those are process discussions, not immediate crisis discussions.

If I was her, I wouldn't hold public hearings on this subject either, since the 38 pages of this thread and however many protracted arguments about at-risk set asides have demonstrated that the segment of the population who comes to this website were not going to be supportive of the Ward 3 shelter no matter where it is. You can say whatever you want about zoning, but I have no doubt that the goal posts will move if the shelter plan gets revised.

Note: I didn't vote for Bowser or work for her. I don't work for any part of the DC government. So any accusations of being a party hack or in the tank are patently incorrect.[/quote]

You eloquently describe the crisis facing the city as well as the insulation many have had from seeing it. It pains me that so many PPs are unaware of how luck and circumstances play such an integral role in who is/not homeless.  I am not sure, however, that the zoning claims are meant to be a red herring.  Two small shelters have operated in the neighborhood of the Ward 3 site proposed by the Bowser admin, probably unbeknownst to even those living immediately adjacent to that community.  The Bowser proposal may have been more readily embraced if the numbers were in keeping with the current zoning regs and did not appear to be a way for a developer to change those rules through a back door maneuver.  The City Paper undertook an extensive investigation of the how DC developers grease the political wheels of the city's mayors and council members.  It would be foolish, therefore,  to believe that the developer is acting out of noblesse oblige.  [/quote]

Oh, I don't believe for a single second that there's any noblesse oblige going on with any of the developers in DC. I'd strongly prefer that the city own the land and the building, because I don't disagree at all that it's probably an end-run around the appropriate process. If the PPs are invested in reforming the process, that's great, and I hope they take their outrage at this abuse of process and direct it at other abuses of process, which doubtless exist in many incarnations citywide. I am frustrated with the things I see my clients experiencing every day - partially because the process never seems to work in their favor. I was excited for the Bowser "All 8 Wards" plan on the face of it, even with the uncertainty about how people get placed in what shelter and what services are actually provided to transition people out of the shelters, because silo-ing these families in squalor in SE and SW is clearly NOT working. It's time to try a different plan.

I guess my point was that while the zoning concern is legitimate and should be address, I don't for a second believe that if the zoning issue gets resolved that the PPs will suddenly be supportive of a shelter located in Ward 3. I think that the bottom line is that there is a vocal group who believe that paying lot of money to be insulated from the problems of urban poverty is a permanent inoculation against it - that because they paid a lot of money whenever to buy a house in upper NW, things must remain as they have ever been. [/quote]

If people start feeling unsafe in their neighborhoods and flee the city and take their tax revenues with them, how will bowser pay for her programs?[/quote]

When you "flee" the city do you abandon your residence or sell it?  If it's the latter, then the purchaser pays the property taxes and income taxes.  See how that works?  [/quote]

You don't know what happened in DC in the 60s and 70s, correct?

Hint: think Detroit[/quote]

Yes and those taxes go down considerably so that no one can be paid to monitor the taxes. In the Barry administration many people stopped paying taxes and no one bothered to collect them.  Taxes equal people to collect taxes.  Low taxes equal can't afford to pay to collect taxes. [/quote]

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