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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I work in social services, and we talk about this a lot.

There are a lot of reasons for DC's high numbers of homeless people - children and adults. I blame the lack of affordable housing in DC. You can hem and haw all you want, but the reality is that there is almost no affordable housing for families in DC, especially not in safe neighborhoods. It doesn't exist, and people become homeless every day because of this.

Mental illness and drug addiction are responsible for homelessness in many instances. Many addicts are not able to work. Not all addicts are single adults - some of them are young people with children. Many communities have strong cultural aversion to treating mental illness because it's believed to be a character flaw, so people resist treatment that could otherwise help them to stabilize.

[b]I don't find it particularly useful to separate our various jurisdictions into totally separate entities. A homeless person from Montgomery County can step across Carroll Street in Takoma Park and instantly become a homeless person in DC. A homeless person in Virginia can walk across the Key Bridge and become a homeless person in DC. 
[/b]
One of the things that one of my colleagues who works with homeless veterans told me that I thought was interesting was also that DC has a lot of mentally ill homeless people come here because it's the capital - not because they heard that things are hunky dory for homeless people in DC, but because they have a fixation with Obama, or Congress, or whatever else that is unique to this city.

As for the policy shifts, I think some posters may be a bit confused. By law, DC must provide shelter to FAMILIES seeking shelter year-round. Mandatory shelter for individuals is only in effect during hypothermia season. It's not that anyone anywhere can get any kind of services they want in DC just by asking whenever they want to.[/quote]

Sure, but the funds to help them does come from separate entities, which is why people do care. A lot.[/quote]

No kidding. I just think that it's helpful to remember how close these jurisdictions actually are and stop pretending that what happens on the DC side of the river isn't the Virginia side's problem. [/quote]

As a collective the DMV can't even get Metro to function. Hoping for a tri-state solution here seems unlikely.[/quote]

If that's truly the case, then DC has a moral imperative to push as much of the problem out to MD and VA as it can.[/quote]

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