Anonymous wrote:Would property owners around the Ward 3 shelter site have a takings argument, based on how the shelter will diminish their property values?

I'd guess not, because then I'd have read about other takings claims involving shelters in other cities. I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this challenge. But just curious whether that might be an issue for the city to consider here, or alternatively why not.

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Anonymous wrote:I think my liberal CP neighbors are only giving in theory. When it comes to living what they preach, they sign petitions and fight tooth and nail to have those pesky homeless as far away from them as possible. Shameful.

I would agree that those in support of the shelter should offer to house a homeless person or family. Like you. We live in CP and oppose the shelter for a variety of reasons. We are not directly impacted, but do think this 8 wards plan was rushed through for expediency and will be another liberal flop. We are not liberal pp - shockingly, not everyone in CP is. Hoping this dumb plan will make more of our neighbors less liberal. Perhaps they are not hypocrites, the ones protesting the shelter. Perhaps they are reconsidering rampant, unfettered DC Council style liberalism? I hope so!

How long have you lived in CP? The 8 ward plan is over 20 years old. Ward 3 residents have repeatedly defeated any shelter in the ward starting back in the early 90s when the crisis was at epic proportions. The compromise was the creation of the of the church based shelters in the ward. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1992/03/19/ward-3-churches-offering-shelter/27e165c3-da71-49a8-a349-0493944e3d8e/?utm_term=.12e548ed391d It is also why the Community Council for the Homeless was set up in Tenleytown, since there were so many living on the streets around the old Hechingers.

I would think that many wealthy Republicans live in CP given home prices. But clearly you haven't noticed that we already have shelters.

This just shows how little you know about the area where the shelter is planned without public input. One can count the Republicans in McLean Gardens and Cleveland Park on two hands![/quote/]

I was addressing the particular CP poster that I quoted who claims they are conservative.

What do you mean "who claims they are conservative"? I am conservative and I hope my neighbors become increasingly so, now they are being subjected to city council unfettered san Francisco style liberalism. I am from dc, lived in CP 20 years and have sought and received some public assistance in DC myself. I am not against public assistance. I am against dumb plans, waste and yes - don't like the way this was rammed through. I 100% agree that if it's a great idea to randomly throw up a shelter it should be across the street or next door to casa Cheh.

A few things to keep in mind.

1) For those who are making NIMBY accusations, realize two things. First, "NIMBYism" is civic engagement whether you like the stated position or not. DC Council has proven time and time again that they will (without much due diligence) adopt legislation with reckless disregard to the means to meet a desired end. Second, the Homeward DC plan has been at the outset one lie after another - carefully calculated to demonize discrete neighborhoods and silence the voice of DC residents under the auspice of compassion for the homeless. The plan was initially only disclosed to the Ward 3 Dems and Washington Interfaith Network (WIN). WIN is largely funded by the construction unions. These two organizations worked to rig the game from the outset. In fact, members of each of these organizations were planted at the roll out meetings pretending to be residents hearing the plan for the first time. Ward 3 has always been critical for the plans success because it wouldn't hold together in the other wards absent being able to point to the rich folks on the hill and saying "they are getting a shelter too."

2) Homeward DC is in and of itself a vast NIMBY scheme designed to rid Reservation 13 of DC General's population in order to clear out the area for Chris Donatelli's Hill East development along with the $400 million recreational sports facility that is now proposed. Donatelli along with his partners are among the largest donators to Mayor Bowser. Donatelli of course wasn't going to build a new playground for the gentrification set with a homeless shelter adjacent to it, thus the plan was hatched to disperse the homeless throughout the city (putting the interest of DC residents behind her donors). When the plan was rolled out all you heard about was DC General's horrible neighborhood, the jail, the violence and the lack of safety for children. Only a few months later what do you have? A development just like Cathedral Commons going up at the stadium armory metro, the jail going bye-bye and a $400 million play ground going in next to DC General. Doesn't sound so bad for kids now does it? Fact of the matter is that rebuilding DC General into a state of the art facility would have been the most cost effective option, both from the perspective of construction and consolidation of services. But that, of course, wouldn't have rid the area of the concentration of homeless like Bowser's donors wanted.

3) Bowser, Zeilinger and others pushed this plan hiding behind the shield of DC's "right to shelter" law, which requires the provision of shelter when temperatures risk hypothermia. In fact, the shelters, Ward 3 included, are designated as "emergency" shelters, which have the lowest barriers to entry (i.e., VA/MD homeless magnets). In actuality, the new shelters proposed go way beyond DC's "right to shelter" law as they are basically intended as temporary medium-term housing for the serial shelter residents. This set up placates the advocates who love to claim DC has strict standards to shelter entry but use this loophole to circumvent such requirements and jump up and down when tighter entry standards are proposed. They will deny this to their grave, but only months ago during the last set of proposed shelter entry restrictions, Mayor Bowser openly stated that DC is housing much of MD and VA's homeless population (exactly the opposite of what she said months ago).

4) The new shelters are billed as "family shelters," however, there is no actual categorization as such in the zoning or otherwise that would limit their use accordingly. If you are worried about safety as a result of the new neighborhood residents, the fear is 100% justified. Maybe the residents are "families" and maybe they are on a path toward getting on their feet, but that has nothing to do with past associations. DC Council has claimed there has been a focus on increased security, but this is security for the shelter residents, not the surrounding neighborhood. Read the accounts of violence at DC General and realize that Mayor Bowser and DC Council are overtly choosing to make your neighborhood more dangerous. Any suggestion otherwise is statistically impossible.

5) Most importantly, realize that DC General the structure, while dilapidated, isn't DC General's biggest problem. It's biggest problem is that DC is in charge of running it. All of the crime, including kidnapping, was done under the nose of employees hired by DC. Any resident who thinks DC will all of a sudden change its neglectful tune is kidding themselves. DC will say smaller shelters are easier to maintain. Hogwash, running seven shelters and efficiently and effectively allocating resources is way more complex then focusing on one. The neglect will persist, the crime will follow and it's only a matter of time until this becomes painfully clear.

At the end of the day, it's critical to understand that, at the outset, DC Council supported a plan they didn't understand or fully vet. The impact is unknown and the risks have all been shifted to the biggest repeat loser in the District of Columbia, the DC taxpayer.