The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-25)

B4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 , 2022

one in the District — were “exact-
ly right” and she remains com-
mitted to seeing those promises
through.
“We needed systems changes.
We needed better facilities. We
needed casework. And at the end
of it, we needed affordable hous-
ing. And that is why we’re having
the success that we’re having with
families,” Bowser said. “We also
know that we we’ve created a
road map to do it across our
entire system.”

An ambitious plan

When the mayor took office in
2015, homelessness was on the
rise.
Family homelessness had in-
creased 50 percent over the previ-
ous five years, according to the
District. That year, the city logged
nearly 8,000 people during its
annual head count of those living
on the streets or in shelters. That
was a 20 percent increase overall
from 2010.
More than 400 veterans were
identified during the annual
count, roughly 5 percent of D.C.'s
homeless population and an in-
crease from 2011, the first year
the city broke out veteran home-
lessness.
To plug gaps in its overtaxed
shelter system, D.C. spent mil-
lions of dollars on motel rooms in
the District and Maryland to
provide temporary shelter to the
unhoused, particularly during
cold-weather months.
In an effort to get a handle on
the crisis, Bowser’s team laid out
the “Homeward DC” plan. It had
ambitious benchmarks: By the
end of 2015, the District would
end veteran homelessness. Two
years later, it would end chronic
homelessness — those living in a
shelter or on the street for a year
or more, or those who have had
multiple instances of homeless-
ness — among families and indi-
viduals. By 2020, the mayor said,
anyone seeking shelter in the
District would be rehoused in
under 60 days.
“In a city as prosperous as ours,
with the right leadership and a
sustained, and in our case in-
creasing, funding commitment,
we can accomplish big things in
the area of homelessness,” Bows-
er said.
Her plan included prioritizing
the closure of the problem-ridden
D.C. General family shelter in the
wake of the disappearance of
8-year-old Relisha Rudd — one of
the mayor’s 2014 campaign prom-
ises.
“Closing D.C. General was a
hard thing to do, but it was a very
good thing to do,” said Amber
Harding, a staff attorney at the
Washington Legal Clinic for the
Homeless. “It was important for
the mayor to do things the way
she said she was going to do
them.”
In the place of D.C. General,
Bowser oversaw the rollout of
smaller, more family-friendly
shelters in each of the District’s
eight wards, in some cases over
the vocal opposition of residents.
The last one, in Ward 1, opened
last year. Building the shelters,
which provide 312 units to home-
less families, cost about

HOMELESSNESS FROM B1

$165.5 million, according to the

D.C. Department of Human Ser-

vices (DHS).

“[I wanted to] make sure that

our city didn’t have a system,

especially for families experienc-

ing emergencies, where they

were in an old hospital that was

too large and wasn’t set up for

families or workers to succeed, a

facility where we lost a child, so I

made that commitment,” the

mayor said. “We have more digni-

fied housing, we have better case-

work, and we have driven down

family homelessness by 78 per-

cent. So if you ask me how I feel

about keeping that promise, I’m

immensely proud.”

The coronavirus pandemic ar-

rived in Washington in March

2020. Soon, more residents began
      to resist entering the shelter sys-
      tem, advocates said, because they
      were afraid of catching the deadly
      virus in crowded shelter settings.
      Federal guidance recommended
      leaving those who were camped
      on the street where they were,
      even as businesses and services
      throughout downtown shuttered.
      At the same time, the pandem-
      ic enabled the mayor to move
      more families out of the shelter
      system and into housing amid a
      massive influx of federal funding
      for housing programs, an evic-
      tion moratorium and emergency
      pandemic relief. Homelessness,
      as a result, declined further.
      As of this month, according to
      DHS, 129 families were living in
      an emergency shelter. That’s less
      than half the population of the
      often overcrowded D.C. General
      shelter, which at capacity housed
      270 families. On average, D.C.
      officials said, families remain in a
      shelter for fewer than 90 days.
      The number of veterans ex-
      periencing homelessness has
      halved over Bowser’s tenure — as

of this year, according DHS, the

District logged 205 unhoused vet-

erans.

Just over 1,000 adults — about

700 men and 300 women — are

living in a shelter, DHS said. As of

June 16, there were 38 open beds.

Finding stability

A key component of the may-

or’s efforts to reduce homeless-

ness has been “rapid rehousing,”

which provides subsidized rent

for four months to a year. Bowser

has invested heavily in expanding

the program.

Participants begin by paying

30 percent of their income

toward rent, with the District

picking up the rest of the tab.

Over time, the amount of assis-

tance gradually declines so resi-

dents can ease into paying mar-

ket rent once they have secured

more stable employment or over-

come whatever crises put them at

risk of homelessness in the first

place. But once the rapid rehous-

ing voucher expires, unless recip-

ients qualify for more permanent

support, they must pay full rent

or move.

In fiscal 2021, the District allo-

cated more than $98.6 million to

rapid rehousing, compared with

$28.5 million five years prior.

That year, the city subsidized rent

for 3,400 families and 521 indi-

viduals, according to DHS data.

For nearly 300 of them, pandemic

extensions expired at the end of

April.

Critics say the rapid rehousing

program has helped Bowser keep

shelter numbers down without

addressing many of the root

causes of homelessness, in partic-

ular, the skyrocketing cost of

housing in D.C.

The city “simply gets them out

of shelter and into rapid rehous-

ing. And there they stay for six

months. And then they get ex-

tended for another six months,

and then they’re evicted,” D.C.

Council Chairman Phil Mendel-

son (D) told reporters earlier this

month. “It doesn’t help these

families in the long run.”

“Often the mayor frames the

question on rapid rehousing as,

‘Would you rather people be in

shelter or be in housing?’ And of

course the answer is housing,”

said Harding, the staff attorney at

the Washington Legal Clinic for

the Homeless. “But permanent

housing is better than rapid re-

housing. So for us, it’s not a

question of do you leave people in

shelter forever or you put them in

rapid rehousing. It should be a

question of, ‘Do you give people

the kind of housing that actually

serves their needs?’ ”

Laura Zeilinger, the director of

DHS who oversees many of the

city’s homelessness programs, ac-

knowledged that housing afford-

ability remains one of the main

drivers of homelessness in the

District and one of the govern-

ment’s greatest obstacles to re-

ducing it. But, she said, rapid

rehousing was never meant to be

long term.

“The way I see rapid rehousing

is the purpose of the program is

to help families quickly transi-

tion from homelessness to hous-

ing,” Zeilinger said. They can “use

that time to get to a place of

greater stability.”

‘We are the toss-aways’

Helen, a 51-year-old native

Washingtonian who has been

homeless since late last year and

asked that she be identified only

by her middle name, said she had

not yet lost her housing when she

was accepted into the rapid re-

housing program in the fall. How-

ever, she said, she struggled to

find a new home.

Management companies

didn’t seem to care that she had a

voucher, and an old eviction fil-

ing on her record proved prob-

lematic. She dug into her bank

account to cover application fees

and transportation to tour apart-

ment buildings around the Dis-

trict, she said, only to be rejected

half a dozen times.

By winter, she had run out of

ideas and resources. She couldn’t

afford her rent, and after spend-

ing a few nights at a hotel, she

couldn’t afford that, either.

“We are the toss-aways in this

society,” Helen said. “People will

save the manatees ... they’ll pro-

test for the unborn, but God help

you if you need city services at a

rough time in your life.”

She said she suffered “a mas-

sive panic attack” and checked

herself into the Psychiatric Insti-

tute of Washington, afraid that

the nonstop panic might trigger

her heart condition. When she

was discharged, the medical cen-

ter sent her to a homeless shelter.

It was the first time in her life

that Helen had been homeless,

she said. After contracting the

coronavirus in March 2020, she

developed long-haul symptoms

that snowballed into two years of

struggle. While she was in the

shelter, sharing a room with sev-

en other women, she again tested

positive for the virus. She was

moved to a quarantine hotel,

where she stayed for 10 days.

By the time she was cleared to

leave, Helen said, it was late

April. Hypothermia season regu-

lations requiring D.C. shelters to

take in everyone who asks had

expired. She wandered the

streets, slept in parks and on

stoops. She was assaulted twice,

she said, by a man who was

staying in a tent near where she

often rested in Logan Circle.

“I had nowhere to go,” Helen

said. “If I had gotten the treat-

ment I needed, the housing I was

offered, if there were beds for the

huge number of people who need

them, I wouldn’t have gotten

raped twice.”

Helen, who says she has strug-

gled with mental health issues,

addiction and trauma made

worse by the assaults, asked that

her full name not be used because

she doesn’t want to risk prejudic-

ing future potential landlords

against her.

“This is a series of failings on

the city government that I have

paid taxes to since I was 20,”

Helen said. “They failed me again

and again and again.”

Bowser said she shares the

desire to see more progress on

reducing homelessness among

single adults.

“I can certainly understand

anyone who doesn’t have perma-

nent safe housing wanting us to

move faster,” the mayor said. “I

share that sense of urgency.”

Zeilinger said the rapid re-

housing program is a work in

progress. The District has already

begun adding services to bolster

the off-ramp that will connect

voucher recipients to career de-

velopment counseling, income

support services or other rent

subsidy programs.

But, she said, the mayor is not

interested in turning rapid re-

housing into another long-term

voucher program. Permanent

supportive vouchers that pay all

or part of a resident’s rent long

term are based on income, she

said. Once households receive

over a certain amount, they risk

losing that voucher — regardless

of whether they can pay for

market-rate housing.

Instead, Zeilinger said, the

Bowser administration is focused

on ways to increase affordable

housing options and “build

wealth.”

“Let’s fix the systemic issues

and what families want and what

they tell us are careers,” Zeilinger

said. “If we want families to

achieve economic mobility and

achieve wealth, they’re not going

to be able to do that on a [perma-

nent] voucher.”

From tents to apartments

Even as the number of people

living in the streets or in shelters

in D.C. has declined, the issue of

homelessness has become more

visible as tents, tarps and en-

campments have multiplied

across the city. Wayne Turnage,

deputy mayor for health and

human services, h as said the

number of encampments in-

creased by more than 40 percent

from 2020 to 2021.

Last year, the Bowser adminis-

tration launched a $3.9 million

pilot program aimed at perma-

nently clearing homeless en-

campments and turning specific

sites into no-camping zones by

offering one-year leases to en-

campment residents through the

rapid rehousing program. As of

this month, the pilot has placed

99 people into apartments, ac-

cording to the District.

Bowser said 88 percent of the

homeless people engaged by the

pilot were ultimately given

vouchers. It’s not clear what help

will be available to them in the

fall when the vouchers expire.

The mayor declined to say wheth-

er the pilot would be expanded or

continue in its current form.

Homeless advocates and elect-

ed officials have criticized the

encampment removal program

over initial missteps, including

an incident in which a homeless

man was scooped up by a front-

loader as District crews worked

to clear his tent under a Metro

overpass in Northeast Washing-

ton last year. They say the city has

also underestimated the amount

of additional services — mental

health care, addiction services

and employment help, among

other things — people experienc-

ing homelessness would need

upon being handed the keys to a

place of their own.

Staci Jameson went from

weathering the pandemic by liv-

ing in a tent with her partner,

Savon Peterson, near the Safeway

on 17th Street NW to securing an

apartment in a building on Mas-

sachusetts Avenue NW last sum-

mer. She did not get her voucher

through the encampment clear-

ing program, but her experience

still reflects some of the chal -

lenges people face when they

move from the streets to housing

without adequate support.

She has struggled to adjust and

has had run-ins with the police.

Several incidents have put build-

ing staff and her neighbors on

edge, and the management com-

pany may revoke her housing.

The program, which was

paused during the cold weather

months, will continue this spring.

The D.C. Council earlier this year

considered but ultimately did not

pass legislation to rein in the

mayor’s ability to permanently

evict people from the city’s side-

walks and parks. And the majori-

ty of people polled by The Wash-

ington Post in February support-

ed the effort.

“I won’t say that there is not

more work to do with the pro-

gram. There always is,” Bowser

said. “But I have heard D.C.

residents loud and clear that

want better for their homeless

neighbors, for their unhoused

neighbors, but they also want to

feel safer in their own communi-

ties. And they don’t if they’re

living close to these encamped

areas.”

Bowser said her administra-

tion remains focused on getting

homeless residents off the street

and into housing, but, she added,

it’s often not enough to stop

there.

“Folks have a lot of hurdles,

some of them mental health,

some of them substance abuse, a

lot, a lot of trauma. And so it

requires a lot of work to try to get

them to trust that they can be

moved into a safer situation,”

Bowser said. “We’re always going

to be working to get people out of

the tent.”

‘Rare, brief and

nonrecurring’

Last year, D.C. transitioned to

what advocates and city officials

say is a “more realistic” plan to

prevent homelessness. “Home-

ward 2.0” aims to eliminate racial

inequities in the homelessness

services system and defines the

“end of homelessness” as making

homelessness “rare, brief and

nonrecurring.”

“While a plan to end homeless-

ness does not guarantee an end to

poverty in our community, hav-

ing a safe, stable place to call

home is an important first step in

any person’s or family’s journey

to increase income, improve

health, and increase overall well-

being,” the plan says.

Zeilinger uses the metric of

rarity and brevity to grade her

own department and the Bowser

administration’s progress on the

issue. She gives the city high

marks for family homelessness.

“We have been really effective

at preventing families, when pre-

vention can happen, from experi-

encing homelessness. That’s evi-

dent in our data,” Zeilinger said.

“Our length of stay in shelter is

under 90 days on average, some-

times shorter. So, that rare and

brief is really exciting. We have

ended chronic homelessness for

families.”

To replicate that success for

individuals and unaccompanied

youths, D.C. is streamlining the

intake program for homeless resi-

dents to access services. Right

now, Zeilinger said, the process is

“fragmented” and “a lot more

complicated” than it should be.

The solution to get the num-

bers down, she said, is both

simple and complex: more af-

fordable housing.

Bowser has proposed funnel-

ing a record $500 million in one

year to the city’s Housing Produc-

tion Trust Fund, though Mendel-

son cut that back by about

$54 million in favor of funding

more long-term vouchers for low-

income families. The trust fund

subsidizes construction of desig-

nated affordable housing for peo-

ple at certain income levels.

“It’s not like we don’t know

how to proceed and we’re stuck,”

Zeilinger said. “We know exactly

what it’s going to take.”

Kyle Swenson and Julie Zauzmer

Weil contributed to this report.

Bowser sees progress on ambitious homelessness goals

JAHI CHIKWENDIU/THE WASHINGTON POST

D.C. General, the troubled family homeless shelter that Mayor Muriel E. Bowser prioritized closing after she took office in 2015, sits

shuttered in October 2018. In its place, she oversaw the rollout of smaller, more family-friendly shelters in each of the city’s eight wards.

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