6/7/2022
Dan’s note: I have expanded my news sources with a subscription to Apple News+. The only problem is that I can’t provide links to those sources, as Apple News+ does not provide a method. So you won’t find clickable links to take you to the original article for those. But take a look at some of these - the Mayor of San Diego is instituting sweeps claiming there are enough shelter beds available, a survey in the UK shows that 1/3 of the population is worried about becoming homeless, and a Newsweek opinion piece castigates the DC Mayor for using the homeless issue in a political manner.
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The Spokesman-Review
Proposed East Side shelter faces questions on providers, funding
KREM
KXLY
The Independent (United Kingdom)
Nearly one in three adults (in UK survey) concerned about ending up homeless in next five years, says Amnesty International
The San Diego Union-Tribune
San Diego mayor to homeless people: leave encampments or face consequences
The Sacramento Bee
Sacramento spent $617K preparing to open a homeless shelter. Here’s why the plan fell apart
Newsweek
D.C. mayor's new homelessness policy is both inhumane and political | Opinion
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The Spokesman-Review
Proposed East Side shelter faces questions on providers, funding
By Greg Mason
THE SPOKESMAN-REVIEW
While the city administration has a recommendation for who should operate a proposed homeless shelter on East Trent Avenue, exactly how the facility’s residents would receive key services – like mental health and drug abuse resources – is less clear.
City Administrator Johnnie Perkins and Eric Finch, interim director of Neighborhood, Housing and Human Services, walked members of the Spokane City Council through a presentation Monday detailing what might be the next steps to make the homeless shelter at the 4320 E. Trent Ave. warehouse a reality.
The 24/7 facility proposed by Mayor Nadine Woodward’s administration would have an estimated daily use of 150 to 250 beds with surge capacity and the ability to serve for emergency uses, such as a heating/cooling shelter or a clean air center.
City council members looked over the potential costs involved with running the facility and leasing the East Trent Avenue property during Monday’s Public Safety and Community Health Committee meeting. The approximately 33,000-squarefoot building is owned by developer Larry Stone through an LLC, Lawrence B. Stone Properties No. 4320.
The council is expected to consider legislation to move the process forward later this month.
Perkins said a review committee that vetted proposals from potential facility operators recommended the Guardians Foundation, which operates the city’s Cannon Street Shelter at 527 S. Cannon St., as the operator of the East Trent Avenue facility.
The Guardians Foundation and the Salvation Army were the only two agencies to submit proposals to operate the facility. Both made it through a pass/fail evaluation by the city’s procurement department before being vetted by a review committee, Finch said. The city also sought proposals from agencies to provide a suite of wraparound services, such as case management and access to resources like mental health, substance abuse treatment, job training, housing assistance and family reunification.
Two out of three other proposals from potential service providers were rejected during the pass/fail evaluation. According to Monday’s presentation, the application from homeless service provider Jewels Helping Hands was to provide services at a different location, while an application from InMotion Imaging only offered medical care, not the full suite of desired services.
That left one proposal from the Salvation Army.
“On the services side, it was a little bit more of a challenge because we only had one that kind of went met the pass/fail criteria and was not covering the entire scope of the services that were offered,” Finch said. “They could not come to make a recommendation for the wraparound, full services provider.”
Finch proposed a mix of options that could possibly address the services shortfall, such as working with existing services providers to provide certain services on-site, whether it’s through contract extensions or a pay-per-service model. At the moment, the city doesn’t have existing contracts with providers for most of the services sought with the proposal.
Finch said the city also plans to release another request for proposals to contract multiple different service providers to each provide a specialty service rather than one agency trying to accommodate the complete suite.
“They can provide for one and do it well, so I think that’s the direction we’re going in,” Finch said.
Site and operations plans were not included as part of Monday’s presentation, as council documents those would be forthcoming.
Financially, the city estimated the facility’s operation would cost around $3.7 million per year, which officials have proposed to cover using a mix of city funds, including those through the criminal justice fund, and federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding.
Finch said the city has the budget capability to cover the facility’s cost for the rest of the current fiscal year as well as next year. The following years, however, are a bit more of a question mark Finch proposed talking through at a later council meeting.
“We see getting through 2023 with the expanded level of services – not just this shelter ... without cutting in other areas or other beds or shelters that we have,” he said, “but then it becomes more of a challenge after ARPA and after the criminal justice fund is exhausted.”
The city would also be responsible for leasing the building at $26,100 per month, or $313,000 per year. The rental cost of the five-year lease, including cost adjustments based on the Consumer Price Index, is proposed at around $1.6 million with an option for another five years, Perkins said.
With everything including the $1.6 million rental cost, taxes, a lease management fee and estimated utilities expenses, city officials estimated the five-year cost of the deal at around $2.56 million.
The lease also includes an early termination clause requiring a year’s payment in rent if the contract is ended prior to the five-year mark.
Part of the deal includes several improvements to the warehouse to make it amenable to serving as a shelter, such as the addition of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, the construction of temporary walls to separate residents and exterior lighting upgrades. Approximately $550,000 in tenant improvements, as Perkins and the city have described them, would be covered by the landlord and, as identified in the lease agreement, the nonprofit Innovia Foundation.
Perkins said changes to the property will include the construction of a cement wall, with no barbed wire, on the south and east sides of the property to “allow for more safety” for the residents as well as the surrounding businesses.
With this proposal on the table, Stone has another offer that has pitched to lease the warehouse as-is for the same monthly rent rate negotiated with the city, Perkins said.
“Commercial property is hot right now,” Perkins said, “and people want that building.” Greg Mason can be reached at (509) 459-5047 or gregm@spokesman. com.
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KREM
For filling service needs at the new proposed shelter, the committee decided not to recommend a provider and three next-step options are being evaluated.
Washington lawmakers respond to high gas prices
SPOKANE, Wash. — The proposed lease and recommended operator of a pending regional flex capacity homeless shelter with wrap around services in east Spokane was briefed to Spokane City Council Monday afternoon.
For the operation of the shelter, a broad-based independent committee recommended The Guardians Foundation to be the day-to-day operator of the proposed new shelter. For filling service needs at the new proposed shelter, the committee decided not to recommend a provider as the lone proposal that met the minimum criteria was based on a more limited scope of services proposed.
Mayor Nadine Woodward approved moving forward with the recommendation of The Guardians Foundation to operate the new shelter. For the services, the committee is currently evaluating three next-step options for services at the facility including working with existing service provider contracts to co-locate onsite, a pay-for-service model where organizations can bill for hours spent with shelter guests, and issuing a new request for proposals to allow multiple service providers with specialty services.
According to a statement by the City of Spokane, submitted applications were reviewed by Spokane County and other representatives from different local organizations including the Continuum of Care Board, two shelters that didn’t submit a proposal, the Community Housing and Human Services Board, the Spokane Regional Health District and a neighborhood council member.
Since the summer of 2021, the City evaluated about 100 locations as potential spots for temporary shelter space. A public hearing on the ordinance will be held during Council’s regular Legislative Session at 6 p.m. on Saturday, July 11.
The shelter operator recommendation proposed lease will be presented during the Council’s Public Safety and Community Health Committee meeting agenda today. Council is expected to vote on both proposals later this month.
According to a written statement by the City, the proposed lease between the City and Lawrence B. Stone properties is for a five-year term with a monthly rent cost of $26,100. The lease includes provisions for utilities and services, maintenance and repair; insurance; alterations; signs; quiet enjoyment; destruction of premises; and more. The shelter would provide different amenities including a bathroom and shower access, access to electricity for charging and meals.
“We all agree that sidewalks, alleyways, and fields are not safe or humane places for people struggling with behavioral health, addiction, and other challenges to sleep,” Woodward said. “The goal of the City and its regional partners is to make homeless rare, brief and non-recurring and adding this safe place to sleep out of the elements is about building trust so people feel comfortable with taking that next step in their journey toward permanent housing.”
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KXLY
June 6, 2022 6:45 PM
SPOKANE, Wash. — Spokane businesses are calling on city leaders to take immediate action on the homeless crisis. They say too many families feel unsafe shopping downtown and the homeless population has put their businesses at risk.
A group of businesses and developers took out an ad in Sunday’s Spokesman Review, calling on city officials to “get off the sidelines and take action immediately.”
While businesses say they know there are no easy solutions to the solving the homeless problem, they still want to see city leaders step up.
Businesses say they want to see solutions that include new shelters and a camping ordinance that will clean up Spokane.
“It’s getting worse we’re at a precipice right now you know what do we want to be? What kind of town do we want to be? How do we want to deal with this?,” Spokane Boxing owner Rick Welliver said.
Welliver opened his downtown location six years ago.
“This building is 80 percent vacant but they’re still out there, and they shower here, and they come in here for water, and occasionally if they need some extra money for work–I let them work, but it’s more prevalent. I have customers that have to walk out underneath those railroad tracks, and they’re scared because people are living there,” Welliver said.
Businesses say there should be a collaborative approach that focuses on the root cause and addresses gaps in the system.
Welliver says he wants to see there be a Spokane-specific model created that will give results.
“We need to recreate the will our city politicians and need to quit looking at Seattle and Portland and saying this is the model. It’s not the model. We need to create a model and say this works,” Welliver said.
Camp Hope near I-90 is growing by the day. The Spokane Homeless Coalition says it’s currently the largest encampment in the state.
Advocates say they look forward to the potential business involvement.
“We’re not going to meaningfully address homelessness we’re not going to move the needle until we get our larger community involved,” The Spokane Homeless Coalition leader Maurice Smith said.
For Smith, solutions could be looking at alternatives from other cities such as those who have implemented homeless villages. pallet homes, and more.
“We need to look at some of those ideas that could be implemented here in Spokane. Something better than a homeless encampment on Department of Transportation property, a homeless village as one alternative to a homeless shelter,” Smith said.
Smith says a recent survey showed 823 people are unsheltered in Spokane. Smith says while the potential of the new shelter is part of the solution, it won’t be the entire solution.
He says it’s going to take the community’s involvement to help solve homelessness.
“I’m seeing more community discussion about homelessness and homeless solutions than I’ve ever heard or seen before and that’s encouraging. But at some point we need to stop talking and move into action,” Smith said.
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The Independent
Nearly one in three adults concerned about ending up homeless in next five years, says Amnesty International
The lack of affordable housing is driving people into homelessness, Amnesty report argues
Nearly one in three adults are worried about becoming homeless in the next five years as a result of rising housing costs, a survey for Amnesty International has found.
Thirty one per cent of people are concerned that they could end up sofa-surfing or in temporary accommodation in the near future, researchers said.
The survey, of 2,264 adults, was reported alongside a new study into homelessness by the rights charity.
It is calling on the government to make access to temporary accommodation easier and to get rid of immigration restrictions.
“Housing is a human right, not a luxury and it needs to be protected in law. The current housing system in England is simply not fit for purpose. It needs wholesale reform to restore fairness and compassion,” chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said.
The charity found that a further two in five adults said they were concerned that someone they know will end up without a home.
The report argued that thousands of people are being excluded from accessing their rights to shelter in the UK.
It also found that one of the main causes of widespread and prolonged homelessness was the lack of affordable housing.
It said 283,440 households applied for homelessness assistance in England between October 2020 and September 2021. However the actual figure for the number of homeless households is likely to be much larger.
Local authorities have no duty to provide homeless shelter to many people who are subject to immigration control, the report said. People who have “no recourse to public funds” and undocumented migrants are two of these groups.
“Many people subject to immigrations restrictions are excluded both from public funds and permission to work,” Ms Deshmukh said. “Made unable to support themselves and denied housing help, they inevitably end up sleeping rough. The system is rigged against them.”
Councils also don’t have a duty to provide for people who are not recognised as being in “priority need” for housing, or for those who are deemed “intentionally homeless”.
The charity raised concerns that people were falling through the cracks. Because councils support homeless people who are deemed to have “priority need”, such as pregnant women or those with dependent children, many of those classified as “single homeless” can be left without support.
Amnesty International said that it had interviewed at least six women who had their children taken into care by social services and so were deemed “single homeless” and not a priority.
Eugene, not her real name, said that she was made homeless after no arrangements were made for her and her children after they were evicted from temporary accommodation in mid 2021. She had applied for homelessness support from her council but heard nothing.
“I was standing on the street with my little boy who was six years old and all my belongings,” she said.
After receiving help from a charity, she managed to get support from the local authority who put her up in a hotel and then into temporary accommodation.
Researchers spoke to 82 people with experiences of homelessness for the report.
Edward, a 55-year-old army veteran, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, was sleeping rough in the doorways of a high street when he was interviewed. He told Amnesty that he had been diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and fibromyalgia.
“I don’t want to sleep in a tent, my sleeping bag and blanket are enough,” he said. He added that he avoided the homeless hostel “like the plague” because he had heard that it was “run down and with a lot of drug users”.
Philip, whose name was also changed, said that drug and alcohol use in hostels was common. “That is setting up someone to fail,” he told Amnesty. “It’s feeling trapped, that’s the worst thing. It’s feeling like you don’t have a reason not to go back to drugs.”
In 2021, the average age of death for people sleeping rough or in homelessness accommodation was 45.9 years for men and 41.6 years for women.
More than half of the adults surveyed, 54 per cent, said that they had assumed a person was homeless due to individual circumstances. Only 36 per cent said they considered the government responsible for failing to provide sufficient housing.
A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, responded to the report, saying: “Over the next three years, we are giving councils £2billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping which can be used to help anyone, included those with restricted eligibility, as long as the council is acting within the law in doing so.
“There are safeguards in place to ensure vulnerable migrants who are destitute and have other needs, such as supporting children, can receive help and can also apply to have their no recourse to public funds conditions lifted.”
Savanta ComRes interviewed 2,264 UK adults aged 18+ online between 27 and 29 May 2022 for the survey that featured alongside Amnesty’s homelessness report.
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The San Diego Union-Tribune
San Diego mayor to homeless people: leave encampments or face consequences
Police arrested three people last week for encroaching on sidewalks
SAN DIEGO — San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria on Monday pleaded with homeless people living in downtown roadside encampments to take offers for shelter, warning that there would be consequences for those who refuse help.
As the city steps up enforcement of laws against encroaching on sidewalks, Gloria said those consequences could include arrests for people who continue to camp in downtown's East Village. Three people have been arrested in the neighborhood since the city began escalating enforcement of the law last week.
"We don't like to do this," he said at a Monday press briefing with law enforcement and city officials.
"Please accept the help that you’re offered," he said in a message directed to people living without shelter. "I can’t imagine what caused you to end up on the streets. Bad luck. Divorce. Job loss. Generational trauma. The list goes on. What I know for sure is there’s a better life for you, and we’ll do everything we can to get you in that position."
Gloria said the city received about 1,200 complaints about encampments through San Diego's Get It Done app just last week, and enforcement of encroachment laws on city sidewalks has increased because of growing concerns about the issue.
San Diego Police Lt. Shawn Takeuchi, who heads the department's neighborhood policing division that includes the homeless outreach team, said three people in East Village were arrested and three others accepted shelter since last week.
Takeuchi said officers last week contacted more than 200 homeless people in East Village, where tents and makeshift shelters line sidewalks along Commercial Street, National Avenue and other roadways in the area. Besides the three who accepted shelter, one person accepted a referral to a free storage area, he said.
Appearing at the press briefing with Gloria, Takeuchi said he did not know how many citations were given out, but noted that the tickets and arrests were part of the department's policy of progressive enforcement that includes a warning, an infraction citation and a misdemeanor citation before an arrest.
Gloria said the increased enforcement was a necessary step because the encampments are unsafe, unhealthy and prohibit pedestrian use.
"I ask you, please, connect with the housing and services that are out there," he said. "We have shelter beds available right now with low-barrier access. You can bring your belongings, pets, your significant other. You don’t have to be sober. We will take you just as you are."
Sidewalk clean-up days in the East Village are scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursday, but many homeless people in the area said they were taken by surprise last Wednesday when city crews came through and cleared items from sidewalks, sometimes throwing unattended property into a truck where it was crushed.
Takeuchi said during the press briefing that tents are not thrown away unless the owner does not want them, which led to an exchange with a reporter who said he saw a woman pleading with an officer to not take away her tent.
"What you more than likely saw was an individual telling us that they did not want their property," Takeuchi said. After the reporter again said he saw a woman pulling things out of her tent to save them from being thrown into the trash truck, Takeuchi said he would look into the incident.
Homeless advocate Michael McConnell did not attend the press briefing and said he had heard of the incident but did not see it himself, but did see tents thrown away.
"Many times they’ve thrown tents away when their owners aren’t even there," he said. "It’s just a bold-faced lie, and they’re trying to tell people not to believe their eyes and ears. I've seen people who have come up after their tent's been thrown away and they try to pull it out of the trash and they won't let them."
Gloria said the number of shelter beds have increased 25 percent during his time as mayor and accommodate about 1,200 people each night. Shelters are at about 90 percent capacity, and Gloria said 450 more beds are planned by the end of the year.
With many people on the street saying they do not want to go into a shelter, Gloria said the city is looking to provide more diverse alternatives, such as safe camping sites.
City Councilmember Stephen Whitburn, also at the press briefing, said he supports safe camping sites and recently toured one in Denver that appeared to be working well.
"But if they still refuse it, we need to enforce the rules against sidewalk camping," he said, agreeing with the mayor. Whitburn's district includes Balboa Park and East Village.
Reporters noted that there are more people on the street than available shelter beds, and people who cannot pay tickets are being cited. Gloria responded that people on sidewalks are breaking a law, and the city must take action to address an unsafe situation.
“Ignoring this issue is a path to death for these folks," he said. "That will not happen on my watch."
McConnell said the increased enforcement may not drive people into shelters, but rather just push them from East Village into other areas, such as state property near freeways or in canyons.
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The Sacramento Bee
Sacramento spent $617K preparing to open a homeless shelter. Here’s why the plan fell apart
June 07, 2022 07:56 AM
The city of Sacramento has again cleared a homeless encampment and fenced a property. This time it was one that was one of the city’s most promising sites for a homeless shelter.
The vacant lot, near the corner of Colfax Street and Arden Way, was at the top of the list in the city’s $100 million homeless siting plan last August. At the time, city officials ranked it among Sacramento’s top three most feasible sites for homeless shelters and spaces.
Acting on that direction, the city spent $617,000 preparing the property for a homeless safe parking site, paying for paving, fencing and designs.
But confusion between officials from the city and the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board over how many vehicles would be allowed at the site caused the plan to fall apart.
City officials came to believe it would become too costly and offer too few safe parking spaces to be worth the money. Mayor Darrell Steinberg and a City Council member in April called for the city to abandon the project, but work continued for several more weeks.
The Colfax site now sits vacant and paved with a black iron fence around it, similar to the one the city installed around a former homeless encampment along Fair Oaks Boulevard.
Some of the unhoused individuals the city cleared from the Colfax lot had been camping there because they heard a safe parking site was opening and they wanted to be first in line.
Debbie Casillas and her daughter, who is a quadriplegic, were among them.
“We were at Colfax to get help,” Casillas, 58, said. “They decided not to do it and fenced it all up.”
The mother and daughter now camp in a tent near Railroad Drive where a property owner is blocking the road with a security car. They have little access to food, water, and other services.
The city is under increasing pressure to open significantly more shelter beds and spaces to bring homeless people off the street. A November ballot measure backed by business groups would require Sacramento to create shelter beds for at least 60% of its homeless individuals, a number believed to be at least double the roughly 1,100 it currently provides.
Sacramento’s plan for the Colfax site initially called for 25 tiny homes. Officials adjusted the plan to make it a safe parking area where homeless people could live in their vehicles with bathrooms, showers, security and services to help them find housing.
The city in late November and early December paved the lot, said Gregg Fishman, a city spokesman.
The water board, which is involved in the site due to its soil contamination, on Jan. 13 signed a variance for the city to open 50 safe parking spaces.
In February, the water board sent a letter giving the city deadlines to complete design work and some other preparation. That letter included a description of a site visit by water board employees.
“As of 8 February 2022, the City has not implemented the terms and conditions for land use specified in the variance,” the letter read. “The property has not been fully fenced, there are campers and vehicles parked on the unpaved portion of the property, and there are tents.”
The city interpreted the letter as instructing it to clear the encampment. A spokesman for the board said the agency did not intend for that outcome.
‘$68,000 per car, per year’
During an April 12 City Council meeting, city officials told the council that opening the site would cost the city about $2.7 million and only fit 30 vehicles, but that work was underway to open it.
The number dropped from 50 vehicles to 30 because officials anticipated most people would bring RVs or trailers to the 1-acre site, Fishman said. They take up more space than cars, meaning fewer vehicles could fit there.
During the April meeting, Steinberg and Councilman Jeff Harris both directed staff not to open the site, due to the cost.
“The amount of money invested in 30 parking spaces is extraordinary,” Harris said. “About $68,000 per car per year to stand up and service. If that’s the case, this is not a good bang for the buck.”
Steinberg agreed.
“I’m sorry that’s not a wise use of our money,” said Steinberg, noting the city would have to move about 100 people in order to allow 30.
Roughly two weeks after the meeting, city staff cleared people from the site, and installed additional fencing, bringing the cost to $617,000.
Sacramento business owners on homeless camp
Councilman Sean Loloee, who represents the area, said he believes the city could have actually fit up to 45 RVs on the property, but it’s too late now, he said. The city shifted funding instead to a plan for the Roseville Road RT light rail station, where it can fit roughly 70 vehicles.
Under the siting plan, the city was supposed to open both locations.
“I think we rushed into it,” Loloee said. “You can’t really blame anybody. This is all new. We don’t have a playbook for this. With the unhoused, no one has a solution.”
Business owners in the area said they were glad the city cleared the encampment.
Tom Hipp, owner of Standard Auto Care, which is across the street from the lot, said the camp negatively impacted the business for over a year, especially from trash blowing over, needles, and the smell of human feces.
“I had plenty of (customers) that did come and said, ‘I’m really nervous about leaving my car here,’” Hipp said. “It’s been a disaster. It’s been scary. We didn’t think we were gonna survive it.”
Hipp said he was pleased to learn that the city will not likely open a safe parking lot there. He supports the model, but said homeless services should only be in lots far from businesses and homes.
Tamitha Myler was among the homeless individuals the city cleared from the lot in April.
“They said they’re gonna open it and took all our names a long time ago,” Myler, 53, said. “We were like a family. We were all together. We had each others’ back. We barbecued together. We did birthdays together. They (the police) told us to go separate. They didn’t want us to go in groups.”
Not giving up parking site
Neither Myler nor Casillas were offered shelter beds or safe parking spaces when they were cleared from Colfax, they said.
The Colfax site still has council approval on the books, but it’s unlikely it will open without state or county funding.
“We can not do this all alone,” Steinberg said.
A recent estimate from Sacramento Steps Forward found 16,500 to 20,000 people likely experience homelessness throughout the course of the year in the county. The official number from the federally-mandated Point in Time count is due out in the coming weeks.
“The Colfax site is indicative of the complexity involved in siting any type of services for people experiencing homelessness,” Fishman said in an email. “The work we’ve done at Colfax will still provide value in the future when that site is put to use.”
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Newsweek
D.C. mayor's new homelessness policy is both inhumane and political | Opinion
June 06, 2022
The rancid smell of cheap weed in the air. Empty beer and liquor bottles and rotting food on the ground. A rainbow of tents. The bump bump bump pounding of music from several directions. Many groups of people, unwashed, chatting and laughing. You'd be forgiven for thinking this is describing a weekend music festival, when in reality it was the scene at Columbus Circle in front of Washington, D.C.'s iconic Union Station.
For the past two years, visitors who arrived in our nation's capital via rail were greeted not by a breathtaking view of the U.S. Capitol or the National Mall, but rather by a different breathtaking one––of people shooting up, urinating, defecating and engaging in a range of other unsavory and, often, unspeakable acts. This vulgar reality was, and remains, far from isolated. It is replicated in many public parks and grassy spaces across the city––from Columbia Heights to Logan Circle to Navy Yard to Union Market. Even tony Georgetown, long thought to be impenetrable, has also found itself a victim of homelessness and all the licentiousness that comes with it.
Then suddenly, last Wednesday, the National Parks Service sprung into action. It removed the homeless encampment in Columbus Circle. One previous "resident" told Axios that she had been living at the location since September 2021. On record, D.C. has over 6,380 individuals experiencing homelessness on any given day, which is roughly a quarter of the estimate for the entire state of Texas. In 2010, D.C. had an estimated 6,539 individuals experiencing homelessness on any given day. So a bit over a decade later, we're at least marginally better off, right?
Wrong.
After the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act was enacted in 2009, D.C. changed the way it counts the homeless. In a nutshell, it stopped counting them. People pulled from the street and pushed into "permanent supportive housing" no longer factored into the homelessness tally.
Absent the fuzzy math of government agencies, one can easily deduce that the number of homeless persons in D.C. has exploded over the past decade. All you have had to do is look around the nation's capital yourself. Even the rabidly progressive denizens of the District––who voted 92.15% for Joe Biden in 2020 and have supported radical measures for people on the streets, like a "Homeless Bill of Rights"––are fed up. Just several months ago, 75% of Washingtonians said they supported clearing the homeless camps strewn about their city.
The residents of D.C. have been frustrated with the epidemic of homelessness for a while now. Tellingly, last year alone, more than 23,000 people left D.C., notching a record high for the last two decades. The city had the lowest marks for both domestic and net migration among all states. Most normal people, no matter how "progressive" they claim to be, don't want to live, work, spend time with friends and raise families in a city plagued with homelessness—not to mention rampant, violent crime.
But why is D.C.'s mayor, Muriel Bowser, finally doing something about it now? It's nothing more than a political stunt––an attempt several months before an election to fend off Democratic challengers by covering for her total failure to end, or even to curb, homelessness in the city. (She started doing biweekly homeless encampment cleanups before the 2020 election, as well.)
In 2015, Bowser declared in her inaugural State of the District address, "We will deliver on another promise: ending family homelessness by 2018 and chronic homelessness by 2025 in the District of Columbia." In 2018, the year she promised that family homelessness would be gone, she shuttered the doors of D.C. General, the largest family shelter in the city, which housed up to 260 families during peak periods. Today, the total number of families in D.C. experiencing homelessness is 767, and thousands more indigent remain without permanent housing. Promises made, promises broken.
Since then, Bowser's policy has been to allow those who need the most assistance to camp wherever they please, cruelly leaving them to weather the elements, deal with crime, use public spaces as restrooms and suffer from addiction and untreated mental health problems. She has provided porta-potties and offered crack pipes to those afflicted by drug addiction. But those actions aren't compassionate, either. They will only perpetuate homelessness and addiction––and thus make the city even more unlivable for those oh-so-judgmental types who still care about "law and order."
Bowser is currently trying to acquire $31 million to "end chronic homelessness"––her new promise—as well as $114 million to improve local shelters. Her budget proposal has yet to be approved by the D.C. Council. But know that $25 million went to D.C. alone in 2021 through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Continuum of Care competition for permanent housing with access to supportive services for the homeless. That money appears to have been flushed down the drain. Given city leadership's pitiful track record, one can't expect that throwing even $150 million at the problem will make a dent.
Another dose of absurdity: The formulas HUD uses to decide how much money cities will receive for homelessness assistance grants are written in a way that allocates more money––you guessed it––the greater the extent of the homelessness. So you can surmise how that's turned out in nearly every city virtually every time.
The measures for combating homelessness that radical left-wingers like Bowser would like to claim are "humane" are, in fact, terribly inhumane—both for people on the streets and the residents who have to deal with the noxious spillover effects. Those on the streets need transitional housing with wraparound services for treating addiction and mental health problems. And contra progressive dogma, the cause of homelessness in America isn't "the unaffordable cost of housing"—it's addiction and the permissive policies paired with millions of dollars from government and nonprofits that go toward smartphones, food and clothing. These misguided policies strongly disincentivize people from lifting themselves up off the streets.
And so the game goes on. The number of homeless persons is fudged by corrupt officials and unelected bureaucrats to be lower when an election rolls around, and then afterward is fudged to be higher once the government's coffers are open again.
Left-wing groups that advocate for the homeless somehow believe that allowing human beings to dwell in their own feces and sleep among broken glass and needles is more compassionate than arresting those who have committed crimes. There is no doubt that D.C.'s problem lies with those who use the homeless as political pawns as they sit in marbled cathedrals pumping out white papers and steering hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money and activist cash.
Jonathan Bronitsky and Robert Donachie are colleagues at ATHOS, a Washington, D.C.-based publicity firm and literary agency. You can follow them, respectively, @jbronitsky and @rjdonachie3.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.