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Articles
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| Homeless at Reservation 13 |
VOICE writes, "
BY BEN WEINSTEIN
Residents angered by a new homeless shelter in Hill East on Reservation 13 say the city treats Ward 6 like a dumping ground for unwanted social-service facilities.
Critics of the shelter point out that Reservation 13 — the 67-acre property at the eastern terminus of Massachusetts Avenue bounded by 19th Street and the Anacostia River — already hosts two other homeless shelters, the D.C. Jail, methadone and sexually transmitted disease clinics, and the city morgue.
Opposed residents they are sympathetic to the plight of homeless people, but that they think the city should spread the facilities equally throughout the District.
“I think we all agree that it is not homeless shelters we oppose. The homeless are human beings, and we need to help them get through the brutally cold winter months,” a resident wrote on a Hill East listserv. “But putting 400 homeless people in one location is a monumentally bad idea,” the resident said, adding that the government would never consider such a move in Upper Northwest or Georgetown."
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Ward 6 Council member Tommy Wells agreed that the city has overburdened the ward, particularly Hill East, with social service facilities.
“In Ward 6 we often do more than our part,” Wells said, adding that land along the Anacostia River has long been saddled by unsightly industrial and government uses.
But Wells said that pattern is changing. Projects like the Hill East waterfront plan on Reservation 13 demonstrate a new attitude toward the neighborhood, he said.
Clarence Carter, director of the D.C. Department of Human Services, said the shelter, which has 144 beds but is limited to 100 men per night, is part of the city’s plan to prevent hypothermia among the city’s homeless.
Carter explained that D.C. law says anyone has a right for shelter when temperatures drop below freezing. “We have a need for expanded facilities that don’t operate during the course of the year,” he said.
Carter said he understands residents’ discomfort with the shelters and said that at the end of hypothermia season, “We will close this facility, period.” Hypothermia season runs from Nov. 1 to March 31.
With the Harriet Tubman woman’s shelter and a family shelter, there is currently space for 425 beds. Wells said all of the shelters will be phased out in the next few years.
Individuals and families will be housed in smaller facilities rather than “warehoused” in large buildings as part of the city’s new approach to homelessness, Carter said.
“We want to grow people beyond the condition of homelessness, Carter said. “You don’t warehouse it, you remediate,” Carter said, adding that the city will focus more on substance-abuse treatment, mental-health care and employment services for the homeless.
For example, he said the new shelter at Reservation 13 is also open during the day — rather than the typical 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. hours at most shelters — and offers activities and programs designed to keep homeless men off the streets.
Southeast Capitol Hill advisory neighborhood commissioner Neil Glick said since Hill East hosts hundreds of homeless individuals every day, he wants increased police presence in neighborhoods, police presence in shelters and a single-sales ban for area liquor stores, adding that during the winter, Hill East gets a surge of car break-ins, presumably from people looking for money for alcohol.
At a Dec. 4 meeting on the new shelter, a resident said the city has not sufficiently supported its homeless programs.
“I don’t think you or Mr. Wells should apologize for using city resources to address a problem that otherwise we would be sued for,” the resident told Carter.
Hill East residents also asked about homeless-shelter trailers parked at Reservation 13. Carter said they are being removed now. Last year, the trailers caused minor protests from Near Northeast residents who wanted them removed from 4th and L streets.
The city and The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, a nonprofit group that manages the District’s homeless care, budgeted $1.3 million for 2007-2008 hypothermia-season shelters.
This season, the city has 17 hypothermia shelters -- five women’s facilities, 11 men’s shelters and one family shelter, which is in the D.C. General Hospital building on Reservation 13.
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Posted on Dec 13, 2007 04:38am.
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