More than 670 people live at the family shelter on the grounds of former D.C. General Hospital, and on Thursday the 13 members of the D.C. Council begin hearing from 90-plus people slated to testify on the pros and cons to close that derelict shelter and move those families into smaller, new facilities.
The hearings are being held because city leaders want to close the shelter located on the edge of Capitol Hill, because the land that the shelter sits on is a huge moneymaker, and because, in a couple of years, council members will be in a position to redistrict those potential voters.
D.C. racial and class politics will likely be pushed aside at the hearing because residents and homeowners are concerned about another issue regarding the homeless plan: transparency.
Or, more accurately, the government’s lack of transparency and tin ear.
Residents throughout the District have told Mayor Muriel Bowser that they want to welcome the families but do not like her choice of sites for new shelters. Ward 3 and Ward 5 residents have expressed their site-opposition concerns directly to the mayor and the mayor’s representatives at various meetings. They also have proposed alternate sites — a move egged on by Madame Mayor.
The council allowed the troubled family shelter to become a public housing project, an unfortunate and expensive policy that they now are trying to rectify.
Voters, homeowners, taxpayers and other stakeholders stand united with lawmakers and Ms. Bowser to close the family shelter. The next step is not to give Ms. Bowser a rubber stamp on her plans for smaller sites, but to push their alternate-site proposals in the mayor’s face.
After all, the administration’s plan will not end the city’s homeless problem. The administration’s plan will merely solve the homeless problem for those 670 people living in the family shelter.
In other words, the hundreds and hundreds of homeless individuals and families being sheltered in hotels and motels — and other long-established D.C. facilities — must still be tended to.
What’s more is that the Bowser plan aims to spend an estimated $3,500 per unit, per month, for a proposed shelter on Wisconsin Avenue. By comparison, rent for apartments and condos in that area are as low as $1,295 a month.
Not only is something wrong with Ms. Bowser’s math, but her administration is shielding the sunshine from the council and the public too.
My colleague Ryan McDermott revealed the following in his story on Thursday: “The overall program and this project in particular were designed out of public view,” said Massachusetts Heights Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Catherine May, who represents the area. “Yet despite its cost and the apparent complexity, it is on track to be approved by our elected representative on the Council without any significant examination.”
Of course, Ryan had a rebuttal from the administration’s No. 1 mouthpiece, Michael Czin, former press chief for the Democratic National Committee, who said there was plenty of time for residents to speak up.
“Community engagement is a bedrock of this administration, and the mayor has been vocal about her plan to close D.C. General and replace it with smaller, dignified, community-based temporary housing,” Mr. Czin said.
Now if only Mr. Czin would point out which rock the administration hides transparency under — that way opponents of the Bowser plan can speak directly to the rock.
The Bowser administration is not only hiding from any prophylactic, but it’s also being close-minded and presumptuous. The thinking, the mayor told me, is that she doesn’t have to even engage with the public on the homeless site issue now that she’s made up her mind.
Either the mayor set up 13 lawmakers, or 13 lawmakers and the mayor are trying to hoodwink the public.
It will be interesting watching to see whether lawmakers side with the mayor or the people who donate to their campaigns and put them in office.
I’ve already placed my bets.
• Deborah Simmons can be reached at dsimmons@washingtontimes.com.
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