City’s Kicking Out Homeless to Make Way for Buses
Mad props to StreetSense for breaking a story no one else has: D.C.’s largest shelter will likely close in the fall and become the new bus hub for WMATA, which wants out of its current locale on M Street SE before the Nats and new traffic move in.
The D.C. Village Family Emergency Shelter sits on 16 acres in Southeast and holds half of the city’s shelter beds: 358 of 716. According to the story by Charles Jackson—who confirmed this morning he wrote the story on a tip, got everyone to confirm it, and is still waiting for someone else to give a shit—there’s a typical waiting list of 200 more who need beds. But D.C.’s not planning to replace the space. Instead, Mayor Adrian Fenty gave Jackson a bunch of vague talk about finding homeless people apartments closer to city services. A smart move, since that’s worked so well in the past.
WMATA spokeswoman Joanne Ferreira says Metro’s pushing to get it done “as soon as possible. The Nationals will be going into the Navy Yard a year from now.”
Yeah, we’d hate for those buses to be inconvenienced. But don’t worry. Tommy Wells in Ward 6 is on it—at least he is since Jackson called him up and Wells got his press person to send a statement: “I’m going to continue to ask for a timeline and regular updates on the progress of the city’s efforts.”
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Linked From: May 10th, 2007Thursday, May 10 - In the News « Washington Grantmakers Daily
9:20 am[...] Thursday, May 10 – In the News D.C. Village Family Emergency Shelter may close to make way for new WMATA hub – Mayor Fenty: “We’ll move all the clients into affordable housing units. That will be determined before D.C. Village closes.” (Street Sense, 5/9) (Hat Tip – City Paper blog) [...]
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Linked From: May 11th, 2007Church of the Homeless » Blog Archive » D.C.’s largest shelter will likely close
3:03 pm[...] of its current locale on M Street SE before the Nats and new traffic move in,” according to a Washington City Paper report on a Street Sense. “The D.C. Village Family Emergency Shelter sits on 16 acres in [...]
3:02 pm
Didn’t Loose Lips use to live at DC Village?
7:49 pm
Hate to tell you, but I had the news of the garage move to DC Village before Jackson did:
http://www.jdland.com/dc/index.cfm?id=1609
8:33 pm
By two hours and thirteen minutes!
8:41 pm
Actually, my first mention of the possibility of the move to the DC Village site was in late January:
http://www.jdland.com/dc/index.cfm?id=1447
(but not taking anything away from Jackson, I was focused on the move of the buses, not looking at the shelter side of it)
12:41 pm
No problem. If the city can’t find enough affordable housing, the D.C. Village folks can crash in all those empty buses.