The longtime white population, the people who got involved in statehood, civil rights and environmental causes, thought of this as a black city. But the new white voters aren’t involved like that. They want doggie parks and bike lanes. The result is a lot of tension.

The new people believe more in their dogs than they do in people. They go into their little cafes, go out and throw their snowballs. This is not the District I knew. There’s no relationship with the black community; they don’t connect at church, they don’t go to the same cafes, they don’t volunteer in the neighborhood school, and a lot of longtime black residents feel threatened.

We have wondered if snowball fights are the new kickball. Still, Brown's channeling of Courtland Milloy feels about as fresh as well, organized kickball.

Why single out lazy white folks who couldn't name their councilmember, let alone locate the nearest soup kitchen? I can think of a lot of white people—and well, people—who tried to connect with Shiloh Baptist Church about its derelict properties. Does that count? I can think of at least two very engaged white people running in the at-large race that deserve way more attention than Brown's candidate and now former employer.

I'd argue that the majority of D.C. residents don't give a shit about civic activities. How many ANC races go uncontested every year? How many people actually watched the last CFSA hearing? How many black, white, whatever residents are actually going to vote in this special election?

And what has Brown done but enrich himself and his offspring by taking advantage of  a cynical and ambivalent citizenry?

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Councilmember Jack Evans announced today that he would be taking on a cause dear to, apparently, every D.C. fire fighter. No, this doesn't have anything to do with the hydrant issues or suspect arson investigations. This has to do with the new fire chief changing the department's logo. The chief wants to call his department "FEMS."

From a press release from Evans' office:

"The 'Fire and Emergency Services Logo Clarification Act of 2011' was co-sponsored by Councilmember [Marion] Barry and would provide that District firefighters may continue to wear the DCFD logo on their uniforms despite a controversial order from Chief Kenneth Ellerbe requiring all personnel to wear 'FEMS,' as well as to pay for certain changes to their uniforms."

Maybe one day we will come to view the Fire and Emergency Services Logo Clarification Act of 2011 as hallmark legislation. Probably not.

The new fire chief has wasted a lot of time and money with his logo change—not to mention he's given another opportunity to Examiner columnist Harry Jaffe to come off as vaguely sexist. Some fire fighters are pissed about the change.

But is this the kind of fight we want to the council to be taking up? Evans is the council's supposed budget guru. Not sure he needs to take on the role of branding expert.

Besides, one politician has endorsed the new FEMS branding: Mayor Vincent Gray. This afternoon, the mayor tweeted:

"Just had great tour at @DCFIREEMS training facility and proud that FEMS has earned high marks in fire-protection ratings"

File photo by Darrow Montgomery

In its preliminary review of the Gray's budget, the D.C. Behavioral Health Association found reductions in vital services for children:

"$900,000 reduction from DMH’s contracts for non-Medicaid reimbursed services for children.  These services may include mobile crisis response – which prevents children from being hospitalized for psychiatric emergency – and D.C. Choices, which works to prevent youth in schools and the juvenile justice system from being sent to psychiatric residential treatment centers.

$2,500,000 reduction from DMH’s funds that support specialized, non-Medicaid reimbursed mental health treatment for traumatized children through CFSA's intra-district transfer, including Choice Provider assessment, training and practice capacity funds.

There is a $3 million local-funding cap on DMH’s specialty, in-home treatment services; if this applies to Medicaid-funded services, it would translate to an overall $10.3 million reduction in treatment funds.

An additional $80.7 million reduction in Medicaid provider payments that is not further detailed, but which may further reduce Medicaid funding for mental health providers."

Shannon Hall, executive director of the D.C. Behavioral Health Association, said via email:

"D.C. already under-spends on children's mental health treatment: we spent $13 million on our children's mental health program while Vermont, which has a similiar population size, spent $72 million.  Now Mayor Gray's proposed FY2012 further reduces the mental health services that keep children out of hospitals and out of the juvenile delinquency system.  It reduces the treatment funds that help parents improve their parenting skills.  Perversely, while cutting these effective programs, Mayor Gray proposes spending significantly more on the expensive interventions that don't have the proven track record of efficacy."

Councilmember David Catania may have something to say about these cuts. This past week he announced a sweeping proposal that would address children's mental health in a comprehensive way.

But in reading emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, city workers agonized over the capacity problem throughout this hypothermia season. The emails swerve between desperation and confusion, from one crisis to the next. They show Department of Human Services administrators working diligently to fix the impossible: To find space for the city's too many homeless families.

On December 7, Fred Swan, a DHS administrator, wrote up his concerns over the capacity problem. He emailed then-DHS Director Clarence Carter and others:

"Based on the current pace we are housing families and the capacity issue we are facing at DC General tonight, we need to step up the pace considerably to ensure we have enough capacity as we do not want to leave any priority one families out in the cold. I know everyone is doing all they can to place families as quickly as possible and there are several barriers (i.e. availability of 3-bedroom units and families declining to take units in our inventory). However we still need to work through these issues to get where we need to be capacity wise."

Swan goes on to write about the lack of affordable housing problem—and the reason some families rejected apartments:

"In regards to the exit assistance program I know a number of families are refusing our units because of price. Can we find some other cheaper units via the dchousingsearch.org website. Also, since families will have 12-months to get prepared to be on their own financially can't they accept the units we currently have and work with case management to identify cheaper units that relocate to after 12-months? They would be able to get their security deposit back at the end of the 12-months and if needed we could provide some assistance with first months rent."

The following night, Michele Salters, another homeless services administrator with the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, wrote Swan that two families left D.C. General instead of the planned four families. This was a problem.

D.C. General was still basically full. They might have to start using hallways and play rooms to house families, Salters noted in her email: "If we have after hours calls tonight that meet criteria for placement we will be using common areas."

Swan replied: "Hopefully we will not have to place anyone tonight."

The capacity issue was an every day issue. Weekends could be especially rough. On December 17, Swan wrote: "Just wanted to get an update on how we are set for the weekend with families. There will be alerts on Saturday and Sunday as well as today so I wanted to see where we are at with housing, shelter capacity, reserve units and DC General and apartments that we have keys for. Let me know."

In a little more than an hour, Salters replied: "We will have one vacancy today at DC General that will probably be filled by the Intake center. I have two furnished apartment units we can use over the weekend if needed. There may be other moveouts today that I am not aware of yet so I will update as I get more information."

A month later, on January 18, Scott McNeilly of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless wrote Swan an urgent message regarding activities at the Virginia Williams Resource Center, the place families go when they need shelter.

McNeilly wrote:

"There still seems to be a problem with the message that staff at Virginia Williams is conveying to emergency shelter applicants. I just a call from a woman who called me from VWFRC. She stayed last night with her six year old son at the Motel 6 on New York Avenue but has spent all of her money. (She had to beg the bus driver to let her get on for free to get to VWFRC). [She] said that a worker came out to the waiting room where four or five families were waiting and said that because she is the only intake worker who has arrived at work it will take her a long time to get to everyone. According to Ms. (name redacted), the worker then went on to say that even if she is able to get to everyone, there are no shelter spaces so it is unlikely everyone will be placed. The worker then said that people should try to find a place with friends or family. [She] said that she has no one she can stay with which is why she's at VWFRC.

While I was writing this, I received a second call from another woman at VWFRC who confirmed that staff came out and announced that there is no space in the shelter and that applicants should call back tomorrow and the next day to see if there is any space.

This needs to be fixed."

Three minutes later, Swan forwarded the email to Salters and wrote: "FYI Are they really saying this?"

Swan labeled the email's importance as "High."

One of the biggest costs putting the city in the red: the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services' continued insistence on placing youths in out-of-state residential treatment facilities. The juvenile justice agency is projected to spend $8.4 million more than originally allocated for this outsourcing. In a recent cover story we outlined reasons why this is an outdated, extremely costly, and ineffective use of public funds.

The DC Behavioral Health Association raised similar concerns about DYRS' emphasis on residential treatment in a 2010 report.

Since coming into the system six months ago,  the daughter has been raped twice.

The city has moved her daughter 14 times. Three different agencies have handled her  case. After watching the hearing, the daughter's case, where great need collides with greater dysfunction, didn't seem like such an outlier. It seemed just another nightmare case Graham now must deal with.

It became all too clear that Graham has taken over the toughest task of any councilmember: Overseeing the District's Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) and the Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services (DYRS). Speaker after speaker proved it Thursday.

The session ran so long—well past 5 p.m.—that Graham announced from the dais that he had canceled his dinner plans. And why wouldn't he? The hearing had been crammed with shocking statistics and eye-opening testimonials—all enough to make Thursday's other hearing about those Navigators look silly.

Here are some astounding stats City Desk picked up from the hearing:

*10,000 D.C. children do not live with their biological parents.

*CFSA made a more than 30 percent cut to their private service providers. These providers manage group homes and independent-living facilities, as well as provide fostercare services.

*Family court judges have seen an uptick in more serious abuse cases. CFSA has seen an uptick in underage prostitution cases.

*In 2010, there were 6,320 abuse and neglect investigations done by CFSA.

*CFSA oversees 4,054 children—49 percent live in places like group homes and residential treatment facilities.

It may be hell once your in child-welfare, but it may be just as bad aging out. The majority of the teens who testified brought up the shortcomings of the agency's Office of Youth Empowerment (OYE), the entity that is supposed to assist the older wards with securing financial aid for college, finding affordable housing, setting up a plan for when they leave the system at 21.

Every city ward is entitled to financial aid supports for college. One woman testified that she had begun attending a college in Georgia. She didn't last long before being kicked out; the city, she says, had failed to follow through with their financial-aid money.  She dropped out.

A 19-year-old testified that she had expressed a desire to attend a culinary school. Her social worker with OYE insisted that such a choice was too expensive. When she asked for a list of public culinary schools, the social workers admitted that they did not have a list. Instead, the social workers have pressured her to either work as a home-health aid or apply to Bank of America.

The 19-year-old also has a daughter. She testified that she only receives a stipend of $400 per month. All of that money goes to her baby's food and supplies. When she asked for more money, her social worker refused, saying: "Just find a way to make it work."

A teen, who has been in the system since 16, testified to similar financial difficulties. He receives $580 per month from the District. Of those funds, $350 go toward transportation expenses. He testified that the stipend they receive has stayed the same since 2001.

His independent-living apartment unit is equally threadbare. The teen testified that the lock on his apartment's front door is broken. Inside, there are carpet stains and missing door knobs. He also stated that he doesn't have a mailbox. In September, he made a service request. The following month he followed up with a court order to force the service provider to repair his apartment. And still no repairs have been made. "CFSA does not have a system in place to provide support," he testified.

When the teen was finished, Graham stated: "This doesn't sound very good to me."

Other teens suggested that the number of planning sessions with their social worker was not adequate, that the meetings were overwhelming, and at times, LGBTQ youths don't feel supported. Nashwa Elgadi, the Young Women's Project's Program Coordinator for its Foster Care Campaign, testified to a list of issues the kids she works with have faced. One lived in a foster home with 18 housing code violations. It took three months of lobbying to get the teen moved out of the home.

Finally, after 5 p.m., CFSA's Interim Director Roque Gerald began his testimony. While his written testimony went on for at least 15 minutes, when it came time to drill down on specifics, he had few answers—especially concerning the OYE.

There are currently 42 full-time employees at the OYE. But when asked, Gerald, could not tell Graham what percentage their salaries took up in the office's overall budget. Nor could he provide a percentage of CFSA's kids that have gone on to graduate from college.

Gerald insisted that the woman's testimony concerning her experience at the Georgia college was not accurate. But he was not willing to state publicly what about her story was false. "I am willing to provide you information privately," Gerald said. "There is more to it than meets the eye."

Of the roughly 500 kids under OYE, 190 are either in college or "training." The other 300? Gerald couldn't say what they were actually doing. Nor could he give data on the number of former city wards who are homeless, in legal trouble or who are on public assistance. "We are still not in a place to report out on that data," Gerald admitted.

"Today, a student Thomson Elementary School brought an undetermined amount of cocaine to school and shared it with others in his class. Four of the students who received the cocaine ingested it, some orally and others inhaled it through the nose. It is unknown at this time how much each student ingested.

The students’ teacher spoke with the student who distributed the cocaine and alerted the main office. The four students were evaluated by the school nurse and transported to the hospital as a precaution. A fifth student, who did not ingest the drug, was also transported as a precaution. All are reportedly OK.

School leadership at Thomson ES notified the parents of the students involved and met a group of parents after school to address their concerns regarding the incident. A letter from school leadership also was sent home explaining what had happened (see attached).

School is not in session Friday as it is a professional development day for teachers. Counselors will be at the school on Monday to discuss the incident with the student body and teachers. The counselors will provide information to educate students about the dangers of drugs and offer advice on drug prevention.

The student who brought the cocaine to school has been charged with Possession Controlled Substance (cocaine). The Office of Attorney General handles juvenile matters and will determine how to proceed with charges given the age of the student."

Throughout this hypothermia season, the District has managed to keep D.C. General's emergency family shelter from becoming overcrowded. The good news is there aren't families sleeping in hallways next to trash cans or enduring sleepless nights in the cafeteria (see here, here, and here). D.C. General has been held at a capacity of 150 families or so—down from last year's high of 200 families.

And yet the number of homeless families hasn't gone down. It turns out city administrators have come up with an expensive solution to D.C. General's limited space: The city has spent tens of thousands of dollars putting homeless families up at the refurbished Comfort Inn on New York Avenue.

Ashley Edwards, a sales coordinator at the Comfort Inn, estimates that at least 70 homeless families have stayed at the hotel since January. According to a mother who currently resides at the hotel and has seen her bill, the city is spending $89 per day on each family. She and her children have been staying at the hotel for more than a month. (Another mother says she was told her bill comes to $119 per day).

The number of families residing at the hotel could be a lot higher than 70. In an earlier interview, Edwards had estimated that closer to 140 homeless families had stayed there.

D.C.'s Department of Human Services, despite repeated requests, couldn't say just how many families had stayed at the Comfort Inn. "I don't know," explains Fred Swan, head of the Family Services Administration with the city's Department of Human Services. "The need could be 20 one day, 25 the next. It changes every day just about."

Swan later says the number of homeless families residing at the Comfort Inn just wasn't public information. "We don't give that information out," he says. A few days later, he says he thinks the 120 figure "seems kind of high to me." But since he wouldn't give an actual number of his own, it's hard to know what to make of that.

The Comfort Inn provides for the families like any other hotel guests. In the morning, they receive a free continental breakfast of sugar cereals and bland muffins. Families can also use the hotel chain's fitness room and free WiFi. In their rooms, they could watch free cable on flat-screen televisions.

But homeless mothers tell City Desk life at the Comfort Inn lacked the one thing they desperately needed: A good case worker to help them find housing.

Advocates had argued for two years that the city's shelter capacity wasn't enough to meet demand. This past fall, Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser quashed the city's plan to convert a building on Spring Road into a shelter. The costs would have been minimal; city officials stated the building just needed showers installed. Instead of adding capacity, the D.C. Council spent months debating a stronger residency requirement for those seeking shelter. Of course, the consequences were brutal.

At the Comfort Inn, mothers say District officials spent the majority of time telling them they weren't like other hotel guests. In a mid-February meeting at the hotel, all the families were told they could not have guests, they could only eat meals in their rooms, and they could not visit other guests.

"We can't even go in the lobby basically," says current Comfort Inn resident Tasha Coleman, 20, who came to the hotel with a nine-month-old boy. She says she had previously slept outside a church. "When we go to breakfast, we have to show our keys. They tell us we can't go in the lobby to get a cup of coffee."

"If you do want visitors, you had to meet them off the property," recalls Teneisha Davall, 25, a mother of three and who stayed at the Inn for a month. "It just felt like they had no respect for us. We had nowhere to go. We were not a priority to [the Comfort Inn staff]. They just brushed us off."

That meeting was essentially the most attention these mother received at the Inn.The mothers say they wanted help finding apartments. Both complain they haven't gotten the help. "It's frustrating," one says. "You don't know who to talk to."

Coleman says she's been told by her case worker that "there's nothing they can do. You just have to wait to be placed in D.C. General. And then once at D.C. General, you go from there. Coleman has been living at the Comfort Inn since January 8.

A few weeks after the meeting, the mothers finally got some attention from the city. They were called and told they were being moved temporarily across New York Avenue to the Budget Motor Inn. The Comfort Inn needed to make way for some conventioneers. One mother says she was given 20 minutes notice to pack up everything she owns. Another got an hour.

Both say they woke up at the Budget Motor Inn to police making drug busts. They were shuttled back to the Comfort Inn that day. In the rush to get everyone back across the street, the hotel was still a mess. Davall says she saw bloody tissues in the hallway, alcohol in the stairwell, and black panties and black boxers stuffed between the wall and vending machine.

Davall says soon after, she and her three kids noticed the room's phone was broken. The Inn never fixed it. Later, her 1-year-old daughter dropped her sippy cup. Davall says when she reached down to pick it up, she noticed a new addition to the room: a used condom under the bed.

"It was disgusting. I don't even know if the sheets were ever changed to be perfectly honest," Davall says.

*photo of New York Ave. Comfort Inn courtesy of Comfort Inn.

On Sept. 27, 2002, the Metropolitan Police Department rounded up hundreds of citizens inside Pershing Park. They then arrested them and detained them. For those hours and hours in police custody, these citzens were hogtied. And as soon as the last person was released—the city dropped all charges against everyone in this case—everyone knew that the class-action cases were soon to follow.

The Pershing Park case was an embarrassment for the city which had once prided itself on hosting protests without resorting to heavy-handed tactics. Chief Charles Ramsey's reputation took a big hit. [Chief Cathy Lanier was also involved].  The cases could have been settled a long time ago. Except that....the city lost key evidence in the case and a then-Attorney General Peter Nickles decided to play stall ball.  The case became endless. Here's a handy rundown.

Some of the cases have settled. The city has given out millions and millions. The settlement amounts related to Pershing Park and another protest case have been historic. One case is still pending.

But now comes the real punch in the face. WaPo's Del Quentin Wilber is reporting that the District has paid out more than $2 million in attorney's fees for the lawyers representing the police officials behind Pershing Park. That's quite a defense fund!

Wilber writes:

"The tally came in a filing late Thursday in the District's federal court by lawyers representing four bystanders who were among those swept up and arrested in Pershing Park during demonstrations against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. 'The District continues to seek to drive up costs and prolong litigation in this case,' lawyers Daniel C. Schwartz and Jonathan Turley wrote in court papers, adding the city has 'spared no expense' in defending former Chief Charles H. Ramsey and Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham."

To give you a sense of the amazing gravy train this case has become, a recent court filing shows that ex-Chief Ramsey's lawyer, Mark H. Tuohey III, wants $80,628 in attorney fees for work done from Sept. 1 through Dec. 31, 2010.

In the filing, the District's lawyers justified the fee's amount this way: "During the four-month period for which fees are requested by this Motion, counsel prepared and responded to pleadings, participated in various aspects of pretrial discovery and trial preparation, and, in conjunction with the Office of the Attorney General, counsel participated in many telephone conferences."

Trial preparation? Really? Phone calls?

The District has approved the money. The District Court judge in the case just has to sign off the funds.

*file photo of Ramsey by Darrow Montgomery.

"The District's child abuse and neglect system requires dramatic reform at all stages. On the front end, the government does not adequately prevent abuse and neglect. Nor does CFSA do a good enough job keeping children safely with their birth families. Once CFSA removes children, it does not serve them well in foster care—and they state in foster care too long because CFSA fails to reunify them with their parents or find alternative permanent families."

Even more troubling than Sandalow's assessment is the fact that her assessment has been made nearly every year for the past two decades.  It is by now cliche to refer to the District's Child and Family Services Agency as "troubled" or "horrible" or "under court monitor."

In one of the latest twists in the 20-year-old class-action case against CFSA, a U.S. District Court judge recently ordered the agency to stick to a court-approved plan. The plan pretty much included everything from how the agency must investigate alleged abuses to how they should hold meetings [PDF]. That was just the latest in the drip, drip, drip, drip, drip of bad news concerning CFSA. Recently, Gray's transition team issued its own stinging critique of the agency.

Although CFSA has a court-appointed monitor, much of the agency's business—the family-court hearings, investigations, foster-care placements, etc.—are done in secret. Should District residents allow an agency like CFSA to conduct its business in secret?

California is considering opening up its child-welfare cases to public scrutiny. And one of the biggest backers of the plan is LA County's own child-welfare agency.

The L.A. Times reported this week:

"Children's advocates, judges and government officials told state legislators Tuesday that opening proceedings for dependency court would improve accountability and transparency for a key branch of the legal system that handles cases of child abuse, child neglect and foster care placements.‬

'There is a lot that is not good [in the dependency courts], and that's an understatement,' Michael Nash, presiding judge of the juvenile courts for Los Angeles County, said at an oversight hearing before the Assembly Judiciary Committee in Sacramento. 'Too many families do not get reunified ... too many children and families languish in the system for far too long. Someone might want to know why this is the case.'"

Of course, some California's social workers and public defenders are against the pending legislation citing concerns for minors and the possibility that families would be reluctant to participate if they knew the hearings were open to the public. But what family is excited to be a part of a child-welfare case? And I have yet to meet a minor who didn't want his story told or to be listened too.

The L.A. Times notes that more and more jurisdictions are opening up child-welfare cases to the public:

"The Assembly committee has a bill, AB 73, which proposes to open the dependency courts but allows judges the discretion to close certain hearings. A number of other states have moved to make their dependency courts more accessible to the public.

The proposal is supported by Los Angeles County's Department of Children and Family Services. Deputy Director Maryam Fatemi told the committee Tuesday that increased access would shed light on systemic problems and make the public better aware of issues involved with protecting children.

Assemblyman Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles), who introduced the bill, said that based on the comments at the hearing, he would probably introduce a bill proposing a pilot program for open court proceedings."

Last week, the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless reported that a D.C. Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) social worker had attempted to force a homeless mother to make a brutal choice: Either get on a bus out of town or risk having your three children put in fostercare. City Desk followed up on the story and interviewed the mother's Legal Clinic attorney who said she directly heard the ultimatum from the social worker:

Julie Broas [the Legal Clinic attorney]  recalls the social worker explaining: "Because she is not being placed in a shelter, therefore she is unable to provide a safe place for her children to stay. If she does not agree to accept the arrangement that has been made for her [the bus out of town], we will be forced to take her children away from her."

City workers put "tremendous pressure" on her to get on the bus, the lawyer explains. "The social worker was pacing saying 'we've got to go right now. She has to make this choice.'" This was at 4:30 p.m. The bus wasn't leaving until roughly 11 that night.

Broas requested an emergency hearing on the city's refusal to provide this District family shelter during hypothermic conditions. Based on the mother's original documents that she had been trying to show the intake workers for days, the Department of Human Services finally agreed that the family had a right to shelter.

The mother's plight suggested the District workers had sunk to a new low in how they treat homeless families. Last year, families suffered through massive overcrowding and horrible conditions at D.C. General. I wanted to hear from CFSA. Did they in fact offer this mother a bus ride out of town or the loss of her children?

Mindy Good, CFSA's spokesperson, sent back a lengthy reply essentially denying the Legal Clinic's overall representation of events. But Good doesn't explicitly state that the social worker never threatened to place the mother's children in fostercare.

Good writes:

"CFSA is well aware of the child abuse/neglect laws since they guide our daily work. Neither poverty nor homelessness alone is grounds for removal of children. Parents have rights. At the same time, neither poverty nor homelessness eliminates parental responsibility to protect, shelter, feed, and clothe children and to fulfill their educational and health needs. This may mean parents need to draw on whatever personal means they have while also seeking public, charitable, or other services. That’s O.K. as long as parents continue to act in the best interests of their children—for example, taking advantage of services available and doing everything necessary to receive the services.

The perspective in the blog came from someone who came into the situation after other services providers had been working with the family for many weeks and CFSA had been involved for several hours. It is our understanding that the family had gotten help from the District. Remarks attributed to CFSA are an overly strong and misleading interpretation taken out of context. In fact, our social worker discussed with the parent several options other service providers had offered. The parent needed to choose one in order to take care of her children.

Most child welfare cases involve multiple service providers, so CFSA social workers are used to collaborating with others. Finger pointing and animosity waste time better spent on working together to help children and families in need."

Do you see in this any denial that the social worker offered the bus ride out of town or the removal of the mother's children? The agency seems more rankled by the tone of the Legal Clinic—and our—blog posts.

Patricia Mullahy Fugere, Executive Director of the Legal Clinic, stands by her staff's representations, and issues her own harsh assessment of CFSA's explanation. Fugere writes via e-mail:

"While we can not speak to what other services may have been offered to our client before the Legal Clinic got involved, by the time that Julie connected with the client at VWFRC, the only option presented was to accept the bus tickets to another state, or lose her children to the CFSA worker.  Given that there was a hypothermic alert that night and the right to shelter was in effect, Julie was incredulous that this ultimatum was on the table.  She specifically repeated these options to the CFSA worker, who confirmed her understanding.

If 'taking advantage of services available and doing everything necessary to receive the services' requires getting on a bus and traveling 1,000 miles away to get into shelter, then we have a very broken child welfare system."

Photo of a Greyhound bus used with an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons license

Among the five issues highlighted, the team noted the agency must address its "weak management and top-heavy agency structure." Ouch.

The other points the team stressed:

* "Shift focus to preventing abuse and maintaining children in families, to address the expensive and harmful current practice of unnecessarily removing children from their birth families."

* "Implement key policy and practice changes to improve use of kinship care."

*Review performance of Collaboratives and chart course forward—either reengineering investment in prevention entirely; keep some dispense with others; or retain Collaboratives but require them to measure and report outcomes publicly."

*"Contract out services for older youth to providers with strong track records in youth education and development (agency currently receives $1M in federal funding to assist youth aging out of the system and reports only serving 30 youth)."

I couldn't think of a more apt description than what Marta Beresin, a staff attorney with the Legal Clinic, describes in her blog item. Recently, she writes, the District's Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) told a homeless mother that she either had to leave town or have her kids put in fostercare.

What does this have to do with Wells' legislation? Answer after the jump!

Beresin writes:

"What’s sadly ironic is that this mother had been to the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center ('FRC'), the central intake site for homeless families in need of shelter repeatedly during the prior two weeks, pleading for the very thing that the District claimed she was neglectfully failing to provide.  Each time she had been told – as many others have been this winter – that there was no room for her and her children at DC General, the filled-to-capacity (with 152 families as of 2/10/11) winter shelter for families in the District.

In part, this mother’s odyssey may have been due to action the DC Council took in December, when 9 members of the Council passed the Homeless Services Reform Amendment Act of 2010 ('HSRA Amendment').  The bill establishes, for the first time, strict residency verification requirements for families applying for life-saving hypothermia shelter.  While the HSRA Amendment has yet to become law, some of its harshest consequences are already being visited on families.  The attempt to force the aforementioned mother to move to another state for shelter for her family was born out of the misimpression that she was not a District resident.  Nobody at the FRC had checked her ID (which was a DC driver’s license) or her other documents showing existing ties to the District."

The District government had given the mother a motel voucher, according Legal Clinic staff attorney, Julie Broas, who represents the family. She was able to move into a motel on Jan. 21. Like other families seeking shelter, she went back to the Virginia Williams Resource Center on Feb. 2 to complete her intake process. This is when the dispute over her proof of residency began. "She showed her D.C. license," Broas explains, adding that the mother also  other documents confirming her residency. "I don't know why that was not acceptable. As events unfolded, that was not enough."

On the night of Feb. 2, the mother paid for a motel room. She went back to Virginia Williams the next day and was told that her file was closed. Workers did not consider her a D.C. resident. That night, Broas said, the mother went to a police station to ask for help. A stranger gave her money which used with the last of her savings for one more night in the motel.

On Feb. 4, she again returned to Virginia Williams to plead her case: She had nowhere to go and no money left. At that point, her children were already enrolled in D.C. public schools. It didn't matter to the workers at the Virginia Williams Resource Center.

At this point, the mother finally reached out to the Legal Clinic. While at Virginia Williams, and in front of Broas, a Child and Family Services Agency social worker delivered the bizarre ultimatum: Give up your kids or take a bus out of town.

Broas recalls the social worker explaining: "Because she is not being placed in a shelter, therefore she is unable to provide a safe place for her children to stay. If she does not agree to accept the arrangement that has been made for her [the bus out of town], we will be forced to take her children away from her."

City workers put "tremendous pressure" on her to get on the bus, the lawyer explains. "The social worker was pacing saying 'we've got to go right now. She has to make this choice.'" This was at 4:30 p.m. The bus wasn't leaving until roughly 11 that night.

Broas requested an emergency hearing on the city's refusal to provide this District family shelter during hypothermic conditions. Based on the mother's original documents that she had been trying to show the intake workers for days, the Department of Human Services finally agreed that the family had a right to shelter.

The Child and Family Services Agency did not return requests for comment. If the agency responds, we will update this post.

Mr. Jones had been hospitalized multiple times over the years after several failed suicide attempts. He has struggled with schizophrenia and depression; according to the report, he informed St. E's staff that he had attempted suicide between 12 and 15 times. In 2009, he entered St. E's for an evaluation after picking up a criminal charge.

So what did St. E's do to help him?

Mr. Jones highlighted his suicide attempts and made them aware of his psychiatric history. Court documents stated in bold: "[d]ue to Mr. Jones's current mental condition, immediate hospitalization in an inpatient treatment facility setting is necessary in order to provide treatment. Furthermore, Mr. Jones is an imminent danger to self. While in the D.C. Superior Court cellblock awaiting transfer to the hospital and during transport to the hospital, he should be closely monitored for suicidal behavior."

Early on, St. E's staff ordered that Mr. Jones had to be "watched at all times," according to hospital records. And that he was a "very high risk for suicide." Mr. Jones continued to talk about suicide as the months passed. The only thing that changed was how the hospital monitored him. Eventually,  Mr. Jones was no longer was "watched at all times."

Then St. E's staff decided they didn't need to monitor him at all. They had transferred Mr. Jones to the D.C. Jail. Soon, D.C. Superior Court ordered Mr. Jones returned to the mental hospital with a message (again) in bold: "Mr. Jones has suicidal ideations and plans to harm himself."

When Mr. Jones returned to St. E's, he managed to find a razor blade. He then started cutting himself at 8 p.m. and didn't call for help until midnight. For those four hours, no one was watching him.

According to the ULS report, one staff member reported what they found: "Mr. Jones was sitting on his bed: both his arms were dangling at his sides and both wrists were bleeding heavily. There was a large amount of blood on the floor. He was holding a razor in his hand...I also got some sheets so we could cover the floor and get to him."

The staffer went on to report:

"As we entered the room, he took the razor, looked at us and in 'one clean swipe' he made cuts up both arms. He then squeezed his arms to force the blood out. I can still see the look on his face..."

Mr. Jones lived.

"'There'll probably be a lot of shoplifting going on. They'll need a lot of security,' Terriea Sutton, 35, said.

Brenda Speaks, a Ward 4 ANC commissioner, actually urged blocking construction of the planned store in her ward at Georgia and Missouri avenues NW partly because of that risk. Addressing a small, anti-Wal-Mart rally at City Hall on Monday, Speaks said young people would get criminal records when they couldn't resist the temptation to steal."

Seriously, there are many other angles to critique Wal-Mart.

*hat tip to my sometimes sparring partner on Twitter–Chuck Thies.