Back in June, Rend Smith reported that Dwight Harris—the homeless man pushed by cops from his wheelchair onto a U Street sidewalk on May 19—wouldn't face charges for public drinking or resisting arrest. Instead, the cops were going to see some consequences.
Turns out, though, that they're getting off without charges. The Post reported over the [...]
The whistleblower, known as P.H., who brought down Families Forward Inc, the nonprofit that had managed the family shelter at D.C. General, is still living at the facility.
Last Friday, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced that the city would be terminating its contract with Families Forward after P.H. had come forward raising allegations of poor case management [...]
Mayor Adrian Fenty announced today that the city is terminating Families Forward's contract to run the troubled D.C. General family shelter and its Park Road shelter. At his press conference, the mayor made sure to praise the swift actions of Attorney General Peter Nickles and Department of Human Services Director Clarence Carter.
Families Forward came under [...]
Flanked by Attorney General Peter Nickles and Department of Human Services Director Clarence Carter, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty announced at an 11 a.m. press conference that the city is terminating Families Forward's contract to run D.C. General's family shelter at the end of the month. Families Forward was notified by DHS this morning.
Allegations of terrible [...]
Rule No. 1: Don't bring a box cutter to a D.C. council hearing.
One hour into Councilmember Tommy Wells' oversight hearing on D.C. General's family shelter, a Families Forward Inc. employee had a little trouble passing through the Wilson Building's metal detector. The employee tried to walk in with a box cutter.
Duncan Briggs, a monitor at [...]
At 10 a.m. tomorrow, Councilmember Tommy Wells will hold an oversight hearing focusing mainly on the allegations surrounding D.C. General's family shelter. The hearing may do nothing to save the nonprofit, Families Forward Inc., from losing its contract to manage the shelter. Wells has already stated that its contract will be terminated.
At the very least, [...]
On the early morning of Feb. 9, a newborn baby was found unconscious at D.C. General's family shelter. The baby was pronounced dead at an area hospital. D.C. Police reported that there was no signs of trauma and that the baby had been found in a bassinet.
Another city agency apparently has a different take on [...]
The contractor charged with running the city's main shelter for homeless families has been fired.
Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells tells City Desk that Families Forward Inc. will lose their contract by month's end to operate the shelter, which is located on the D.C. General campus.
Wells says that Clarence Carter, director of the Department of Human [...]
Councilmember Tommy Wells, who chairs the Committee on Human Services, announced today that he will hold an oversight hearing to review homeless shelter operations. The hearing is set for March 31 at 10 a.m. The press release on the hearing states:
"The purpose of this Roundtable is to provide an opportunity for the Council and public [...]
Families Forward, Inc., the nonprofit that runs the D.C. General family shelter, has admitted in a letter to Mayor Adrian Fenty that it has fired employees for inappropriate contact with female residents.
The allegations first came to light yesterday when we reported the concerns of two female residents who alleged that they had been propositioned by [...]
The entity that manages the shelter at D.C. General is called Families Forward, Inc. The organization, based at 1012 14th St. NW Suite 105, boasts that it operates a full-service facility manned round-the-clock by staff. In other words, it runs the Mandarin Oriental of homeless shelters:
"Families receive 24-hour services, which include shelter, meals, case management, [...]
P.H., a resident of the shelter at D.C. General, had raised enough complaints and gotten nowhere. So yesterday morning she decided to e-mail Mayor Adrian Fenty about the living conditions there. The letter spanned six long, single-spaced paragraphs. She spared no detail.
"I wanted my voice to be heard," P.H. tells City Desk. "I could not [...]
Willie Richbow Jr., 19, moved into D.C. General with his mother and his two sisters on Sept. 30. They could have been an easy case, a family that didn't need to log months in an activity room.
His family was not chronically homeless or saddled with drug and mental health issues. Richbow and his kin had [...]
In light of the overcrowded mess going on at D.C. General's emergency shelter for families, I thought I should call Robert Egger. As founder and president of DC Central Kitchen, Egger is unmatched as this city's most forward-thinking authority on homeless issues.
Years ago, Egger had approached city officials about moving away from sheltering homeless individuals [...]
Last night, there were 163 families staying at the D.C. General emergency shelter. At that same night last year, there were 79 families.
