The Gales School just got a lot more expensive. (Lydia DePillis)

A few months ago, Councilmember Jim Graham started pushing for forgiveness of about $400,000 in tax debt incurred by Central Union Mission on a property they owned on Georgia Avenue. Since he and community members had torpedoed plans to relocate its homeless shelter there from 14th and R Streets NW, the Mission didn't get the non-profit property tax exemption for several years, and so racked up hefty bill that it didn't have the resources to pay.

The proposed tax break–which will actually cost the District $507,715 in fiscal year 2011–came to a final vote today, with the Council already in a foul mood after having approved a $46 million tax abatement for the Adams Morgan hotel. As with the hotel, Graham warned that the deal would not go through if the Council didn't take emergency action to OK the abatement, which will be paid for out of tax increment financing dollars allocated for Georgia Avenue. Central Union Mission just closed on the sale of its Georgia Avenue property to the developers of Park Morton, and without the tax relief, would have to cut half a million from services in its new location at the Gales School downtown.

The circumstances did not make councilmembers happy. Under aggressive questioning by Tommy Wells, Graham seemed to have contracted amnesia about the reason the sorry situation had come about, saying the Mission changed its mind about the Georgia Avenue location because of a "zoning issue," which at least isn't the whole truth.

"My understanding is that you were instrumental in not allowing them to open a homeless shelter there," Wells said. "Now the district government is paying real money for this error...I'm really frustrated by this."

Then David Catania jumped in. "So we're bailing them out, as well as, I would say, bailing out the ward Councilmember," he carped. "Everything about this is wrong. Rather than fund access for justice, we are going to pay debts for a bad business decision."

The tax break ended up passing 8 to 4, with Wells voting present. By the end of the session, though, many more words had been said about the need to design a more thoughtful, comprehensive system for evaluating tax relief. Michael Brown has sponsored legislation that would require a financial analysis and thorough listing of community benefits for every proposed abatement, and the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute recommends setting an overall budget for them, so there's some sense of competition.

That'll have to wait until next session, though–this is the last you'll hear from the Council until January.

Almost there. (Lydia DePIllis)

The Central Union Mission can breath a small sigh of relief: Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6C is fine with its plans to operate a transitional men's shelter at the barely-standing Gales School at 65 Massachusetts Avenue NW. That's a change from the last community where they tried to relocate their activities from 14th and R Streets. Last night's vote was conditioned on the Mission leadership meeting with concerned residents and businessowners, and if large issues arise, the ANC could hold another meeting to reconsider before the Council is scheduled to vote on the disposition of the building next month. But with most issues dealt with, the non-profit is likely in the clear.

So, how will the shelter operate? A few vital stats: There will be capacity for 150 men, who will need to be inside the shelter by 6:00 p.m.–there will be a fence around the property to help keep them there–and leave at 7:30 a.m. During the day, they'll also be welcome at the shelter, with food usually available. "We don't like anybody to go hungry anytime," Executive Director David Treadwell told the ANC. "The idea is to draw people into the buidling, not push people out of the building."

Though the men are welcome, it's still a transitional shelter. Able-bodied men will only be able to stay for 30-day stints, unless they still can't find other housing, in which case they may alternate between 15 days in, and 15 days out. If the shelter is full, staff will help men find other beds in the shelter system, and sometimes transport them there.

And then there's the Jesus part. Central Union Mission is a religious organization, which is why the ACLU challenged its right to occupy the Gales School in the first place. There is a long-term "spiritual transformation program" that helps men deal with anger and drugs. Men will not be required to enroll in the program to stay in the shelter, but if they do, it's intense.

"It is a Christian-based program, butwe never complel anyone to express faith," Treadwell says. "Many of the men choose to go that route. When they do that, they do it all day."

Whatever you think about offering religious services in a homeless shelter, tomorrow's closure of La Casa is a reminder that the beds can't come online soon enough.

The city may now have to pay $400,000 to give this building away. (Lydia DePillis)

So, this bit from last week's Council legislative meeting warrants highlighting: Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham is asking for $400,000 to cover the back taxes and remaining acquisition debt incurred by Central Union Mission's purchase of 3512 Georgia Avenue N.W. in 2006. The charitable organization originally wanted to build a men's homeless shelter there, but backed down after community members–and Graham–loudly opposed it. Then, the Mission tried to build affordable apartments, but that didn't work out either. Finally, they agreed to sell the building to the team developing the Park Morton mixed-income residential project a couple blocks south, and move its shelter downtown to the District-owned Gales School. That couldn't happen, however, until the building was clear of tax debt, which the Mission can't afford to pay.

The upshot: Because Graham and community members didn't want homeless people concentrated on rapidly-developing Georgia Avenue, the city–which is now $175 million in the hole–will have to pay $400,000 to make the switcharoo work. Kind of makes you wish this had been sorted out ahead of time.

Well, this is really shameful.

For most of the Fall, we've been reporting on the latest strains on homeless services around the city: First, it was Central Union Mission struggling to find space for a new shelter; Next, we focused on budgetary concerns crippling shelters around the city.

Well, forget all that. Now, we have a new reason to worry key social services will soon evaporate: The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington claims that it will discontinue contracts with the city if it is forced to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples if the D.C. Council's gay marriage bill passes into law.

So the Archdiocese's priority list apparently places "helping people with desperate needs" below "not recognizing same-sex marriages."

The Washington Post has a front page article on this topic in this morning's paper.

"If the city requires this, we can't do it," Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. "The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that's really a problem."

According to the story, "city leaders"—particularly At-large Councilmember David Catania—are claiming that Catholic Charities, which serves 68,000 residents, isn't the end-all, be-all of social services in the District. (Catholic Charities also has contracts providing health care and adoption services, according to the Post.) But last month, as the Council and the Department of Human Services went back and forth on budgetary matters, Catholic Charities was one of the loudest and most pressing voices arguing for more funding to keep open full-time shelters during the winter.

The Post article quotes Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh saying "she hopes the Catholic Church will reconsider its stance."

"'Are they really going to harm people because they have a philosophical disagreement with us on one issue?' Cheh asked. 'I hope, in the silver light of day, when this passes, because it will pass, they will not really act on this threat.'"

Yeah, let's hope so, for the love of god—and I guess, in this case, I mean that quite literally.

Image by TheChristianAlert.org, Flickr Creative Commons Attribution License.

Turns out Central Union Mission will not be developing the land it owns by Georgia Ave. and Newton Place in Park View/Columbia Heights/Petworth. (Note: I've had enough of you neighborhood name police! It's a blurry area! Get over it.)

DCmud reported yesterday that the newly-selected developers for Park Morton will be "absorbing" Central Union Mission's land into their gigantic $130 million "New Communities" project.

More than a year after issuing its original request for proposals, the city finally announced yesterday that it had selected Landex Corp. to transform the Park Morton public housing area into a neighborhood-defining, transformational mixed-use development.

According to DCmud, officials from Central Union Mission were quietly negotiating with Landex while the charitable organization was jumping around to various community meetings and going before the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) to share its plans for an affordable housing building.

The blog reports: "According to Catherine Fennell, a consultant working as the Project Manager with the Warrenton Group, the Mission continued moving forward while the award for Landex was pending. But Fennell indicated the two groups have been working on their agreement and will make the purchase official now that the award for Park Morton was announced."

Image by Intangible Arts, Flickr Creative Commons

This story will run in this week's print edition of the Washington City Paper.

Update: Central Union Mission Still Pursuing the Gales School.

In September, representatives with the Central Union Mission went before community members from Petworth and Columbia Heights to explain plans for a big project on Georgia Avenue NW. The mission wants to launch a development with office space plus 37 units of affordable housing for people making between 50 and 80 percent of the area median income.

“Affordable housing” + community groups = jitters.

A rash of questions emerged about just what Central Union Mission had in mind. “The initial concern was that it was going to be low-income housing, basically,” says Columbia Heights ANC Commissioner Lisa Kralovic about one recent meeting. And that initial concern has some roots in local history.

Three years ago, when Central Union Mission announced it wanted to move the homeless shelter it operated from its longtime location on 14th Street NW, near Logan Circle, to the intersection of Georgia Avenue and Newton Place NW, residents said they already had enough social service operations in their backyards.

During spring 2007, Cliff Valenti and five other neighborhood activists from Petworth and Columbia Heights took a little field trip to the leafy Virginia suburbs of Burke and Fairfax, with the goal of meeting with mission board members about the plan.

“For months and months, we tried to meet with their board,” says Valenti, now a local advisory neighborhood commissioner. Requests went ignored, so the group went with the doorstep approach. ”We said, ‘We need to talk to you guys’—and not one of them would talk to us,” he says.

After giving up on the dream of a 150- to 175-bed shelter on Georgia Avenue, the mission focused on the Gales School, an unoccupied city-owned building near Capitol Hill. But that plan hit some roadblocks when the local ACLU affiliate and some other groups sued saying the District was offering Central Union Mission, a religious organization, a less-than-market rate deal on the building..

“Our hope is still the Gales School,” says David Treadwell, executive director for the mission. “We’re not out to seek special favor. We’re going to do the city a big favor by running a shelter.”

Meanwhile on Georgia Avenue, locals kept up the pressure to block more homeless people, or any other group low on the economic totem pole, from coming to the neighborhood.

At some point during a recent ANC meeting, it was mentioned that a family of four with a combined income of $48,000 could move into a unit. “But did that mean that a person who makes $10,000 could move in?” people wondered, according to Kralovic.

The answer was no, and that seemed to appease the skeptics.

“Once it was much clearer what kind of incomes people were going to have, I think that it was OK,” says Kralovic. The ANC unanimously approved Central Union Mission’s latest plan.

Image by Intangible Arts, Flickr Creative Commons

I guess there aren't enough development stories to go around in this town! As I was reporting on the Central Union Mission's latest attempt to relocate its homeless shelter, DCmud was working on its own piece.

To summarize: After Petworth/Columbia Heights residents balked at a plan to open a 150-175 bed shelter in their neighborhood, the Mission re-focused its attention on moving into the vacant Gales School, located near Capitol Hill. Then came a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union–I'll let DCmud  explain:

Originally, the plan was for a land swap in which the city would gain the Georgia Avenue property and the Mission would get use of the school as a shelter. But the exchange was derailed by an America Civil Liberties Union law suit claiming an Establishment Clause violation – i.e. separation of church and state – because the property swap would result in a net gain of $12 million for the Mission, which requires homeless men to participate in religious services in return for room, board and counseling services...

Well the latest, ahem, development with the Gales School is that the Mission is still pursuing it–and negotiating a different deal with the city, according to executive director David Treadwell.

"Our hope is still the Gales School," says Treadwell. "We’re not out to seek special favor. But we’re going to do the city a big favor by running a shelter and not charging them for it."

Treadwell says his organization is willing to spend $10 million to revamp the building, which is a mere shell now being propped up with heavy beams, and covered with a temporary roof.

The Mission is anxious to start fortifying the structure, as "the boards on the windows are warping" and the roof "was not designed to last through this winter."

Treadwell says his organization would prefer owning the building outright, but "might do a long-term lease."

"Gales School is our best option because of its location. There are other places we could go. But there’s no reason to stir up another neighborhood if we don’t have to...," he adds, referring to the long drawn-out battle in Petworth.

Image by Naught Facility, Flickr Creative Commons