With shelter closings in the last year and the trend to build new facilities on the outskirts of the city, homeless service providers are worried that there will soon be a shortfall of emergency shelter beds in the downtown area. But, with new initiatives from Mayor Williams and the City Council, they say there is a chance to improve the planning process and prevent gaps.

“You see people downtown because that’s where the jobs are, and that’s where the bus lines run,” said homelessness activist Cheryl Barnes. Like Barnes, homeless people say that the downtown area is much more accessible than other parts of the city with the presence of meal programs, Metro stops and other needs, all of which can be covered on foot. There is also a sense that it is safer than many other parts of the city.

But changes in shelter space around the District have raised fears that downtown shelter space may not be secure.

The Gales School shelter near Union Station in Northwest closed in 2003 and has not yet reopened. The Randall shelter, off South Capitol street in Southwest, closed in 2004. Trailer-based shelters in Northeast and Southeast closed last year – moves widely praised as a step towards better quality shelter.

Emery shelter, near North Capitol street in Northeast, may be moving from emergency to transitional beds, and the future of the Franklin School shelter near Franklin Square in Northwest is still being debated.

Meanwhile, the city has opened two large new shelters – one on New York Avenue, NE in 2003, and one at “801 East” on the campus of St. Elizabeth’s in Anacostia in 2004.

Still, District government officials say keeping shelter beds downtown remains the city’s goal.

“We all agree we should have some emergency shelter beds downtown,” said Lynn French, a senior advisor on homelessness in the Williams administration. “I do believe it is the city’s duty to provide beds. To the extent that we’re providing shelter to save lives, and we know that many of the homeless people with the most severe issues are in the downtown area, we need beds downtown.”

But, she added, “On a larger scale, I do not believe that we owe specific locations to people.”

That is where the debate begins – with the questions of where, and when, beds will be provided. But given the condition of some stopgap shelter facilities, time is something the city has not always had. “Gales was in jeopardy of collapsing, and we had to close it,” French said.

French cited a very tight real estate market. In Columbia Heights, the La Casa shelter must relocate while a new shelter is built. “So the challenge now is, where do we go?” French said.

Meanwhile, the new shelters on New York Avenue and at 801 East offer improved living conditions, and more of the services like counseling that advocates and homeless people have long requested – but far from downtown.

A city shuttle bus circulates in and near downtown, including the old Randall shelter. It carries men to 801 East and will keep running after the winter season. Bus transport is also available to the women’s shelter at D.C. General in Southeast.

However, these services are the subject of debate. “The most vulnerable people don’t normally go in” to any shelter, outreach worker Mary Ann Luby of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless said. “So I don’t think people will go to 801 East. Negotiating getting there, even though there’s transport, and getting back, are things that don’t come easily for them.”

City officials maintain that the shuttles are a success. And the city’s hypothermia vans, as well as public and private outreach efforts, are also widely credited with connecting people who live on the street to shelter. High occupancy rates at the new shelters show that these offers are finding takers.

Calls for better and more certain downtown shelter continue, and with increasing urgency. Catholic Community Services (formerly Catholic Charities), a major provider of homeless services, is calling for significant increases in the availability of shelter, including downtown.

Improved long-term, broad-focus planning may be on its way. The Homeless Services Reform Act that Mayor Williams approved last year will establish an Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) including city officials, service providers, and advocates. This is a much more organized effort than past years when participants in planning for homeless services held scattered meetings, forums and working groups all with changing membership, agendas, and goals. The ICH might put an end to that, homeless advocates say.

“It could be a link in the chain to hold all the parties together,” said Barnes. “Hopefully it will be able to keep things on a level line where they’re not juggled too much.”

The fact that the ICH will be chaired by the city administrator, said Washington Legal Clinic head Patty Fugere, could give it the authority it needs, and shelter space and the city’s neediest people the priority they deserve.

“It has the potential to create a vehicle for far more humane planning,” Luby said. “The bottom line is that economic development always wins out, and economic development only benefits a portion of the city. I think you have to have a will at the very highest part of the government.”