News

 
By Adrienne Harris
Volunteer

2^nd & D.  That’s how most people who have stayed there refer to the John L. Young Women’s Shelter. It’s one of those places you occasionally hear about when someone is trying to build up her street rep.  However, I don’t know whether the “harshness” of the place is all that impressive. D.C.’s resources surpass anything available in the surrounding area, yet the need exceeds anything this city can provide. John L. Young is often the starting point for those facing homelessness in DC. Perhaps it’s the easiest shelter to get into. Nevertheless, doing so is a chore.

The first hurdle is not to become disheartened while waiting in line. Even if you arrive  one hour before the doors open, that hour can easily seem like three.  This is where you start classifying everyone around you. This one never talks; this one only talks to herself; this one usually just scowls, but if she does say anything, it’s usually at the top of her voice; this one glares at you; this one’s exchanges are more in the nature of performances…

If you took your time, you’d probably come up with ten different groupings, maybe more. Don’t get me wrong; if you took the time to listen, I’m sure each person would tell  a unique story. But let’s be real: your situation is too much to deal with at the moment.  Not too many people are stupid enough to go there. Or, perhaps I should say that not too many who will eventually get out of there are stupid enough to go there. For those determined to “fix,” or at least improve their situation, focusing on their problem is definitely the order of the day.

Anyway… if your courage holds up, and you actually get to the point of entering the building, the first thing you’ll have to do is open your bags or your luggage. Everything is searched… Scissors? – gone… Razors? – gone… Nail polish? – gone.

How smoothly this process goes depends on 1) the attitudes of those being submitted to this search and 2) the level of hostility coming from security personnel. I was lucky. During my stay, security was pretty good. (Nice people.)

Okay… assuming the most optimistic outcome  (for the newcomer, anyway): one of the regulars missed the curfew, so, you have yourself a bed (probably an upper bunk). – For those who’ll have to try again tomorrow, Union Station’s bathrooms are fairly easy to access. – Relief overtakes you to the point of getting giddy or emotional, depending on your level of exhaustion.

Now the paperwork begins. After about what feels like an hour of giving a stranger way too many details about your recent life right there at the front desk (you are sitting, so you don’t quite feel like you’re yelling your business from a mountain top), you are given verbal and written information, a bed number, and sent on your way.

The dorm is basically a warehouse-sized room filled with steel bunks. Once you’ve found your bunk ( a challenge in itself), you prep your bed with the linen that’s been deposited on your mat, and do your best to make yourself at home, all the while stealing glances at your new neighbors.

You will also see a  table a few feet away where dinner is served, a few long tables to eat at, and a television with a few folding chairs around it.  The bathrooms are to the left.

With any luck, there will  be a male staff member around. Let me be clear: I’m as much a feminist as you can get without screaming or carrying a poster around, but from personal experience, I’ve found that one sensible man is worth five stern women as far as maintaining some form of order is concerned.

If you don’t need to go to the restroom, you’ll make your way to the serving table if dinner has begun. Seconds are served only after everyone has had a chance to eat.

By this time, a couple of scenes have unfolded. Perhaps the social worker, or even the facility director, has had to emerge from her office to handle the situation. I’ve received social services in the D.C. area for about 18 months. Wanda, who worked in that office when I was at 2nd & D, was the best social worker I’ve seen during all that time.

Her job seemed impossible. But she pulled  it off admirably. I never heard negative words in reference to her, an accomplishment that to my knowledge has yet to be duplicated. She actually LISTENED, and displayed  a decent amount of understanding without getting emotional. She made it a point never to allow herself to get friendly and chatty with clients, and she remained impartial. Remarkable.

I could go on, but since I must keep this to 1,000 words, I’ll limit it to this: You will find yourself in the center of a few dramas, regardless of your disposition. You might find your background and ethnic group has more to do with it than anything else. While receiving social services in DC, you’ll find that the African-American culture is the mainstream society in which you’ll have to function, or at least deal with. I’ve received more than a couple of threats, and have been referred to as a “white devil.” How well-trained a facility’s staff members are and what their sentiments are will determine how skillful you will have to be to respond to the situation.

As all this might suggest, I do not recommend John L. Young to anyone. Yet I still carry John L. Young’s number in my coin purse.

Adrienne Harris is a student at University of the District of Columbia. She stayed at John L. Young Shelter a year ago when she was homeless. She now has housing. 

By Eric Falquero, Matt LeDuc, and Brett Mohar
Managing Editor and Volunteers

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”-

On Jan. 16, over 75 community and student volunteers, mostly young adults in their 20s and early 30s found themselves  living by those words, spoken by the great Indian pacifist leader Mahatma Gandhi. They spent the Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) Day of Service, painting  such inspirational quotes as well as bright images in the  hallways of Tyler Elementary School in Southeast.

“They’re painting dancing fruits and vegetables in our cafeteria. We have a big wellness initiative here and it will just be a visual reminder that fresh fruits and vegetables are healthy for you,” said Jennifer Frentress, the principal. “We have both a literacy and a math initiative, so having the math facts up the risers and the words on the walls, the kids notice it right away…it ties into the work that we’re doing.”

The painting project was part of a larger beautification effort that took place in honor of Dr. King. Children worked next to senior citizens to clean up the whole campus and enhance what was already there. They became part of something much bigger, a day of service that got its start just four days after King was fatally shot in April 1968.

A Long Road

Those days later, legislation for a federal holiday in honor of MLK was introduced. It was greatly opposed,  pointing to the fact that only Christopher Columbus and George Washington were honored by this sort holiday, and citing the financial burden of paying so many employees for another day off.

The next year, the King Center (founded June 1968), sponsored an observance of King’s birthday and campaigned for national celebration of his life.

In the years to follow, preceding federal acknowledgment, union workers demonstrated for the right to observe the day – after all, King was shot while supporting a American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees strike. Schools were closed in Chicago when city employees were ordered to work on MLK’s birthday, and teachers went on strike: schools have closed on MLK Day since. 80,000 dressmakers and over 25,000 hospital workers in New York went on strike, separately, until they were awarded better wages, better benefits, and a paid holiday in honor of MLK

With continued labor demonstrations, a record-breaking petition (6 million signatures for a King Day bill), and a corporate-funded campaign through the King center, congress finally voted in favor of a  MLK Day by overwhelming majority, and President Nixon signed the bill in 1983.

The first federal holiday in honor of MLK was observed in 1986, and has occurred every 3^rd Monday of January since. The day of service has evolved over time to provide help where it is really needed. That first celebration by the King center really set the tone: celebrating his life through education in his teachings and nonviolent action to carry forward his unfinished work.

Volunteering

“We have so much work, we can’t possibly get our work done without community helpers. So we have really reached out to the community,” said Frentress. She said that when volunteers get involved with projects like this, they learn how incredibly beneficial their time can be.

The school improvement project was coordinated by HandsOn Greater DC Cares, a nonprofit network that matches volunteers to nonprofits, foundations, and projects in the District, Virginia, and Maryland. The organization’s website claims a network of  more than 860 nonprofits and 43,000 volunteers. Tyler Elementary was one of 35 sites that made up Greater DC Cares’ MLK Day of Service project, which brought out approximately 2,000 volunteers. This year marked Greater DC Cares’ 13^th annual MLK Day of Service.

The nonprofit worked to find projects to fit people’s interests and talents. Many volunteers were looking for a way to give back to their community, and many felt it particularly important to contribute to their neighborhood schools. Some said they picked this project in particular because of their interest in literacy and education.

The System Supports Service

While all of the work accomplished on the MLK Day of Service is completely voluntary,  the opportunity to observe the holday is enshrined by legislation. Under the Clinton presidency, Congress passed the King Holiday and Service Act in 1994. The act mandates that the Corporation for National Service, established just a year before, heads up planning for  the MLK Day as a day of service.

The Corporation is a merger of two older government agencies with a goal of “building a culture of citizenship, service, and responsibility,” according to NationalService.gov. It was created to manage government service programs like AmeriCorp, and Learn and Serve America – which the MLK Day of Service falls under.

President Obama renewed the government’s commitment to service through the Corporation when he signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in 2010 which reauthorizes and expands national service programs administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service.

The Corporation also provides that every state, and the District, have a Service Commission. These commissions award and evaluate AmeriCorp grants, but they are also charged with encouraging volunteerism within their respective states. DC’s Commission of Service is Serve DC.

Collaborating for Success

As part of their mission to encourage volunteerism, Serve DC has made the MLK Day of Service, part of its Seasons of Service calendar – the first one of the year. This year marked the office’s 11^th annual involvement in project planning for the day,  and their 6^th year in partnership with a particular nonprofit – We Feed Our People (WFOP).

“For us, it’s about collaboration and ending the product cycle of homelessness,” said Carly Skidmore, events and outreach specialist with Serve DC.

As the name might suggest, WFOP feeds people. According to their WeFeedOurPeople.org, the project started in 1988 – two years after it was first celebrated, when three friends realized that many service organizations and offices for benefit programs would close for the federal holiday, thus inadvertently harming the poor that King fought for. The founders pooled the money they would receive for their paid holiday and cooked for the handful of people that were living in the park next to the MLK Memorial Library downtown.

This year there were about 1000 people in attendance, according to Herman Fortson, the director for WFOP. “It was about a one to one ratio out there, slightly more people serving than being served even.”

The event lasted ran from about 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Long line of tables with trays of food; many volunteers serving hot meals; some tables set up near the the library doors for people to get off their feet while they eat; warm clothes being handed out; the core of the event has only strengthened. With Serve DC’s  involvement in the past years, WFOP now offers HIV/AIDS testing and employment services, provided by Calvary Council Care, and DC Dept. of Employment Services respectively. These additional agencies run their services out of mobile units, to provide more privacy for clients.

“I appreciate the fact that this is really a collaboration of the public, the library, the city, and community based organizations coming together to meet a certain need, said Hugh Bailey, Associate director for One Stop Operations at the DC Dept. of Employment Services.

Bailey was a little disappointed that only around a dozen people had visited his mobile unit by mid day.  He acknowledged that WFOP is more focused on basic needs like food and clothing, but he is ready to help many more.

“Dedicated people and nonprofits in the District and throughout the country carry out Dr. King’s legacy each and every day,” remarked Lisa Estrada, Street Sense board chair. “The next phase in his fight for civil rights was to be focused on the poor and the dignity that can be achieved through empowering people to help themselves.”

 
By Ted Henson

The origins of the “Dixon Case” go back to 1974, when a class action lawsuit was filed against the federal government and District government on behalf of individuals civilly-committed to Saint Elizabeths Hospital in Southeast D.C. The plaintiffs demanded community-based treatment alternatives to hospitalization for mental illness. The lawsuit was part of a much larger deinstitutionalization movement that swept the nation, driven by a growing awareness of patient’s rights and the development of anti-psychotic drugs. Deinstitutionalized patients were supposed to receive ongoing community-based support and care, but instead, many languished and some ended up homeless. The  settlement of the Dixon case includes an emphasis upon community-based care and housing for former mental patients. Under the terms of the Dixon settlement,  the District’s Department of Mental Health (DMH)  was required to meet 19 exit criteria. A recent court ruling has stated that the DMH has met 15 of these 19 criteria but still needs to make progress on the four outstanding criteria.

When the lawsuit was filed in 1974, there were nearly 3,600 patients at St. Elizabeths. As a result of  deinstitutionalization and a shift in policy by the Department of Mental Health to provide the primary treatment of individuals at community-based mental health providers, the current number of patients at St. Elizabeths has decreased dramatically. There are currently around 270 patients at the hospital.

Henson: In reference to the Dixon criteria, you recently said that the settlement agreement is “a recognition of tremendous progress…not a recognition of a job completed.” Can you give our readers a brief overview of the progress you have made regarding meeting the 19 exit criteria and what’s left to be done?

Baron: In reference to the Dixon exit criteria, there were 19 stated exit criteria and we have met or substantially met 15 of them. Some of the highlights of the ones we have met include more District residents getting mental health services and for certain important services, such as Assertive Community Treatment, more District residents are receiving services in a timely manner. The department has a methodology to gauge consumer satisfaction and we have an active process to look at that. We have a process/way to ensure that people’s needs are matched to the services that they are getting. We are using new generations of medicines. Also, children are getting services in their natural settings. For the four remaining areas the District will have a two year agreement with the Plaintiff’s lawyers that focuses on Supported Housing, Supported Employment, Continuity of Care and children’s mental health services.

Henson: The agreement called for an expansion in affordable housing, which dovetails nicely with the efforts of many homeless advocacy for increased housing for the chronically homeless and the mentally ill. What progress has been made on this front?

Baron: There has been tremendous progress. The exit criteria addressed the right area of supportive housing  but the criteria related to the timeline of 70 percent of  individuals served within 45 days of receiving a voucher was unrealistic due to the many requirements in issuing vouchers to ensuring a housing unit is inspected and meets all of the requirements. The Department of Mental Health has secured or developed  about 1,300 supportive housing vouchers. In addition, over the last couple of years we have moved $14 million to the Department of Housing and Community Development that will create about 230 new units for individuals with mental illness and will renovate about 100 units in place.  This housing is usually part of larger housing projects and recipients of the capital funds have included  SOME, Jubilee House, Open Arms and Hyacinth’s Place to name a few. We recognize there is more needed in this area and part of the agreement is that over the next two years (by Sept 30, 2013) the District will develop 300 new supportive housing units.

Henson: Do you anticipate funding/budget fights around appropriations or funding for this mandate?

Baron: Funding for FY2012 for 100 units of housing is already in the budget. Continuation for 100 units in 2013 is also in the budget. I am confident that the 2013 budget will include funding for another  100 units (200 total) and the other 100 will be made available primarily through new capital developments

Henson: Through deinstitutionalization and under the terms of the settlement, 98 percent of the District’s mentally ill patients are treated in community-based health clinics. Can you talk about how this shift to community care reflects a larger shift in thinking about social services provision, both for mental health care and beyond?

Baron: In 1974, when the Dixon agreement was initiated, the population at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital was 3,600.  Today the census is about 280. The ending of this suit marks progress, not just in meeting the vast majority of the 19 exit criteria but a recognition of the expansion of community services in the District.  Today about 20,000 District residents receive community-based services during the year and the Department has expanded the type and range of community services.

For example, Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) which is an evidence-based service for individuals for very complex needs is now serving about 1,200 District residents when just a few years ago it was serving about 400 individuals. We’ve created a very effective mobile crisis program that can respond to people having a psychiatric emergency anywhere in the community and we have worked with  MPD(the Metropolitan Police Department) to train officers as Crisis Intervention Officers (CIO) to better respond to individuals experiencing a psychiatric crisis. We are trying to build a comprehensive system of care but there are still challenges in that work.

Henson: How has your Department focused on ending chronic homelessness? 

Baron: Our housing initiatives are prioritizing homeless people with a mental illness. Pathways to Housing, which is geared to the Housing First model, is a major partner of the Department.  The Department has a Homeless Outreach Program (HOP) that works closely with shelters and other providers to help connect individuals who are homeless and in need of housing and mental health services to the necessary services and we work closely with other District agencies such as the Department of Human Services in our efforts. The goal is to marry flexible individual services with affordable, safe housing.

Henson: Can you speak generally about your background and your experience prior to working in the District at the Department of Mental Health (DMH)?

Baron: I got a master’s from Howard University School of Social Work in the late 1970s and had a field placement at Saint Elizabeths Hospital.  After graduate school I worked at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore—I’m a Baltimore native—and I was the liaison to the state hospital. During my 10 years at Sinai, I helped develop a community based rehabilitation program for individuals with a serious mental illness called People Encouraging People, Inc. (PEP). From 1988 to 2006 I was the President/CEO of Baltimore Mental Health Systems, Inc. (BMHS) which was responsible for managing the Baltimore public mental health system.  BMHS was established through a major nine-city  Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project on local mental health authorities. I came here in 2006.

Ted Henson is the co-founder of Street Sense. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

 
By Brandon Caudill
Volunteer

Located at the Sacred Heart parish in Washington’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood, the Hermano Pedro Day Shelter provides a multitude of services for needy District residents. The shelter has been operating as a program of Catholic Charities for the last five years and serves approximately 100 clients daily, although that number has been known to double during the winter months. Hermano Pedro has a multicultural clientele and is open to both men and women. The shelter serves as a host to multiple support groups, including Narcotics Anonymous meetings and gatherings tailored to the needs of Spanish-speaking clients. Hermano Pedro’s services include breakfast and lunch, shower facilities, telephone access, occasional legal services, and an array of case management services. The shelter also offers mental health services, including weekly psychiatry services. The shelter’s case management services can assist clients who are seeking long-term treatment for mental health or substance abuse issues. The shelter is always searching for new volunteers who can help operate its daily programs or offer talents to further expand services. Iona Sebastian, clinical manager, explains the importance of volunteers’ roles.

“Volunteers will help serve breakfast and lunch, they do cleaning for us; whatever they can do to help keep things quiet around here,” she said. To show their appreciation, many clients also volunteer for the shelter.

The shelter accepts donations for new or lightly used clothing to distribute to clients, a service that is especially important during the winter months.

Hermano Pedro Day Shelter is open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information please call (202) 246-5543 or visit www.chatholiccharitiesdc.org.

By Mary Otto
Editor-in-Chief

A list of the homeless dead is by nature incomplete, steadily unfolding. The lives of the homeless are often cut two or three decades short due to exposure, easily treated chronic diseases, addiction, or violence. On Dec 21, the names of 67 homeless people who died in and around Washington over the year were read at a vigil marking the local observance of National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day.

And on Dec. 31, the battered and strangled body of Street Sense vendor Leroy Studevant, 56, was found near a creek in Northeast D.C.

District police are calling their inquiry into his death the first homicide investigation of 2012.
At the Dec. 21 vigil, as candles flickered in the sanctuary of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, others who had gone before him were recalled. Phyllis Jackson was remembered for her deep spirituality; Luther Hill for his military service and Cliff Carle, Jr. for his work as a vendor and photographer for Street Sense.

The service was coordinated with National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day vigils in at least 152 other communities, from Wasilla, Alaska to Palm Beach Florida.

Every year since 1990, the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) has organized the vigils. They are always observed on the winter solstice, which marks the longest night of the year.

In addition to local advocates, this year’s event drew two top federal officials, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Sec. Shaun Donovan, and US Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director Barbara Poppe. They offered words of condolence but also stressed recent progress being made to address homelessness on local and national levels.

Both highlighted strides being made toward a national goal of ending homelessness among veterans by 2015. In 2010, over 76,000 veterans experienced homelessness. But since 2008, more than 32,000 have been housed with the help of federal rent subsidy vouchers. And efforts are underway to retrain veterans for peacetime work and to address the mental health and substance abuse issues that sometimes contribute to their homelessness.

“You and I cannot change that our brothers and sisters died homeless. What we can change is our future,” said Poppe. “We know what is needed and we know what works. We have decreased veterans’ homelessness by 12 percent in just one year. We can apply this wisdom to all populations.”

Donovan told the story of Clayton McGee, a formerly homeless veteran who managed to overcome addiction and turn his life around.

“Clayton’s name is not one of those we mourn tonight,” said Donovan. “Thanks to HUD and Dept of Veterans Affairs and thanks to his own determination Clayton now has a home to live in with the treatment and job training he needed to rebuild his life.”

Outreach efforts did not save the life of local Vietnam veteran Luther Hill, also listed as “Sarge,” on the memorial service roll.

His body was found on the cold morning of Oct 30, slumped in his wheelchair in the doorway of the old Hecht’s warehouse on New York Avenue, not far from a city shelter.

A hypothermia alert had been declared in the city on the night of Oct 29 and Hill’s death raised questions about the adequacy of the city’s system intended to protect the homeless from the cold.

A report on Hill’s death by the city Department of Human Services concluded that Hill had not been turned away from the nearby New York Avenue shelter on the night he died. But some advocates wonder if more could have been done.
An official from the city office of the Chief Medical Examiner said Jan 3 that Hill had died of the effects of acute and chronic alcoholism. The manner of his death was deemed accidental, the official said with “part of that being hypothermia because of the cold.”

By Mary Otto
Editor- in-Chief

Behind the battered steel door of room 1205,  the playroom at the city’s family shelter at the old D.C. General Hospital,  holiday excitement was beginning to build.

It was Dec. 20 and Ahmiya Barnes, 5, was working on a card for her mom. She had the tree drawn and was getting ready to write the message. “I’m gonna spell ‘Merry Christmas,’” she explained. Other kids were making ornaments while down the hall, parents were quietly gathering gifts.

Meantime, volunteers from the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project were finalizing  plans to  transform room 1205 into a festive wonderland in time for a Dec. 22 party.

“Every kid should be able to celebrate Christmas,” said volunteer Shannon Slobodian.

Even with holiday magic in the air, an  old hospital is not the easiest place to spend Christmas. But  in these hard times, a room at D.C. General is also a gift.  For every homeless family lucky enough to have a room there  tonight,  there is another still out in the dark somewhere, waiting.
In the wake of the nation’s long recession and housing crisis, cities all over America are coping with rising numbers of homeless families, according to a new report by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.  Washington, D.C.  is no exception.  In this city,  a total of 858 families, including more than 1,600 children were included in a  2011 Point-in-Time homeless count, a seven percent increase over 2010.

D.C. General is bearing the brunt of the crisis.  There are currently rooms for 153 families at the hospital.  But overwhelmed by needs,  city officials are moving forward with plans to renovate space for 100 more families there.  The expansion is expected to be completed by Feb. 1.

“I’m sure no one is pleased with this situation,’’ said City Councilman Jim Graham at a homeless services oversight meeting on the cold evening of  Dec. 16. “ But this option is preferable to stairwells, bus shelters, couch-to-couch and all the various places people are forced to exist in,” added Graham, who chairs  the council’s  human services committee.

The  directive to expand space at D.C. General  came down from Mayor Vincent C. Gray in early December.  The mayor wrote in particular about his concerns for families designated ” priority one.” because of their critical needs.

“With these additional 100 shelter units, we anticipate being able to meet the needs of all priority one families seeking shelter,” the mayor wrote to Graham in a letter.

During the week of Nov. 28 through Dec. 4, a total of 52 families applied for shelter at the city’s  Virginia Williams Family Resource Center, the first stop for homeless families in their official search for shelter.  Of those who applied,  23 were were determined to be “priority one.” Another 645  families with needs determined to be less urgent were included on the center’s  “pending list” to await  possible placement into shelters or other assistance.

Ahmiya Barnes, her twin sister Ahmani, their three-year-old sister Asia and their mother, Shannon Barnes arrived at D.C. General last March. They lost their home with Shannon’s grandmother after the whole family was evicted,  then doubled up with another family for awhile.  “It was overcrowded,” Shannon Barnes explained.  They finally had to turn to the city for help.  Baby Sion,  now seven months old, was born since they arrived at the hospital.

Now Shannon Barnes is working with a caseworker to rebuild her life.  She is planning to become a nurse and will start school in January. She dreams of having a home again for her family.

“By next Christmas,” she said, “hopefully we will be on our own.”

D.C. General, located in Southeast, Washington and closed as a hospital in 2001, has served as a  shelter for families since the squalid D.C . Village shelter was shut down four  years ago.

Space at the facility has routinely been stretched.

Two winters ago, the city was criticized for sheltering 200 families at the hospital, in space designed for just 135. And last year, the Department of Human Services briefly advanced a plan to renovate space for 100 families and to add beds for 75 single men at D.C. General.  But then- human services committee chair Tommy Wells, whose Ward 6 district includes the hospital  firmly rejected the plan, complaining that the arrangement would result in a “homeless encampment.”

As a result, the city, which is obligated by law to protect the homeless during freezing weather, has often  resorted  to using motels and hotels to house the families when the hospital is full.
On one recent night, the city placed 51 families in hotels, said D.C. Department of Human Services Director David Berns.  The rooms, at  roughly  $90 per night, are an expensive and unsatisfactory solution to the problem of family homelessness, Berns said.

“A hotel is our least favorite option. This is a stopgap,” he said.

Renovating 100 rooms at the hospital is expected to cost $900,000 and providing food,security and other services to the additional families will cost $335,000 per month, said Fred Swan, also of the Department of Human Services. The money, which will include unused federal dollars originally earmarked for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families,  will be shifted from other accounts.

Berns  said the city has been using rapid rehousing funds  to help families at D.C. General leave the shelter and move into more stable places. But additional families just as quickly arrive, desperate and with nowhere else to go.

The plan was never to make the old hospital more than a temporary place to keep families out of danger, human services officials have stressed.

But for however long the families stay at D.C. General, the city needs to embrace its role and do its best to help them, said Graham.

“We’ve got a big human project here. None of us wanted it. It was born of necessity. There’s training, human services, accommodations, mental health,” Graham said. “There are a lot of people there with little kids, We want them to grow up to be contributing adults. That’s a huge responsibility.”

  
By David Rubin
Vendor

When I think about the fundamental differences among German, Chinese and U.S. laws, it seems crystal clear that there is a new need to redefine freedom and happiness.

Take the differences between German law and U.S. law regarding contracts, especially between landlords and tenants.
Where in the U.S., contract agreements are required to be expressly stated between the two parties concerned, in German law, the government’s judiciary branch spells out those contracts and there are fewer complications in housing matters. The end result is homelessness in the U.S. because housing issues are not under full government control.

Chinese law speaks of virtues and ethics as main pillars of the nation’s legal system, more important than personal wishes and individual lives. Thus, it becomes irrelevant what one desires in life or whether one is individually successful, so long as one is virtuous. Poverty as a way of life has never been so acceptable as it is in the U.S.

The English law has resolved my immigration case, yet I cannot find employment or housing.
I believe the U.S. can learn from the Chinese and German legal systems. I say it would be the end of homelessness and poverty, and not a return to British imperialism.

Central Union Mission must leave its current facility by Oct. 1, 2012.

 
By Sarah Fleischman
Editorial Intern

By this time next year, the venerable Central Union Mission, long a refuge for homeless men, may itself be homeless.

The 126-year-old mission sold its facility at R and 14th Street NW five years ago for $7 million and must leave the building by Oct. 1, 2012. Yet work on the shelter’s future home, the historic Gales School near Union Station, is not scheduled to be completed until June 2013.

“We’re not looking forward to being the homeless homeless shelter,” said David Treadwell, the executive director of the mission.

Treadwell says the mission is working with the District of Columbia to locate vacant space to temporarily house the mission’s guests, but the quest is not a simple one. Central Union mission needs space somewhere that will accommodate 140 beds and a kitchen.

Allen Babin, who has been coming to the mission for 13 months, said he hopes to have his own home by the winter of 2012. He is wary of following the shelter to a new location. It would not feel familiar to him.

“This is my neighborhood,” Babin said. “I’ve been here 10 years.”

On the other hand, Vernell Jones said he plans to stay with the mission wherever it goes during the next 18 months in order to complete his parole requirements.

“Wherever they move will be fine,” Jones said. “They work well with the people and work for the people.” But the corner of R and 14th just won’t be the same without the shelter, he added. “It will be missed in this neighborhood.”

Treadwell says the new location, near the city’s train and bus stations, will be a positive move.

“People in desperate situations tend to congregate in the downtown area,” Treadwell said.

Central Union Mission's new home will offer more privacy to guests. The shelter's current dormitory features bunks in long rows.

Architectural drawings of the new shelter show a bright, state-of-the-art facility, very different from the old location, with its antiquated kitchen and long rows of bunks. The dormitory at the new shelter will include partitions that will grant the residents some privacy. New dining and exercise areas, dental and medical offices, a lawyer’s office, meeting rooms and a day room will complete the project.

But it has been a long and complex journey to get this far.

It was back in 2006 that Central Union Mission first announced its decision to move from the rapidly gentrifying U Street corridor. Originally, the plan was to build a new shelter on Georgia Avenue, but the following year, opposition from the Petworth and Columbia Heights neighborhoods put a stop to that idea. The mission then began exploring the use of the city-owned Gales School as an alternative site, but that plan also stalled, in part because the American Civil Liberties Union, joined by others, sued.

In the lawsuit, which was eventually dropped, the ACLU asserted that a deal resulting in city support for the mission would violate the constitutional principle of separation of church and state, because the mission has a history of requiring men to participate in religious services in return for help.

The shelter, envisioned from its Civil War-era beginnings as a gospel rescue mission for needy and homeless people, still holds daily prayer services and Bible classes. But the men also have the option of spending that time in quiet contemplation, and attendance at worship has not been required since 2007, Treadwell said.

Central Union mission will lease the Gales School property from the District of Columbia for $1 per year for 45 years with a 25-year extension.The building is currently a hollow shell. Before any construction is done, the work must be approved as meeting historical preservation requirements.

With some battles behind him and others still lying ahead, Treadwell’s outlook is positive. He remains excited about the mission’s future home.

“It is extremely difficult to locate a shelter in a city, and this location is believably heaven-sent,” Treadwell said. “This is no accident.”