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This week, we saw two sides of the Housing First Initiative, an innovative reform effort to provide permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals in the District of Columbia. We saw the excitement and promise of individuals being placed in their own homes after years of living in the streets and the city’s emergency shelter system, and the anguish of closing the Franklin School Shelter at 13th and K Street, NW.  On Tuesday morning, September 23, we visited the emergency shelter on New York Avenue, NE, where the Department of Human Services enrolled approximately 50 individuals in the Housing First Program. Family Services Administrator Fred Swan is seen in the photograph to the right explaining the process to individuals who have been determined to be eligible to receive their own apartment under the Housing First Initiative.
The individuals were identified based on the length of time they have been homeless, and the acuity of their physical condition, including mental illness or history of substance abuse. Under the Housing First approach, approximately 300 individuals will be placed in their own apartments and will receive case management services to assist them in meeting their basic human needs, and if possible, finding gainful employment. As the Department of Human Services identified long-term residents of the emergency shelter system to place in their own homes, they eliminated a corresponding number of beds at the Franklin School Shelter downtown. By Friday morning, September 26, the Department had placed enough people in their own apartments to completely shudder the shelter at 13th and K Streets NW.  That morning, we visited the school again, this time witnessing a sizeable police presence, combined with a large number of workers from the Office of Property Management that arrived to begin the process of dismantling the Franklin School Shelter beds. Individuals protesting the closure of Franklin can be seen gathering in front of the former school building.
Emergency shelter will continue to be available for the homeless population at facilities located away from the downtown business district. As a result, many homeless individuals and advocates for the homeless, are concerned that the downtown homeless population will no longer be able to receive needed services. Housing First is a radical reform to the way the District provides services to its homeless population. As the events of this week demonstrate, it is not free of controversy or hard choices. How this issue plays out over the coming days, weeks and months, will determine the success of homeless services reform in the District of Columbia.
One person has commented on this article. (1) Untitled
2008-09-29 13:31:46 More cobledygoop from Mayor Fenty. If everyone has a home, then there won't be homeless downtown or anywhere. To be "determined to be eligible" other than homeless is nonsence and with out any real infrastucture to provide financial and mental/medical/substance abuse support. This is just BULL !!!! Stop this crazy Mayor and his henchmen NOW. |
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