Families In District Struggling For Shelter

By Elissa Silverman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 22, 2006

The number of homeless families seeking shelter in the District has more than doubled in the past decade, a problem worsened by rising rents and a steady decline in the supply of low-cost housing. City officials say the situation has created a crisis and have asked landlords to delay evicting tenants who are unable to pay their rent.

Two years after Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) announced his "Homeless No More" initiative, an ambitious plan to "end homelessness as we know it" by 2014, top officials in the Human Services Department are scrambling to find available housing space before temperatures plummet.

Williams's plan called for building 3,000 housing units for low-income families, in line with a nationwide trend to move away from temporary shelter toward more comprehensive programs that combat poverty.

"Homeless No More is a long-term plan that doesn't address the short-term crisis which is occurring right now," said Kate Jesberg, who served as interim director of the city's Human Services Department until her retirement at the end of last month. She and her successor, Brian L. Wilbon, worry that many families might have no place to live by the end of the year.

A total of 2,839 families applied for emergency shelter in fiscal 2006, which ended Sept. 30, according to the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, the nonprofit organization that administers the city's homeless services. That is a decrease from the peak of 3,326 in 2004, but fewer housing units are available than previously, officials said. In fiscal 1996, 1,406 families applied for shelter.

Deputy Mayor Brenda Donald Walker said the city is "on target" with Williams's plan, having built 300 units of transitional housing in the first full year of implementation. "We've made tremendous progress," said Walker, deputy mayor for children, youth, families and elders. But she acknowledged that demand for shelter, especially for families, far exceeds supply.

The number of such transitional housing units is dwarfed by the growing problem. Because of rising housing prices in the District, fewer affordable apartments are available. Between 2000 and 2004, according to a report by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, the District lost 7,500 apartments priced at less than $500 a month. Housing officials say that more than 50,000 people are on waiting lists for a spot in public housing or through local aid or federally subsidized voucher programs.

Jesberg said she is so concerned that some weeks ago, as interim director of the human services agency, she urged a vice president of the Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington, the city's biggest housing lobby, to encourage building owners to delay evicting tenants. She asked the public housing authority director to do the same. Jesberg said she wanted landlords to give the city a chance to implement a new $7 million rental assistance program.

The building association understands the concern, a spokesman said. Michael Kelly, executive director of the District of Columbia Housing Authority, said decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis.

Many families who get into emergency shelter often can't afford to move out, according to Jesberg. The average length of stay in a District shelter two years ago was four months, but now the average is 18 months, according to numbers provided by the Community Partnership. "We have more people coming in the front door than . . . can get out of the system," Jesberg said.

Kishi Washington and her brother are among those caught by the public housing problem. Washington, 25, was unable to get help last month at the city's homeless intake center at 25 M St. SW, where she learned 350 families were ahead of her on an emergency shelter waiting list. Out of 1,394 D.C. families that applied between January and August, only 160 received assistance.

"I'll have to go down my friends list and see if there's somewhere we can go," Washington said in a soft voice, after she had called her case worker to check whether a shelter spot might have come available.

Washington is a District native who said she hasn't lived with a parent since she was 3 months old. She has lived with a cousin, an aunt and other relatives, including a sister, who died this year. After she died, Washington and her brother moved out of her home and started staying with friends.

When she agreed to meet a reporter, Washington was staying in a three-bedroom unit in a public housing complex in Southeast, which housed a friend and five of the friend's relatives. At night, Washington and her 12-year-old brother slept on a twin mattress in the living room, positioning her head on top while most of her body remained on the floor. Sometimes she moved to a chair, she said, because mice ran across the floor. Her friend was threatened with eviction if she housed the Washingtons any longer.

Washington, who is in a job-training program and seeking work, said she has looked for an apartment she could afford with her $320 monthly government assistance but has found none.

The District has 164 emergency or temporary shelter units for families, although homeless advocates insist that the largest shelter, D.C. Village, does not comply with local law requiring families to live in apartment-style units. Additional spaces are opened during winter months.

On Oct. 10, for example, 73 families -- 97 adults and 138 children -- stayed the night at D.C. Village, according to daily intake records. The former city-owned nursing home campus is largely abandoned, and families housed there speak about frequent water and sewer breakdowns, electrical problems and infestation of mice and other vermin.

Ward 4 D.C. Council member Adrian M. Fenty, the Democratic nominee for mayor, has chaired the committee with oversight of the city's homeless services for two years and has held several hearings at D.C. Village. Fenty is widely expected to win the mayor's race in the predominantly Democratic District.

"This government has not done enough to provide services and opportunity for those who need it. Going forward, we need less rhetoric and more follow through and accountability," Fenty said in an e-mail.

Walker, the deputy mayor, said she hopes the city will close D.C. Village by next year. "D.C. Village is fraught with a lot of problems," she said. "It's not an ideal situation for families."

Over the past few decades, the city has sought to provide, but not always achieved, acceptable conditions for the homeless. Under the District "right to shelter" law in the 1980s, families were sometimes given shelter in dirty, cramped rooms in budget motels that cost the city millions of dollars. The measure was repealed in 1990.

A few years later, the District teamed up with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for an initiative in which administration, budget and services were controlled by the Community Partnership, but the city's fiscal crisis soon after led to sharp reductions in funding until recent years.

For this fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, the District has budgeted $29 million in city funds for homeless services, which is an increase of approximately $4 million over last fiscal year.

Even with more funding, the city will not be able to help the vast majority of families who ask for aid. The wait for emergency shelter is at least six months, according to the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless.

"There's a lack of political will to solve this problem," said Sczerina Perot, a lawyer with the clinic.

City officials said that creating a waiting list was more compassionate than assigning housing in a first-come, first-serve system under which families might otherwise camp out at 25 M St. for a spot. They said that case workers take a triage approach, prioritizing families who have the greatest need.

But in practice, the system doesn't always work that way.

Gail Plowden, 30, and her daughters have been seeking more permanent shelter for four years. Plowden works part time at Greater Southeast Community Hospital and has made trips to the 25 M St. intake center over the years with little success.

"The longer you keep people in crisis, the more damage gets done and the longer it takes to move on," said Mary Ann Luby, Washington Legal Clinic's outreach coordinator.

A growing number of homeless families have parents who work but still need help.

A father of two adolescent boys, Ronald, who did not want his last name published because his employer doesn't know he's homeless, also went to 25 M St. and was told there was no space for his family.

He said he earns $14.50 an hour at a full-time job in Northern Virginia, but he has had trouble finding an affordable apartment in the District. According to the Washington Legal Clinic, a family in the District needs to earn at least $23 an hour full time to afford the average-priced two-bedroom apartment in the city.

In September, Ronald and his two boys lived in motels. The lodgings might have had no frills but they weren't cheap. First, they stayed in a Travelodge on New York Avenue NE but moved to the less expensive Budget Motor Inn farther up the road. The boys stayed overnight with a relative when money ran out.

"There's just nothing out there for an average guy," said Ronald, who said that high rents and bad credit leave them few housing options.

"I hate it," Ronald's 9-year-old son, Da'myon, said of the family's nomadic housing as his father took him to school one morning. "It leaves us no money."

With a referral from 25 M St., Ronald found an apartment this month.