By Paul Schwartzman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 28, 2008

Tommy Wells, the D.C. Council member, was eating watermelon and checking his e-mail yesterday when the buzzer rang.

The council member's niece glanced out the window and told her uncle that he might want to have a look for himself. Amassed below were about 75 advocates for the homeless, protesting the impending plan by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's administration to shutter a downtown shelter.

"Good to see y'all," the Ward 6 Democrat said, smiling as he stepped outside in a T-shirt and plaid shorts, his sockless feet tucked into a pair of brown loafers. "What's up?"

The demonstrators said they aimed their complaints at Wells because he monitors the homeless as chairman of the council's Committee on Human Services. Wells told them that he shared their concerns about the future of the Franklin School Shelter, at 13th and K streets NW.

The Fenty administration had sought this month to win council approval to close the emergency shelter. But the council held up the proposal, Wells said, because the administration provided no details on where it would shelter the several hundred men who use Franklin.

"I want to know what the plan is," Wells told the crowd. "The fact that they're not putting a plan out there, that's a problem."

Dan Tangherlini, the District's city administrator, said the administration has been public with its goal to shut Franklin in October, describing the shelter as "old and decrepit." The District, he said, is identifying 550 units of housing for people who regularly use city shelters.

Although the administration hopes to locate the housing by the time it closes Franklin, Tangherlini said people who use the shelter can use other homeless facilities in the city. "We're going to get apartments for the chronic users, and that will free up space in the other shelters," he said. "What we're focusing on is not an endless continuous investment in shelters, but providing people with housing."

Tangherlini said the District has no specific plans for the Franklin shelter once it is vacant.

The protest was at least the second in recent weeks organized by Tom Howarth, director of the Father McKenna Center, which provides drop-in services to the homeless at St. Aloysius Catholic Church on North Capitol Street.

In almost 90-degree heat, the demonstrators marched 1 1/2 miles from the center's headquarters to Wells's apartment building on Fourth Street SE. The crowd included a handful of homeless people.

Howarth said the District is pushing homeless services away from downtown, forcing people to seek shelter on the edges of the city, at facilities on New York Avenue in Northeast Washington at St. Elizabeths Hospital in Southeast.

"It sends the message that the society is not interested in their problems," Howarth said.

But Howarth also raised concerns that another shelter is coming to his neighborhood. This month, the council approved selling the Gales School to the Central Union Mission, which is moving from 14th Street NW.

The Gales School, a former shelter near Union Station at 65 Massachusetts Ave. NW, is a few blocks from the Father McKenna Center.

Howarth said that the opening of another homeless facility in the neighborhood could create even more demand and strain services for his center. "If they come, we will take the challenge," he said, referring to Central Union. "What I object to is that the public sector put the challenge to us without asking us."

Standing in front of Wells's apartment, Howarth said the council member and his aides have ignored his requests to discuss the sale of the Gales School shelter.

"We're tired of being ignored," Howarth said.

Wells apologized, saying that he was unaware of the request. At various points during his spirited chat with the demonstrators, Wells reminded them that he had lobbied for additional funding for homeless services. He also said that the ultimate solution is permanent housing, not shelters.