{"id":157,"date":"2019-03-07T13:12:57","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T13:12:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/?p=157"},"modified":"2019-03-07T15:23:15","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T15:23:15","slug":"d-c-plans-its-exit-from-the-motels-it-uses-as-homeless-shelters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/157\/","title":{"rendered":"D.C. Plans Its Exit From the Motels It Uses As Homeless Shelters"},"content":{"rendered":"

www.washingtoncitypaper.com\/news\/housing-complex\/article\/21049910\/dc-plans-its-exit-from-the-motels-it-uses-as-homeless-shelters<\/a>
\nD.C. Plans Its Exit From the Motels It Uses As Homeless Shelters But advocates are worried that the move does not reflect a decline in need.
\nDarrow MontgomeryD.C.\u2019s Department of Human Services is preparing to wind down its use of motels as overflow homeless shelters, an email sent by the agency director shows. The plan comes as the agency touts its success in combating family homelessness.
\nCity Paper obtained a copy of the email, which outlines the agency\u2019s projected exit dates through the end of 2020. On Feb. 25, through a DHS staff member, agency director Laura Zeilinger sent an email to unnamed \u201cstakeholders\u201d that outlines the agency\u2019s plan to fully exit four motel shelters by the close of next year.
\nSince the beginning of 2019, the agency has already moved families out of two motel shelters with which it has maintained lucrative shelter contracts, including the Motel 6 on Georgia Avenue NW, and Ivy City Hotel on New York Ave. NE.
\n\u201cThere are 14 percent fewer families in temporary shelter than this time last year … This year, we have fully exited from two motels and we are on track to fully exit from two more. Many stakeholders have asked about our timeline for reducing our reliance on motels, so I am sharing our projections below,\u201d Zeilinger wrote.
\nShe continued: \u201cContinuing to close out motels is contingent on a variety of factors, but achieving the goal hinges primarily on our ability to successfully prevent families from coming into our emergency shelter system by offering prevention services and by reducing the length of time that families spend in shelter.\u201d
\nThe agency plans to fully exit New York Avenue NE\u2019s Howard Johnson motel by March 31, Zeilinger writes. The Hotel Arboretum, which has 126 units of shelter space, will stop serving residents in the third quarter of this year. DHS also plans to exit the Days Inn on New York Avenue NE, which at 170 rooms is the largest contracted motel shelter in the city, by the first quarter of 2020. It will exit the strip\u2019s Quality Inn, with 126 units, by the third quarter of 2020.
\nOn March 4, DHS sent a letter to families staying in the Hotel Arboretum, notifying them that on May 30, DHS will transition all remaining families out of the shelter through rapid rehousing subsidies or to other emergency shelters. \u201cFamilies who do not participate in housing viewing tours or apply for units independently will receive a notice of non- compliance, which may result in termination from shelter or transfer to another shelter placement,\u201d the letter reads.
\nThese plans don\u2019t require prematurely terminating the agency\u2019s contracts with those shelters. DHS\u2019 contract with the Hotel Arboretum\u2013\u2013known as the Holiday Inn Express before it rebranded\u2013\u2013expires on May 25. Its contract with Days Inn expires in December; ditto its contract with the Quality Inn.
\nAdvocates have long expressed concern about the safety of using motels as family homeless shelters. The buildings long used by DHS to house chronically homeless families are largely situated on the New York Avenue NE corridor, where children have to cross six lanes of traffic to get snacks from a 7-Eleven.
\n City Paper has also reported on the physical conditions of these motels, which have often included pest and rodent infestations. Other residents say their units are covered in mold.
\nDHS relied on the capacity these motels provided as the agency, in concert with others, wound down operations at the DC General campus, a former hospital that became the District\u2019s largest family homeless shelter. Mayor Muriel Bowser closed the dilapidated facility permanently last October, and has plans to open smaller shelters in wards across the city.
\nBut for some of the organizations that provide social services to homeless families, the rapid succession of changes in the District\u2019s shelter system has destabilized their programming, and made it difficult to provide continuous services to children.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve only been in Hotel Arboretum since September [of] last year and already we\u2019re having to make plans to move out,\u201d says Jamila Larson, the executive director of the Homeless Children\u2019s Playtime Project, a long-running organization that provides structured activities and other resources for homeless children across different age groups.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve had a good partnership with the hotel, which supported our ability to serve three age groups in differentiated space. We hope moving forward we can continue to have such relationships with new shelter sites, and look forward to learning more about the city\u2019s plans. We\u2019re always focused on access to play and other services for children and the long-term stability for their families,\u201d she says.
\nOther advocates appear worried that the move obscures the scope of D.C.\u2019s homelessness problem. At an annual performance oversight hearing for DHS on March 1, attorney Amber Harding of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless shared concerns that DHS\u2019 plan to reduce motel use does not reflect a decline in need for the space.
\n\u201cReducing shelter usage does not necessarily equate to reducing family homelessness,\u201d Harding testified about the agency\u2019s plans to reduce motel use. \u201cPolicies and practices that are primarily aimed at reducing shelter usage without considering the impact on reducing homelessness may result in increased trauma and instability for families.\u201d
\n\u201cOther D.C. agency numbers show family homelessness rising, not going down. The number of homeless children in D.C.\u2019s schools has increased 26 percent since 2015, doubled since 2014,\u201d her testimony says. \u201cIn 2018, more than three times the number of children counted in the Point in Time count were experiencing homelessness in D.C. schools\u20146,140 children. That means there were 4,207 children experiencing homelessness in our schools who were not counted in the 2018 Point in Time count. Family homelessness is not decreasing\u2013\u2013family shelter usage is.\u201d
\nAt a performance oversight hearing earlier that day for the District\u2019s Interagency Council on Homelessness, director Kristy Greenwalt testified before the housing and human services committees that D.C. has housing resources for only about one out of every 10 single homeless adults.
\nGreenwalt said that the District has managed to reduce family homelessness, but continues to tread water providing services to homeless single adults, who have entered the city\u2019s homeless service system in large numbers over the last year.
\nThe next slate of family shelters are scheduled to open in wards 3, 5, and 6. Zeilinger also testified that while the Ward 3 and 5 shelters are on schedule, the site in Ward 6 is facing construction delays and won\u2019t open until the fall. She did not specify the reason for the delay.<\/p>\n

Mary Bolton 202-390-1208<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

www.washingtoncitypaper.com\/news\/housing-complex\/article\/21049910\/dc-plans-its-exit-from-the-motels-it-uses-as-homeless-shelters D.C. Plans Its Exit From the Motels It Uses As Homeless Shelters But advocates are worried that the move does not reflect a decline in need. Darrow MontgomeryD.C.\u2019s Department of Human Services is preparing to wind down its use of motels as overflow homeless shelters, an email sent by the agency director shows. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-housingarchive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}