{"id":413,"date":"2019-07-09T23:05:52","date_gmt":"2019-07-09T23:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/?p=413"},"modified":"2019-07-10T00:16:27","modified_gmt":"2019-07-10T00:16:27","slug":"william-jordan-analysis-a-lesser-ward-1-the-bowser-nadeau-homeless-shelter-plan-i","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/413\/","title":{"rendered":"William Jordan Analysis: A Lesser Ward 1: The Bowser-Nadeau Homeless Shelter Plan I"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was originally posted to the Adams Morgan Listserv on January 1, 2018, as message #47200, groups.yahoo.com\/neo\/groups\/AdamsMorgan\/conversations\/messages\/47200<\/a><\/p>\n

The Bowser-Nadeau plan for the Ward 1 (now Columbia Heights) Family Shelter <dc.gov\/release\/mayor-bowser-announces-ward-1-short-term-family-housing-program-site<\/a>> is fundamentally flawed and rooted in false premises. Simply moving the flawed project from 10th St. to 14th St. does nothing to fix the plan’s fundamental flaws. Unfortunately, the meeting on January 18th will be designed to seek community buy in for this lesser approach rooted in the Ward 1 corollary “The Peter Principle <www.investopedia.com\/terms\/p\/peter-principle.asp<\/a>>”.<\/p>\n

The Peter Principle observes that, “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”<\/p>\n

The Ward 1 corollary states that, “when a public policy hierarchy reaches competency saturation, political leaders will lower the community and economic development bar to match their level of incompetence.”<\/p>\n

Which leads us to just a few of the proposed project’s key flaws.<\/p>\n

1. The Bowser-Nadeau Plan states, “The District is developing a Short-term Family Housing program at 2500 14th St NW as part of the All 8 Wards strategy to close the DC General Family Shelter.”<\/p>\n

The Plan is a significant lowering of the affordable housing goals stated in Mayor William’s 2004, “Homeless No More, A Strategy for Ending Homlessness in Washington, DC by 2014 <dev.cohho.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Homeless-No-More.pdf<\/a>>” which sets the bar at,<\/p>\n

“Develop and\/or subsidize at least 6,000 net additional units of affordable, supportive permanent
\nhousing to meet the needs of the city\u2019s homeless…”<\/p>\n

The “Homeless No More” plan which calls for developing and preserving permanent housing to attack homeless is also consistent with the City’s 2006 Comprehensive Plan for the Ward and 14th St. corridor <planning.dc.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/dc\/sites\/op\/publication\/attachments\/District%20Elements_Volume%20II_Chapter%2020_April%208%202011.pdf<\/a>>. The Bowser-Nadeau Plan to the contrary calls for lowering the bar to replace a temporary big shelter with permanent small shelters. Effectively making homelessness a permanent goal and feature of our housing policy, lowering the public policy bar.<\/p>\n

2. This of course sheds light on another aspect of the Bowser-Nadeau Plan’s fundamental flaw, team competency. A read of the Mayor’s plan to close DC General indicates that Mayor’s team took almost a year to develop its “All 8 Ward Strategy” that is announced on on February 11, 2016. About 23 months later on December 7, 2017 they announce this new plan we are to hear more about on January 18th.<\/p>\n

In other words, it’s taking them about 3 years to tell this community that they are going to move their failed plan, which was already designed to a lower standard, down the street. Even if we were to except the new plan without question, unless there is some major change, we don’t have a team competent enough to implement it.<\/p>\n

3. Of course just a little more research would reveal that even if we put together a competent team, the Bowser-Nadeau Plan does not even do to much to contribute to its stated goal of closing DC General. At best their plan would contribute a net of 7 new units housing units. This is because the proposed 35 family units at 2500 14th would replace 28 existing units located at 1433-35 Spring Rd, NW, just off of 14th St. Yep. The Bowser-Nadeau Plan will take over 5 years and expend over $20M to produce 7 net temporary units. The Peter Principle on full display.<\/p>\n

I raised just a fnew of these flaws because as residents and other stakeholders of Ward 1 and Columbia Heights, it is going to fall upon us to rescue the Bowser-Nadeau Plan from the “Peter Principle”. The rescue is going to require civic and political courage, lots of work. And looking past the “happy talk” we are going to get on the 18th. As well, the moral courage to at least stand by the higher standard and goals of the “Homeless No More” plan and the Comprehensive plan. 14th St already hosts over 65 units of tempoary housing <mayor.dc.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/dc\/sites\/mayormb\/publication\/attachments\/Emergency%20Shelter%20Capacity%20by%20Ward.pdf<\/a>> for homeless families with support services. We need to be building permament housing for families in the Ward not shelters.<\/p>\n

William<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was originally posted to the Adams Morgan Listserv on January 1, 2018, as message #47200, groups.yahoo.com\/neo\/groups\/AdamsMorgan\/conversations\/messages\/47200 The Bowser-Nadeau plan for the Ward 1 (now Columbia Heights) Family Shelter is fundamentally flawed and rooted in false premises. Simply moving the flawed project from 10th St. to 14th St. does nothing to fix the plan’s fundamental […]<\/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-413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-housingarchive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413","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=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.dcfeedback.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}