DC Human Services Director Ducks Responsibility For Family Shelter Crisis

Last Wednesday, the end of the District’s hypothermia season, the DC Council’s Human Services Committee revisited the vexed matter of the 2009-10 Winter Plan for homeless services.

The hearing went on for about seven hours. Though officially billed as a review of how the winter plan had been implemented, most of it was devoted to testimony by parents housed or formerly housed at DC General–the only facility dedicated solely to winter-only space for homeless families.

Thanks to persistent investigative reporting by Jason Cherkis at Washington City Paper, the rest of us already knew a good bit about major problems there–mold, leaks, peeling paint (maybe lead-based), pest infestations, food that apparently sickened some children, workers who propositioned residents and/or sold drugs, caseworkers who failed to screen incoming residents for potential mental health problems or to help residents get the heck out of the place.

Still, it was acutely distressing to hear residents speak of their personal experiences.

• A pregnant mother in a room too hot to stay in because the window wouldn’t open and whose four-year-old couldn’t play on the floor because of the rats, droppings and roaches.
• Another mother who couldn’t get food for her wheat-intolerant son or access a kitchen so she could prepare food for him.
• A disabled woman who had to walk down four flights of stairs because the elevators were broken.
• A woman who told her caseworker she wanted to get out and was asked, “How are you going to do that?”

Many viewed the hearing as a proceeding against Families Forward, the nonprofit contractor for managing the family shelter portion of DC General. Supporters showed up in tee shirts reading “Support Families Forward.”

Staff praised the leadership, spoke convincingly of how they cared for the residents and had guidance about what to do in cases of untoward events, like the deaths of two newborns in the last 12 months. Some clients also spoke favorably about operations at DC General, especially the kindness and helpfulness of caseworkers.

All for naught. The Families Forward contract expires at the end of the month. Mayor Fenty has announced it won’t be renewed–a belated effort at damage control.

It’s hard to argue that Families Forward should retain responsibility for the day-to-day operations at DC General. But the problems there didn’t originate with the contractor. Nor will they be resolved by bringing in another.

When the Interagency Council for Homelessness issued its draft winter plan last summer, advocates questioned its proposal for family shelter space. So did I. The numbers just didn’t add up. Nor did they seem realistic in light of the rising tide of family homelessness and dismal projections for the economy.

Yet Clarence Carter, head of the Human Services Department, insisted that all would be well–that DHS had “identified all the needed resources to meet the full demand for homeless services during the hypothermia season, as outlined in the District’s 2009-2010 Winter Plan.

Some ambiguity there. But notwithstanding the $12 million cut for homeless services, both he and the final winter plan itself repeatedly committed to opening additional facilities if needs exceeded projections.

Winter set in. The temperatures dropped–also record-setting amounts of snow. In mid-February, 170 families were crammed into a facility with 124 contracted units. Nine units were added. The snow melted. And, in mid-March, there were 75 more families than units–some on cots lined up in activity rooms, some bedded down in hallways.

Yet apparently no one from DHS went out to look at the situation. Indeed, Carter testified that the prime contractor for homeless services, the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, was responsible for monitoring homeless shelters, not DHS.

And who was monitoring to make sure the that Partnership had the resources for the task? Who was checking on whether the agencies responsible for the physical conditions at DC General were doing their job? Apparently no one.

The District is legally responsible for the safety and well-being of its most vulnerable residents–not the Partnership nor its subcontractors. It shouldn’t take a public relations disaster and the threat of a lawsuit to trigger action on problems that anyone could have identified some months ago.

Contract monitoring is a basic agency function. If DHS didn’t have the resources for it, then someone should have come forth and said so.

Thoughts On Home and Homelessness

Those of you who’ve been following this blog for a long time know that my husband and I became homeless, in a manner of speaking, in mid-February. I say “in a manner of speaking” because we weren’t evicted but displaced by a fire. So, thanks to insurance, we’ve had a place to stay.

After countless complications, permits and inspections, we’re finally going home. Which has got me thinking again about what it means to not have a home–no place to live that you feel is your own, a center you can come back to for as long as you want.

The definition here captures what I’ve learned first-hand. Being homeless means having no rock-bottom sense of safety and stability. And this is a basic human need.

A new brief by the National Child Traumatic Stress Network reminds us of the many lasting effects homelessness has on children. It leads off with the profound destabilizing experience of becoming homeless–the impact of “loss of community, routines, possessions, privacy, and security.”

The report goes on to detail the additional trauma children and their parents can suffer due to shelter living, the stresses of needing to reestablish a home and problems that could have precipitated their homelessness, e.g., acute poverty, parental illness.

Many studies indicate that these have serious, lifelong impacts on children. But another recent report suggests that residential instability itself plays a role, whether children spend time in a shelter or just moving from one temporary housing situation to another. The effects are greatest on very young children.

I wonder whether this doesn’t have something to do with the fact that frequent moves are more destabilizing for them. A young child, after all, doesn’t really understand what’s happening or have an adult grasp of the temporary or the future. It’s just one sudden loss after another. Consider too that the losses can include caregivers and parental attention–even loss of parents themselves.

All of which makes me doubly aware of how fortunate I’ve been–and how skewed our national priorities are when we’ve got a $3 trillion budget and well over 500,000 homeless families.

Revised Winter Shelter Plan Still Iffy For Homeless DC Families

The Interagency Council on Homelessness met last month to consider the District’s plan for sheltering homeless individuals and families during the winter months ahead. The plan before the Council indicated considerably more shelter capacity for families than the draft I wrote about awhile ago.

What we see now proposes a total of 228 family shelter units, plus 73 new units of permanent supportive housing. Of the shelter units, 128 are open year round. (These weren’t reflected in the prior draft.) An additional 75 units are designated as winter-only, and up to 25 more would open if these were full.

Last year, the plan says, a total of 210 family units were available during the hypothermia season. The District’s 2009 homeless count report says there were 237 units. So capacity for the upcoming season would be increased by either 30% or 21%. That’s a lot, by either measure. Is it enough? Who knows?

What we do know is that:

• As many as 37 of the family units the plan designates as winter-only have been used this summer because all the year-round units have been full. So they’re not all really additional seasonal capacity, as the winter plan says.
• All family units currently available have been full virtually every night since at least the beginning of September.
• As of the latest published report, there were 382 families on the shelter waiting list–81 more than the total number of shelter units, plus PSH units in the winter plan.
• Only 16 more PSH units are scheduled to open before November. The remainder included in the winter plan are already occupied and thus not additional space.
• The Fenty administration has just cut the homeless services budget by $20 million. Advocates say that families now in emergency shelter units included in the winter plan are at immediate risk of eviction.

The committee charged with developing the winter plan faces a difficult challenge. One truly can’t know how many homeless people will need shelter on any given night. But for individual men and women, the committee projected need as 110% of the maximum number of beds used last winter.

I’ve been told the same can’t be done for families. I’ve tried hard to find out why. One reason, it seems, is that the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center, which handles intake and placement for all homeless D.C. families, sends some to accommodations that aren’t part of the daily reports used for the winter plan. I gather they’re not in these reports because the providers serve only certain types of homeless families, e.g., victims of domestic violence. Why figures from the FRC records couldn’t be used to project need is an open question.

A further stumbling block for the winter plan is the District’s intent to make better use of transitional housing. But there’s no plan that indicates how many families could be diverted from the shelter system, in part because transitional housing providers have various eligibility requirements. And the new homeless services budget cut may impact them too.

The District also expects to ramp up its services to prevent homelessness, thanks to the $7.4 million for homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing that  it received under the federal economic recovery act. But here again, no numbers to indicate how this will affect needs for emergency shelter.

ICH didn’t adopt the proposed winter plan, as expected. A majority of advocates on the Council wouldn’t vote for it–for reasons having nothing to do with the family numbers. The City Administrator, Neal Albert, and Clarence Carter, head of the DC Human Services Department, were clearly frustrated.

Carter kept repeating that what really matters is the administration’s commitment to protect homeless people from cold weather. If there’s not enough capacity, he said, “we’ll bring more on.” Let’s assume that’s true, notwithstanding the huge budget cut.

We’re still left with a serious issue about the projections that will be used for the winter plan. After all, the District won’t be able to contract for more family shelter space overnight.

And if a mere assurance that the administration will fulfill its legal obligations is good enough, then what do we need a winter plan–or a multi-stakeholder Council–for anyway?

Winter Shelter Plan Leaves DC Families Out In the Cold

Under District law, homeless residents have a right to shelter in severe weather. The law requires a multi-stakeholder group–the Interagency Council on Homelessness–to develop an annual plan for ensuring that enough shelter space in available during winter months.

Advocates who monitor shelter space have raised serious concerns about current capacity. So what ICH plans to do for the upcoming winter months, when people without shelter are at risk of freezing to death, should get a careful look.

I’m told that ICH projected shelter space needs for individuals based on peak use during the 2008-9 winter season. So let’s do the same for families.

On peak use night, 211 families were in shelters provided by nonprofits the District contracts with. The draft plan for this winter calls for 75 units, plus 25 in reserve when these are full.

The plan also includes new supportive housing units. The District expects to have 80 more units for families open before November 1. Only 28 are open now. But let’s assume all the rest open on time. That’s still a total of only 180 units for families–about 85% of peak use during the 2008-9 winter season.

It’s hard to know how many units would be enough. What we do know is that, in mid-July, there were at least 285 families on the waiting list for shelter space.

We also know that the unemployment rate is expected to rise and that breadwinners who’ve been jobless for a long time may not have any unemployment benefits after December. So it seems reasonable to expect that more families will find themselves without the money for rent or mortgage payments.

Fred Swann, head of the Family Services Administration, discounts concerns about inadequate family shelter space. “We hear that every year,” he says. “We’ll make adjustments as needed.” Well, they haven’t done it for the families on the shelter waiting list. So what will they do that’s new and different in the months ahead?

I’m told there’s a group working on a plan to reduce needs for emergency shelter by maximizing use of transitional housing. I wonder how many vacant transitional housing units for families the District will have to work with at any given time.

Crunching the numbers, it would seem that, at peak, there should be 54–or about 10% of all the transitional housing units in D.C. That seems like a lot of vacant units to count on. If it isn’t, then we need to know why–and when the transitional housing plan will be in place.

The District should be proud of creating a right to shelter in severe weather. But having a right isn’t going to keep a family safe and warm. Only a realistic plan can do that.

To my mind, the draft winter plan doesn’t make the grade. The numbers for families just don’t add up. But maybe we’ll be offered something better in the days ahead.