Homelessness and Homeless Services

I have been evicted—one winter. It was December, Christmas 2002. It was cold .…I didn't know where the shelter was located, and I noticed the back door open, and I went in the trash chute and fell asleep…. I didn't find shelter until three days after.— Ivan D. SOME Client

Ivan in kitchen at SOME SRO

In mid-January 2008, 6,044 people in the District were literally homeless—a 5% increase over 2007. About 30% of these homeless people were in families. An additional 3,006 people were in permanent supportive housing--at risk of homelessness without ongoing services and housing subsidies.

More people are homeless in the course of a year than are counted on any one day. In the District, as many as 20,000 people may be homeless at some point in the year.

Different Causes, Different Needs

People can become homeless for many reasons. One of the most important is the continuing loss of affordable housing in D.C., combined with rising utility and other living costs.

Another cause is the lack of effective planning to ensure safe, supportive housing for people discharged from hospitals and other institutions. Each year, an estimated 6,400 people are discharged from public institutions onto the streets or into homeless shelters that require them to be out on their own during the day.

These are not the only people who need more than a roof over their heads. Many homeless people need help to overcome problems that caused them to become homeless. They and others too often need help in securing the services and income supports available to them. Still others—for example, severely disabled individuals—may need housing that includes ongoing assistance with daily living.

Whatever the causes, people who become homeless need shelter right away. There are not enough beds in D.C. emergency shelters for everyone who needs them. Nor are enough shelters suitable for individuals, couples, families, or young people, many of whom are escaping domestic and other violence.

D.C. Government Response

In 2004, the District issued a plan to end homeless in the District by 2014. This plan recognized the need to prevent homelessness, significantly increase the number of affordable permanent housing units with onsite supportive services, and provide neighborhood-based services so that formerly homeless individuals in other permanent housing can achieve stability. Progress has been made toward these objectives, but there is a long way to go.

SOME provides a variety of transitional housing options that offers safe, structured living environments and services to help residents move from dependence to sustainable independence. We also provide a "safe house" for homeless people awaiting placement in our residential addiction treatment programs.

With our coalition partners, we are advocating for a range of initiatives to increase the availability of affordable housing in the District, including housing with supportive services for individuals and families with mental health and substance abuse problems.

We are also advocating for:

• Increased funding for apartment-style emergency shelters for families. The need for appropriate emergency shelter far exceeds the supply. Approximately 350 families are on the waiting list at any given time. Last year, nearly 75% of applicants placed were sent to the hypothermia center at D.C. General Hospital, which is only open in very cold weather, or to D.C. Village, which is now closed.

• Appropriate shelter for homeless individuals. As the experience with D.C. Village shows, the District should shift its approach to shelter for homeless individuals from large warehouse-like facilities to efficiency units and single room occupancy units in smaller buildings.

• 24/7 access to emergency shelter. Emergency shelters are currently open from only 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., even for families with small children. Turned out onto the streets, homeless people have no daytime base from which to seek employment or access to needed services. They are sometimes exposed to extremely cold temperatures and thus at risk of hypothermia.

• Better planning and coordination to ensure that homeless people have suitable shelter in extremely cold weather. On extremely cold nights, hypothermia centers have more guests than beds for them to sleep on. Hypothermia alerts, which trigger the opening of the emergency shelters, are not always called when one expects. The same is true for alerts in dangerously hot weather.

• Stepped-up efforts to prevent homelessness, including job training and adult literacy programs and financial assistance with housing and utilities costs.

Resources

Facts & Figures

• Poverty in Washington, D.C.
• Housing Costs in Washington D.C.

Reports

• A Snapshot of Adult Shelter Use in Washington, D.C.: February 2004, T.J. Sutcliffe (March 2004)
• Adult Shelter Use in DC Over the 2003–2004 Winter, T.J. Sutcliffe (October 2004)
• Adult Shelter Use in DC Over the 2002–2003 Winter, T.J. Sutcliffe (November 2003) 

Recent Testimony

• Regarding Oversight of the Department of Human Services (Nechama Masliansky) (February 20, 2008)
• Regarding Oversight of the Department of Human Services (Joni Podschun) (February 20, 2008)
• Regarding the Public Oversight Roundable Regarding Poverty Issues (January 16, 2008)

To monitor emergency shelter availability and use, SOME maintains daily logs of temperatures, alerts called and beds in use, by ward. These are available, upon request, from advocacy@some.org.

Additional Resources