Former Mayor Adrian Fenty has been vindicated by a ruling from the District’s highest court in favor of the city’s right to shut down a downtown homeless shelter, but it was decisions like the closing of the Franklin School Men’s Shelter that helped scuttle Fenty’s re-election bid. Fenty closed the shelter in September 2008 as part of a wider plan to place the homeless in apartments. Before the doors could close, however, Fenty found himself in a heated battle with the council and, soon after, a group of plaintiffs. Those plaintiffs have now lost in the D.C. Court of Appeals after numerous appeals to city officials and the courts to keep the shelter open. The homeless advocates who filed the suit couched their arguments in the Constitution. They defined the shelter as the homeless residents’ property, saying District law entitled them to it. The advocates then argued that by shutting the shelter the Fenty administration was denying the homeless men their constitutional right to due process.
The appeals court said that’s not so, in its decision announced on Thursday.
“A homeless person or client who receives medical or other services in the District from a provider does not have a protected property right or interest in those services grounded either in the Constitution or any District of Columbia statute,” the three-judge panel ruled.
So the former Franklin School Men’s Shelter will remain closed. Though he couldn’t be reached Thursday for comment, the victory is likely bittersweet for the former mayor.
In August, as he fought for re-election, Fenty issued an apology to voters, saying he was sorry for giving the impression that he didn’t care what others thought as he focused on getting “results.”
Fenty found himself locked in a battle with the council and community activists as soon as he announced that the shelter on the 900 block of 13th Street NW would be closed. Then council Chairman Vincent Gray led the charge, saying Fenty needed to be transparent on the issue. On the campaign trail leading to the Democratic primary in September, Gray cited the closing of the shelter as an example of Fenty’s failure to work well with others.
