Mayor Adrian Fenty announced Wednesday the administration’s strategy for decreasing chronic homelessness and creating permanent housing with support services such as counseling and employment assistance.
The new plan, created in conjunction with the D.C. Department of Human Services, includes an initiative to provide homes for more than 400 homeless people within six months and to revamp existing shelters to provide better services.
Fenty described his $19.2 million plan as the “Housing First Fund,” meaning homeless individuals will be moved into housing and once there, they will get help with counseling, health care and employment needs.
Under the initiative, 2,500 units of permanent supportive housing will be provided for chronically homeless residents by 2014, with priority given to the most vulnerable and those in the system the longest.
The planned projects include the closing of the decrepit downtown Franklin School shelter by Oct. 1, which Fenty called an “exciting day [that] looms upon us.” The Gales School Shelter near Union Station will be transferred to a private operator. And the Harriet Tubman Shelter will be moved to Building 9 on the campus of the former D.C. General Hospital.
The Central Union Mission, a shelter and ministry organization for homeless men, will assume control over the Gales School Shelter, Fenty said. In exchange, the mission will give the District its property on the 3500 block of Georgia Avenue, which will become a mixed-income apartment complex.
The deal brings an end to the mission’s controversial plan to move to Georgia Avenue, which was vehemently opposed by neighbors.
The apartment complex will feature between 100 and 125 units, with 50 units dedicated to permanent supportive housing, according to Clarence H. Carter, director of the Department of Human Services.
“You don’t just group any social condition all together,” Carter said. “You try and spread it through the community so they can assimilate.”
Fenty thanked community groups, the Central Union Mission and District officials for cooperating on the plan of action.
“I think everyone can say there’s a lot of hard work left to be done … but we’ve got a great team, and they’re up for it,” he said.
