D.C. Councilman Tommy Wells has scheduled a public hearing next week to review operations at a homeless shelter located at the old D.C. General Hospital in Southeast. Families housed there have complained of unsanitary conditions, overcrowding and skimpy social services. There also have been allegations of sexual misconduct by staff with Families Forward, the company hired to run the center.
“I have been assured the contractor will be replaced at the end of the month,” Wells told me.
That’s a good thing.
“The question of housing families in a homeless shelter [such as D.C. General] after hypothermia season, when there is no legal requirement to do so, is open at this time,” Wells added.
That admission invites straight talk: Liberals’ hearts aren’t the only things bleeding. The District’s bank account is hemorrhaging red ink. The city is one step from 1995. That was the year Congress created a financial control board, after reckless elected officials plunged the government into near-bankruptcy.
Advocates for the homeless, who think they can Mau Mau officials into approving and funding year-round shelters for an endless number of families and individuals, should think again. There is no money for such a proposition, regardless of election year rhetoric and promises spouted by ambitious politicians.
Even before this recent recession, the proverbial handwriting was on the wall. But city leaders, emboldened by Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi’s initial optimistic projections, didn’t move quickly to rein in spending. It’s clear the economy isn’t bouncing back as quickly as some had predicted. Thankfully, in recent weeks, District leaders have pledged to make critical cuts to future budgets.
The first test of their seriousness comes next month when Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is expected to present his 2011 budget and multiyear financial plan to the council. The legislature will begin a marathon of hearings soon after. Special interest groups, no doubt, will come pleading for more funding.
But those perennial beggars also need to get the message: There are insufficient funds to pay for many of their dreams, including housing everyone who knocks at the government’s door. And, they should abandon their advocacy of tax increases and slapping fees on every service provided to upper-income residents or businesses as solutions for what ails the city.
We all know fees on businesses only get passed along to customers. Consider the city’s gross receipts tax: On my monthly Verizon telephone bill I am charged more than $14 as a “gross receipts tax surcharge.” I am, by proxy, an investor of the government’s big-ticket economic development projects.
Further, it’s questionable that taxes will yield the revenues that liberal politicians and their allies fantasize about. After all, the city has double-digit unemployment. Residents who invested in Wall Street have yet to fully recoup their losses. “Going out of business” signs appear throughout the city.
It’s time to give up the ghost and submit to reality. The government can’t buy every trinket at the fair — nor should it try.
Jonetta Rose Barras can be reached at [email protected].
