It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t world for Mayor Adrian M. Fenty. If he does nothing to help homeless people, he catches grief from activists and legislators. As soon as he starts moving men from a downtown shelter and into permanent housing, D.C. Council members slap on restraints. Pledging since April to close the Franklin School shelter at 13 and K streets NW by Oct. 1, Fenty recently began placing some of its occupants in government-subsidized apartments scattered throughout the city. The first group to move has been those who have lived in the shelter for two or more years. (Wait. I thought the city was providing “emergency, temporary” shelter.) “The idea is to help those individuals who we know have been chronically homeless, “ explains mayoral spokesperson Mafara Hobson. The rest “will be referred to other shelters.” Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray and his colleagues voted 12 to 1 to squash the mayor’s plans. Fenty can’t close the shelter until he provides them with “the names of 300 men or more that have been placed in permanent housing.” “The most important thing is that we provide safe, humane housing for those that need it,” said Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells. There is nothing humane about “warehousing” the homeless. There is nothing humane about forcing people out of shelters each morning, leaving them to their own devices, which sometimes include aggressive panhandling on city streets and drug use in public parks. There is nothing humane about endangering the safety of average, law-abiding residents, office workers and visitors. Since the 1980s, when the government caved to demands by activist Mitch Snyder to turn the former Federal City College into a homeless shelter, the District has been trapped in a failed “warehousing” policy. Homeless individuals and families have been pushed into the basements of government buildings, dilapidated school buildings and trailers. Council members, practicing a brand of liberalism that cripples, believe they are aiding the homeless. But no one is well served — least of all the homeless — by warehousing or by maintaining a network of so-called “emergency” shelters, the conditions of which are so deplorable they mostly discouraged — not encouraged-people. Fenty’s “Housing First” program isn’t perfect; it needs some fine-tuning. For example, many of the chronically homeless are drug users, alcoholics or the mentally ill. But no treatment requirements have been set as preconditions for receiving the taxpayer-subsidized housing. “We’re trying to get them in a place where they can participate [in programs],” says Hobson. “You have to remember they have had no stability in their lives.” If the mayor and others want to help homeless citizens, they should stop warehousing them and stop treating them like victims. They might heed the African proverb that advises if you want to help a man, don’t give him a fish — teach him to fish.
