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Abstract
This final report for our contract to assess the District of Columbia's homeless assistance system summarizes findings and presents major recommendations: (1) move chronically homeless people from shelters and streets into permanent supportive housing with appropriate supportive services, (2) create a process that prioritizes who gets the 2,500 new PSH units, (3) transform emergency shelters to use half the beds and specialize more, and (4) make the homeless management information system work as a tool to measure system progress by opening it and using better analytic techniques. The Mayor and Interagency Council are already making progress on the first two recommendations.
Introduction
Homelessness has been a continuing presence in the District of Columbia for almost three
decades. It only became a high priority issue for public action, however, when the administration
of Mayor Adrian Fenty assumed control of District government in January 2007. As a City
Council member, the Mayor had been instrumental in passing the Homeless Services Reform Act
of 2005 (HSRA); he quickly made clear that ending homelessness in the District would be
among the most important goals of his administration.
Toward this end, the Department of Human Services was authorized to contract with the Urban
Institute to conduct an assessment of the District’s homeless assistance system, with the
expectation that the results of such an assessment could help guide efforts already under way to
transform the system to make it more effective at reducing and ultimately ending homelessness.
This assessment began in July 2007. In addition to the present summary report, it has produced
two lengthier documents, The Community Partnership and the District of Columbia’s Public
Homeless System (Burt and Hall 2008a) and Transforming the District of Columbia’s Public
Homeless System (Burt and Hall 2008b).
The Mayor has pledged to replace homeless shelters with housing. He has committed his
administration to producing 2,500 net new units of permanent housing with supportive services
for the most severely disabled and longest-term homeless people in the city. He activated the
Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) and has given it work to do. The ICH’s first highly
visible task was to close D.C. Village and move many long-term homeless families into
apartments, where they are now receiving the services they need to help them transition out of
homelessness.
Among the many things the ICH is now undertaking, one is particularly relevant to the
recommendations arising from the Urban Institute’s assessment—the ICH’s Permanent
Supportive Housing Work Group is developing and implementing plans to fulfill the Mayor’s
commitment to create 2,500 net new units of permanent supportive housing (PSH). These
commitments and activities have been ongoing throughout the Urban Institute’s assessment; the
conclusions and recommendations in this summary report reflect the situation as of April 2008,
which is considerably different than the situation when some of the data we report were collected
and analyzed.
Rarely in a decade and a half has there been an opportunity such as the present for broad system
planning and the development of a common “vision” for the District’s homeless assistance
system. Under the D.C. Initiative (1994-1999), District government agencies were not involved
in the changes that moved the system beyond emergency shelter. Since the D.C. Initiative ended
and until very recently, no “table” has existed to which all stakeholders might come to work
together to shape a new sense of how the District should respond to homelessness. Even passage
of the Homeless Services Reform Act in late 2005 and its creation of an Interagency Council on
Homelessness did not stimulate such activity until the Fenty administration took office in
January 2007.
(End of excerpt. The entire report is available in PDF format.)
The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
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