From [HERE] Another surge in homeless families is expected in the District this winter, further complicating the city’s struggle to curtail an unprecedented spike in homelessness, according to a new report.

More than 820 homeless families are predicted to seek services when the temperature dips below freezing this year, a 16 percent increase from last year.

The prediction is part of the city’s “Winter Plan,” an annual road map for how the District will fulfill its legal obligation to shelter homeless people when the weather gets cold. The plan was approved Tuesday afternoon by a coalition of city leaders, social service agencies and advocates.

The plan forecasts a troubling winter and recommends that the city act quickly to find more units and buildings to house homeless families. At this rate, the plan notes, every family shelter in the city will be fully occupied by December.

Being unable to find stable housing for those families could delay the planned shutdown of the dilapidated emergency shelter on the campus of D.C. General hospital and produce an even more chaotic winter for homeless families than the previous one.

Last winter, one of the coldest in history, the District struggled to keep up with the 723 homeless families who sought shelter services.

With D.C. General full, the city began sending families to motels and hotels along New York Avenue. Those filled up, too. Then families were moved to hotels in Maryland and to city recreation centers — two policies that were eventually swatted down. [MORE] 

Whatever happened or did not happen at D.C. General is the result of white supremacists/racists as they control everything in all areas of people activity (economics, education, entertainment, labour, law, politics, religion, sex and war) [MORE] 

From [HERE] The D.C. General emergency shelter is supposed to be a cleaner place to stay than an alley, but records show that a young Black girl woke up with so many insect bites on her legs and her bottom that she had to be taken to the hospital.

It is supposed to be safer than a crime-ridden street corner, but a log shows that shelter officials were told that two teens pinned a 9-year-old to the floor of a bathroom and one urinated in the boy’s mouth.

It is supposed to be better than life on the streets, but one resident filed a complaint saying a shelter worker lured her to his apartment with an offer of $20. She said he began unfastening his pants and asked her: “What are you going to do for the money?”

The city’s largest shelter for families has been in the spotlight since March, when a janitor there took 8-year-old resident Relisha Rudd off shelter grounds. The girl remains missing and is presumed dead.

Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D - stands for "doing what he is told to do") has said he has seen no evidence that the city failed in that high-profile case, but a Washington Post investigation of the facility in Southeast that is home to nearly 800 of the District’s most vulnerable residents has found that Rudd’s case was part of a pattern of serious problems.

Housed in a former hospital built in the early 20th century and located at the bottom of a hill near the Stadium-Armory Metro station, D.C. General shares a litter-strewn piece of land with a clinic for meth rehabilitation and sexually transmitted diseases, a working jail, and the former city morgue.

Despite its intended purpose as a sanctuary, the shelter is too often beset by dysfunction, decay and disease. Sometimes, it is the more than 460 children living there who suffer the most.

Among the investigation’s findings:

●Staff members charged with caring for and protecting families often preyed upon them. Among 14 complaints of staff misconduct since 2012, residents allege that shelter employees have sexually assaulted them, taken photos of them while they showered, offered them money for sex, involved them in illegal tax scams and even fathered a child with one of them. The problems are worse than city officials have publicly acknowledged.

●Living conditions are often so poor at the crumbling 90-year-old facility that residents suffer, are sickened or are put at risk. The Post found that nearly 30 people were taken to the hospital or were forced to get treatment for bites caused by spiders and other pests; for parasites; for rashes because of dirty showers; or for other problems at the facility over the past two years. Residents have gone days — and sometimes weeks — without heat or hot water.

●The threat of violence, lax safety precautions and a lack of services have created an environment of fear and isolation. Police are called to the shelter frequently on reports of violence, curfew is regularly flouted and residents say security cameras are broken. The contractor failed to perform reference checks on employees, and at times the city has failed to properly monitor the shelter’s operation.

Families continue to be sent to D.C. General as the city has struggled with an unprecedented spike in homelessness caused in large part by a lack of affordable housing. Some advocates, residents and even the contractor running the shelter say it has grown so large that it is unmanageable, a city within a city.

The facility is so decrepit that the D.C. Department of Human Services and the contractor running D.C. General concede it cannot be fixed. TCP is responsible for maintaining the living quarters within the hospital, and the city is responsible for maintaining the common areas and the shelter grounds.

Despite $1 million spent on upkeep each month, Berns, the former DHS director, said in an interview that “no amount of renovation is going to make D.C. General a great place to live.”

Gray said he would accomplish his goal of placing 500 families largely through the city’s Rapid Rehousingprogram, which heavily subsidizes rents for families.

Meanwhile, city officials were so confident that they could find enough housing that they budgeted to provide shelter for just 150 homeless families this winter. Last winter, there were 700 homeless families.

The budget proposal for homeless family services for the coming fiscal year is about $5.5 million less than the $53 million that was allocated for this year.

Meanwhile, residents of D.C. General fear they will be unable to afford rents after their city subsidies, which can be renewed for up to one year, expire. If they can’t, they will likely wind up at D.C. General again. [MORE]