After an impassioned debate that elicited references to the Christmas story, the DC City Council voted 9 to 4 to approve a bill that requires homeless families to present evidence that they are District residents in order to stay more than three winter nights in the city’s overwhelmed family shelter system.
“As we celebrate the birth of Christ who was homeless,” said Ward 5 council member Harry Thomas, Jr. before the Dec 21 roll call on the measure, “I am not even going to try to amend this act. I am going to vote against it.”
The bill was one of many austerity measures targeted at closing a $188 million budget gap. It was also portrayed as a necessary way of addressing the chronic shortage of shelter space for homeless families, according to its chief sponsor, council member Tommy Wells (Ward 6).
“Unless the city is ready to fund social services for the whole region, we have to try to ration them for residents of the District of Columbia,” said Wells, who chairs the council’s human services committee. DC General Hospital, a closed and aging medical facility located in Wells’ ward, currently serves as the city’s family emergency shelter. City officials are anxious to avoid a repeat of last winter’s debacle, where 200 families were crowded into space at the hospital facility that was actually intended for 135 families.
The city’s annual 2010 homeless enumeration found a total of 800 homeless families living in the District, an increase of nearly 14 percent over last year. But of the hundreds of families that applied for shelter throughout several recent months, officials estimated that roughly 10 percent came from other jurisdictions.
Under the new law, families will be given three days to produce documentation of city residency; a District mailing address dated within the past two years; evidence that a member of the family has applied for or is receiving public assistance in the District; evidence that a member of the family is enrolled in a District school, or a statement from a District resident or a nonprofit organization vouching for the family’s residence in the city. The residency requirement will not apply to single men and women seeking beds in low barrier emergency shelters, or to victims of domestic abuse, sexual assault or sexual trafficking.
Advocates for the homeless and the three members of the council who joined Thomas in opposing the measure—Jim Graham (Ward 1), Mary Cheh (Ward 3) and Phil Mendelson (at-large)— said they worried about the possible impact of turning away families in extreme need, whether or not they are able to show they are District residents.
“I feel strongly this legislation is a mistake,” said Mendelsohn who called the residency requirement “cruel.” He said the city should work with surrounding jurisdictions to provide more homeless services so families would not be required to come to the city in search of emergency shelter. Cheh said that though the bill targeted families coming from outside the city, she worried those DC families unable to prove their residency would also face new barriers to getting shelter.
Wells accused those protesting the measure of making “a hollow call for justice.”
“The council refused to raise taxes,” Wells said. And efforts to open new shelters are strongly resisted, he said. “Don’t put a shelter in my ward or near my ward.”
