DC Mayor Vincent Gray’s newly unveiled $10.7 billion city budget proposal for the coming year includes funds aimed at ending veterans’ homelessness in the city and helping to move hundreds of homeless families into apartments.
“We’ve already gotten about half the homeless vets off the street. We probably have about 275 to 300 more,” Gray told members of the city council who gathered April 3 to receive the annual spending plan.
As proposed, the budget includes $4.7 million to house chronically homeless veterans by 2015. The push builds upon the success of a recent effort that harnessed federal, local and charitable resources to house more than 200 local homeless veterans.
The mayor’s spending plan also includes $2 million in emergency rental assistance and rapid rehousing funds as part of the “500 Families, 100 Days” campaign, which seeks to identify and lease 500 units of housing for homeless families currently living in shelter rooms.
“We are committed to moving 500 families in the next 100 days,” Gray noted in his budget presentation at the city’s John A. Wilson Building. “We are confident we can place 500 families.”
The 500 Families initiative follows in the wake of a winter that found city officials struggling to cope with a flood of new families seeking beds in the city’s shelter system. The 285 rooms at the local family shelter, the crumbling former DC General Hospital, remained full throughout the season, requiring the city to shelter hundreds of additional families in motel rooms. Just as the flow of new families seemed to be slowing, a new crisis developed, with the disappearance of 8-year-old Relisha Rudd, whose family was staying at DC General. The child was last seen March 1 with the shelter janitor, 51-year-old Kahlil Malik Tatum. Authorities searching for the girl found the body of Tatum’s wife in an Oxon Hill motel room. Tatum himself was found dead on March 31, an apparent suicide. Relisha Rudd is still missing.
City Council member Jim Graham, who chairs the council’s human services committee, reminded Gray of deteriorating conditions at the family shelter.
“Does the budget contemplate closing D.C. General?” asked Graham. “DC General as a building is dead.”
Gray responded that he did not favor keeping the facility.
“I’d like to shut it down,” Gray said. “It is not a place where children should be raised.”
Gray, who spoke quietly two days after his defeat in the Democratic mayoral primary, noted that past efforts to find alternative locations for a family shelter have been opposed by neighborhood residents. Still, he added, “I’d like to have everyone out by the end of the summer and not refill it.”
Gray stressed the importance of moving families into stable homes. Under his budget proposal, the city’s Housing Production Trust Fund, which preserves and builds affordable housing, would see an increase of $30.2 million for the current fiscal year. The budget also includes funding to provide cost of living increases to families that depend on benefits from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.
Advocates for the poor are still sifting through the enormous document.
Jean Badalamenti, an advocacy specialist at the Foggy Bottom homeless program Miriam’s Kitchen, who attended the mayor’s budget briefing said her first impression was favorable.
“The $4.7 million for veterans. That’s significant,” she said.
Sam Jewler, who supports local literacy efforts, praised the inclusion of $193,000 to create a library system at the DC Jail. The hiring of professional staff and a specialized book collection will encourage inmates to read more, Jewler said.
“Better funding and programming in the DC Jail Library means better education and employment opportunities for returning citizens and their families,” noted Jewler.
In a review entitled “A First Look at Mayor Gray’s Budget,” analysts at the progressive DC Fiscal Policy Institute praised the proposed increase in TANF benefits.
“The current level of TANF benefits, just $428 a month for a family of three, leaves many families in a state of constant crisis,” the analysts said. “Under the proposal, a family of three will receive $438 in FY 2015, $449 in FY 2016 and $655 in FY 2017.”
But they warned that proposed spending on family homelessness, as outlined in the budget, does not appear to be enough to offset an anticipated $2.4 million reduction in available federal funding.
The mayor has budgeted a total of $43.5 million for the homeless families continuum for the coming year. Even with $1.8 million in proposed new local spending, the budget item, as proposed, is $600,000 less than the current year’s total of $44.1 million.
The spending plan will be discussed in detail during a series of public hearings scheduled from April 9 through May 9. After approval by the mayor and city council, the District’s budget must be submitted to the President and Congress for review, modification and final approval through the annual federal appropriation process.
