On Thursday January 27, Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh called an emergency community press conference outside of the Days Inn on Connecticut Avenue in Van Ness to address what she called “a spike in crime in Ward 3” following a shooting at the hotel that left four people wounded and one young lady dead earlier that day.
Any violence is terrible, but Cheh’s explanation for it was wrong and offensive.
“The fact of the matter is that our crime rate has gone up,” Cheh said, to a crowd of onlookers. (Police data actually show that it’s gone down.) “And I believe it has a lot to do with the fact that there has been irresponsible and mismanaged behavior by the Department of Human Services. They are putting people in buildings over here who are addicted to drugs, alcohol, and who are mentally ill. They are doing them a disservice, and they are doing us a disservice.”
“We are victims, if you will, of people who are acting out because they are troubled, and they need help.” Cheh then called for an increased police presence that would include a beat cop on Connecticut Avenue, and criticized proposals that would prevent juvenile offenders from being charged as adults.
Cheh immediately faced backlash from many people on Twitter, who called her comments racist and insensitive, pointing out that people who are homeless are victims of crime far more often than housed people. According to last year’s Point in Time count of D.C. residents experiencing homelessness, 86.5% of unhoused adults are Black.
Ward 3 is the highest-income ward in the city, and also has the fewest units of subsidized housing. Many housing advocates and even some ANC Commissioners have called for more income-based units, which require more subsidy in Ward 3’s expensive neighborhoods, where housing voucher recipients often face illegal discriminatory practices from landlords.
Besides, DHS says it isn’t currently even paying for people experiencing homelessness to stay at the Days Inn, since it has been moving away from housing people in hotels.
I reached out to Cheh to get her comments for this piece. She emailed back that she supports housing first, but wants to know, what comes next? “I think it’s negligent of DHS to put people in apartments and then leave them to fend for themselves, even though some clearly need services for addictions or mental health issues,” she wrote.
That might be true. Still, such statements paint people lacking stable housing with a broad brush. It’s a kind of misguided ignorance I’ve had to deal with daily as an advocate for people experiencing homelessness. Some folks think everyone who is homeless has a drug problem or mental illness.
I would have loved to see Cheh bring forth solutions and engage with housing advocates. Instead, she went on TV and blamed unhoused people for a rise in crime without any evidence. That puts a target on the backs of homeless and formerly homeless Black people in her ward, opening them up to increased harassment from police officers and other forms of criminalization.
If Cheh truly supports housing first, she should issue a public apology for her racially charged and harmful statements, which were rooted in and perpetuate false narratives about the homeless community.
Jewel Stroman is a formerly homeless advocate for people experiencing homelessness.
