The community's discontentment stems from its gnawing angst that further concentration of social service agencies will undermine Historic Anacostia's fledgling business district. With the high profile Uniontown Bar and Grill  facing an uncertain future, Anacostia's retail future is all the more precarious.

"Everything they do for this community is to get people over, under it, around it, and through it," said Reverend Oliver Johnson, a lifelong Anacostian and former ANC Commissioner, on a recent morning.

District leaders' silence on the shelter project only reinforces residents' feelings that politicians view Anacostia as a social service dumping ground. This taciturn endorsement of the convergence of relief agencies in Anacostia makes the neighborhood indeterminably unattractive to young families, a demographic vital to the city's future says Johnson.

"Here's the issue about any community that has rehabilitation as its primary function. You got St. Elizabeths Hospital - the only community in the city that has a mental health hospital - that releases to the streets. You got the largest methadone treatment clinic here, and the people from Virginia who don't have methadone [clinics] anymore are coming here to DC."

P.S. The Advoc8te is in the running for "Favorite DC-Area Blogger" in the WashPO DCTWeeps contest.

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