WCP | Ward 3 Residents Challenge Changes to Homeless Shelter

EXCERPT

““We will finally close D.C. General and provide safe, dignified short term family housing for the residents who need us the most. That is something we as a city should all be proud of. Any adaptations made in the building process are congruent to the designs originally shared with the Advisory Team and have met necessary zoning requirements,” a spokesperson for DGS said in an emailed statement.

The building, a six-story, 50-unit emergency shelter at 3320 Idaho Ave. NW, is part of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s plan to close and demolish the city’s largest family homeless shelter, D.C. General, by the end of this year. Each ward across the city will see a shelter open between this fall and 2020 (with the exception of Ward 2, where there is an existing women-only shelter). But like the shelter site in Ward 5, the Ward 3 shelter has seen significant legal and political opposition from neighbors.”