The District has leased 800 apartments to house men being booted out of the Franklin School homeless shelter downtown.
City officials set up a long table inside the Shelter at 13th and K streets NW Thursday, allowing scores of the shelter's homeless residents to sign leases subsidized by the District. "I was very surprised," said Victor Honey, one of the men who signed a lease and picked up his key Thursday. "I'm glad they're taking people off the streets." A waiting van took Honey and his possession to his new home in the Oak Hill apartment complex in Southeast. "I think this great," he said, taking in the spartan furnishings. "I had not idea it was going to look this great inside." Clarence Carter, the head of the D.C. Department of Human Services, said the plan is "to help individuals be as in control of their lives as humanly possible -- that's the goal." But some opponents of the plan -- who have long protested the shelter's planned closing -- worry that many of the men suffer from substance abuse and mental health issues. They worry about where the forced independence could lead. "We shouldn't be closing homeless shelters, period, and certainly not ones downtown, where people have easy access to the services that they need," said Peter Tucker of Empower D.C.
Carter could not say how much the program costs, but did say it is being paid for with city and federal funds. The lease recipients are supposed to pay thirty percent of their income, if they have any, toward the cost of the apartments. "This has given me the opportunity to take back control of my life," said one apartment recipient. As a council member, Fenty had protested the shelter's closing. Then-Mayor Anthony Williams had planned to lease the building to a prominent developer for a hotel. That was scuttled by public protest.
Council Chairman Vincent Gray wrote Fenty a letter last month, criticizing him for his apparent turnabout on the Franklin Shelter. Gray quoted Fenty as having said -- as a councilman -- that the shelter should not be closed unless another downtown shelter is opened.
It's unclear what will become of the valuable real estate now.
