Shelter and Affordable Housing Need vs. Capacity

Abstract

The District's Homeward DC strategic housing plan projected that, by 2020, homeless people would remain in shelter care for less than 60 days and that the number of shelter care families would drop from 1,200 families in 2014 to 435 in 2020 (a 65% reduction in five years). The strategic plan also involved closing a massive building complex that was the city's largest and oldest family homeless shelter. Closing the building required securing contracts and permits for the development of smaller homeless shelters in nearly every ward. Numerous delays in shelter development prevented the successful implementation of the District's strategic housing plan, and a local audit determined that the there was no oversight of the hotels housing the homeless. The delays and the local auditor's report suggested that CSOSA clients referred to the District's housing programs would have been unlikely to have received housing.