If you are homeless, you hear the rumor on the street. You can hear it among advocates: “The District wants to shut CCNV’s shelter down.”
“Second and D,” as many like to call the shelter run by the Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV), is close to the Capitol, close to the Supreme Court, and smack next to the Hyatt Hotel. It sits ona site worth tens of millions to downtown developers.
But about 1,775 people work or live in the shoebox-shaped building. Almost all of these people are homeless. The three-story structure, a block long, dates from World War II and was supposed to be temporary. Officially named “Federal City Shelter,” it now houses seven separate service groups. CCNV is only one of them, although it’s the largest, sheltering up to 1,200.
Is this whole hive of homeless services on the chopping block?
The answer is “yes and no.” There are no city plans to close the building tomorrow or even in the next several years, but there are plans to replace it eventually and move its people and services somewhere else.
CCNV’s lease at Second and D, most recently signed in December, has been changed from a 10-year lease to a one-year agreement. And a city-approved document states that repairs there “will be made to keep this shelter in the city’s inventory for the foreseeable future until a plan to replace it can be crafted.” The document “The 2003 Strategic Plan,” was prepared by the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, a private nonprofit and city planning partner that manages homeless facilities for the District of Columbia.
Still, Lynn French, senior policy advisor to Deputy Mayor Lori Parker, said the rumor that CCNV is about to be shut down is “just that—a rumor.”
“Would we have committed $6 million of funding for building repairs if we planned to close it? People outside the D.C. government have advocated we sell it and use the money to create a trust fund for the homeless, but we haven’t made any commitment to that. The city has not accepted that proposal,” she said.
But Mary Ann Luby, outreach worker with the Washington legal Clinic for the Homeless, has a different idea. She said, “I have no doubt that CCNV will be on the chopping block. We have plenty examples of the city investing money in a project, only to raze it.”
And Steve Cleghorn, deputy executive director of the Community Partnership, is also unsure about CCNV’s future. “Nobody knows for sure what will happen to CCNV, but changes could come in four or five years” as part of the Mayor’s 10-year plan to end homelessness, he said. “Clearly the life of that building is limited, and the property value is enormous.”
The city’s future focus will likely be on “replacing emergency shelters with something better, primarily permanent supported housing,” transitional housing, single-room occupancy units, and smaller emergency facilities rather than “this one giant shelter in one place,” Cleghorn added.
Separate supportive housing for homeless veterans, many living at CCNV, is already in the works.
“It’s where shelters nationwide are heading. We want to make them easier to get into and easier to get out of,” Cleghorn said.
Some homeless advocates, including Luby, are skeptical that the District will follow through on these apparently positive plans. She cites a string of shelter buildings and land parcels first offered to the homeless by the city and then taken away, including the Gales School Shelter downtown.
“Yes, the plans sound great, but are they more than lip service?” asked Paul Magno, director of the McKenna Center at St. Aloysius Church. Located a few blocks from Second and D, McKenna provides services to the homeless and low-income families in the neighborhood.
“I think the city’s actual urban planning consists of a wish to remove the CCNV ‘eyesore’ and cash in on the real estate. Once the city has gotten the unsightly poor people of their glistening downtown,” the budget for homeless services and low-income housing could easily shrink, Magno said.
According to the “Strategic Plan” and Lynn French, current District goals for the Second and D site include the $6 million commitment to upgrade the cooling, heating, and plumbing in the building and improving CCNV services. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has given the District $424,000 for shelter upgrades, but the rest of the money is coming from the city’s capital budget.
The pace or timing of this spending has yet to be determined by the Office of Property management, French said, but some funds have already gone into creating Second and D’s John Young Center for women and into bathroom improvements and badly needed plumbing repairs. “It’s ongoing,” she stated.
“We all want to save the facility or make sure there’s a one-to-one replacement. The building does so much—and it’s all under one roof,” said homeless advocate Michael Stoops, community organizing director for the national Coalition for the Homeless (which sponsors Street Sense). Stoops spent three months on a steam grate with CCNV shelter founder, Mitch Snyder, who died in 1990, to urge passage of the McKinney Act of 1987 (now McKinney-Vento), the federal law creating homeless programs administer by HUD.
What’s under that one roof? CCNV’s 750-bed shelter is one of the largest in the country. According to the director of case management, Shirley Singer, it was home this January to 467 men, 115 women, and 21 families, including 30 children. Up to 240 additional people were sleeping in the hypothermia unit in the basement. Staff members live on the third floor. The John Young Center, which is run by Catholic Charities, has 86 beds—as well as ceiling leaks from plumbing problems upstairs that the city has promised to repairs. Another shelter in the building, run by Open Door Ministry, houses 127.
The providers share Second and D with Clean and Sober Streets, a residential and drop-in drug recover program for 125 clients. Unity Health Care’s clinic in the basement serves up to 130 homeless patients a day. It has 14 staff people, including 4 physicians. Also in the basement is DC Central Kitchen, whose employees prepare 4,000 daily meals that “feed the building” and are donated to needy people citywide. It runs a culinary training program and a catering firm.
A seventh provider, Jobs for Homeless People, which has branches elsewhere, has a small office of four workers who help residents find jobs. In addition, according to Deborah Robinson, religious liaison and co-director of CCNV arts and education, 11 religious entities such as churches offer on-site worship services and prayer groups.
While the building’s days as a provider of homeless services are numbered, then, concrete plans to close it or move people elsewhere are “not being worked on at the moment,” Cleghorn said.
For now, the doors are wide open, some of the ceilings leak, and the place is packed.
