The D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS) began admitting tenants into The Aston, the city’s first non-congregate shelter for medically vulnerable people and adult families, on Nov. 15. The city plans to house 50 people by Thanksgiving.
District officials initially slated the shelter’s opening for November 2023. Still, a series of delays, including the process of finding an organization to run the shelter, lawsuits, and a failed building inspection, pushed the opening date back a full year. The Aston — a former George Washington University dorm on New Hampshire Ave. in Northwest D.C. — opened about two weeks after the start of hypothermia season when more people experiencing homelessness seek shelter from the cold weather.
Though just 50 people are moving in this week, the city plans for the capacity to increase after District officials and Friendship Place, the shelter’s housing provider, evaluate the needs of the first cohort of residents. District officials purchased The Aston with the intent of housing 190 people, but DHS announced they dropped the number to 100.
As a non-congregate shelter, the building will offer privacy to co-ed families who would otherwise be separated in the shelter system. In September 2023 — two months before The Aston’s initial planned opening — Street Sense vendors said the shelter would help medically vulnerable people feel safer and urged the shelter’s provider to expand resources for people who require medical attention and care.
“What we have seen in our family shelters is that when we get people into dignified shelter, we can get them into individualized case management, and we can get them into permanent housing quickly,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said on Nov. 25 at the ribbon cutting of the Aston.
The Aston is a specialty shelter instead of a low-barrier shelter, meaning people have to go through a referral process to enter the shelter. DHS officials at an August Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) meeting said The Aston began accepting referrals into the program on Sept. 9. After officials delayed the shelter’s opening for more than a month due to a failed building inspection, a DHS spokesperson said the 50 tenants scheduled for admission in October may not be the same people who are entering in November.
People who were referred to the Aston but not included in the first 50 residents to move in may be admitted for the next available slots, officials said at an ICH meeting on Nov. 13. The city prioritized people already matched to housing resources or subsidies but waiting to move into housing. Residents at the shelter will also have to engage in case management and work on a long-term housing plan. Exiting DHS Director Laura Zeilinger said at the ribbon cutting the goal was to get people housed within 90 days, and she expected most residents to be at the shelter for at least a month.
The Aston’s late opening is the second step in DHS’ timeline to add more than 500 city-funded low-barrier and specialty beds by the end of 2028. When District officials drafted the plan this summer, they expected The Aston to open in August. In August, however, DHS announced at a Community Advisory Team (CAT) meeting for the shelter that officials needed to delay the opening again until October to complete plumbing work.
Then in September, District officials delayed the shelter’s opening again, a week before Friendship Place was set to admit tenants, because of a failed building inspection. At a CAT meeting in mid-September, the body’s interim co-chair said they did not know how long it would take officials to fix the building code violations — which included insufficient fire exits and “door closers.” On Nov. 7, DHS announced at a CAT meeting that they fixed the code violations and The Aston would admit residents the following week.
These most recent delays are two in a series of setbacks since District officials purchased The Aston from George Washington University in July 2023 and projected its opening for October 2023. DHS ultimately pushed the opening date back a full year — first due to delays in selecting a housing provider, then for construction and building repair issues, and finally for the failed building inspection.
When the District purchased The Aston, West End neighbors voiced concerns about the shelter’s opening, claiming it could negatively impact their “quality of life,” after officials announced their plan to convert the building into a shelter. The West End D.C. Community Association, a group of anonymous property owners, has filed two lawsuits in an attempt to prevent The Aston from opening.
The association filed its first lawsuit in July 2023 against the District and Bowser in an attempt to prevent the city from purchasing The Aston, alleging that the community wasn’t given a proper amount of time to comment on the sale. The association withdrew the lawsuit in August 2023.
In October 2023, the association filed a second lawsuit against the city and Bowser, claiming that D.C. zoning laws prevent the District from implementing a facility with “medical uses” in a neighborhood. The District and Bowser have twice attempted to dismiss the lawsuit, though a District judge rejected the requests and scheduled a hearing for Feb. 7, 2025.
Prompted by initial community pushback in July 2023, DHS launched the CAT to oversee the shelter’s opening and pledged to provide security at the building at all times.
CAT earlier this month finalized a good neighbor agreement, which outlines shared responsibilities for Aston tenants and neighbors after soliciting input from community members. The CAT presented a draft agreement this spring before revising the agreement in August. The CAT discussed it at four consecutive meetings before the agreement passed on Nov. 7 with a unanimous vote.
“There’s always a lively debate,” Bowser said at the opening.“Sometimes lawsuits, sometimes fights at the council, there’s always a lively debate. And I can say, in almost every case, the projects get better because of that debate. The services are better because of that debate and the experiences of our residents are also better.”
Donte Kirby contributed reporting. This story has been updated from the print version to include quotes from the Nov. 25 ribbon cutting.
