Park View, D.C.

According to an article the October 13th Washington Post, the push to use the property at 1125 Spring Road as a temporary homeless shelter is no longer under consideration.

The article includes the following:

At a hearing last week, DHS Director Clarence H. Carter said that the agency searched for an alternative location to shelter families and that the best facility was at 1125 Spring Rd. NW, a former Hebrew home for the aged and more recently a mental health center.

It would have cost an estimated $800,000 to renovate the building for 75 families, roughly what it would have cost to add on to the D.C. General shelter.

But the Spring Road building has since been removed from consideration, Carter said during the hearing.

Council member Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) said her community already contains an “inordinate amount of group homes,” and Spring Road already has two homeless shelters on it: a men’s transitional shelter and an 88-room family shelter.

“How could a government agency ask people in a two-block radius to support three homeless shelters?” Bowser said.

1125 Spring Road was sold to the District of Columbia in 1969

The issue of homeless shelters has long been an issue important to residents of Columbia Heights, Petworth, and Park View. A recent proposal by Tommy Wells, Ward 6 Councilmember, who is pushing to have a temporary homeless Shelter opened at 1125 Spring Road, NW, is sure to be no exception. Residents familiar with the property may recall that it is the large structure once used as the Hebrew Home for the Aged. The property is on the north (Ward 4) side of Spring Road, which is the boundary between Wards 1 and 4.

Residents that are aware of this initiative are resisting the proposal. While advocates for the homeless are attempting to accuse residents as NIMBYs, community resistance is based on the area already supporting an inordinate amount of group homes and other services. Additionally, there are two facilities on Spring Road within two blocks of 1125 that currently support the homeless. One is a Men’s transitional shelter and the other is a Family Shelter. Together, both provide 88 units of shelter.

Due to the proximity of the Spring Road site to the Georgia Avenue-Petworth Metro, its impact on the Georgia Avenue community could be similar to that of the Central Union Mission shelter once proposed for Newton and Georgia Avenue. The Central Union Mission proposal meet with community opposition that ultimately led to the mission finding an alternative site.

To date, its been reported that there has been no outreach to the community. To remedy this, Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser is working to set up a meeting with the Interagency Council on Homelessness to examine this proposal. Several community leaders are of the opinion that DC General is a campus better suited to serve the needs of the homeless.

At the heart of the issue is the future use of the 1125 Spring Road site. The city had previously promised to put out an RFP to transform the building into affordable housing, preferably for seniors. With Ward 4 having one of the largest senior populations in the District of Columbia the community wants the city to live up to that promise.

The Hebrew Home for the Aged moved out of the city in 1969, selling the property to the District of Columbia. It’s currently assigned to the DC Department of Mental Health.