D.C. TO PHASE OUT USE OF HOTELS FOR HOMELESS

The D.C. Department of Human Services has negotiated contracts that would provide the city with more than 200 new units of emergency and transitional shelters for the growing population of homeless families, part of an effort to begin phasing out the use of expensive hotel rooms.

Byron Marshall, acting director of the Human Services Department, disclosed details of a reorganization plan after a public hearing yesterday on D.C. Council member H.R. Crawford's (D-Ward 7) bill to reduce the cost of operating the city's emergency shelter programs. Crawford has sharply criticized the use of hotels because of their high cost.

Marshall said he plans to present the negotiated contracts to Mayor Marion Barry for review next week. If they are approved, the city could begin using the shelter apartments in 30 to 45 days. But, Marshall said, the demand for emergency shelter is so great that it may take one to two years to phase out reliance on hotels.

The human services agency is currently housing 237 families, including 577 children, at the Pitts Motor Hotel, where rooms are $44 a day, and the Capitol City Inn, where rooms are $49 a day. Because the city has been unable to find permanent housing for many of the families, some have been forced to stay in the shelter hotels for as long as a year. The number of homeless families in such facilities increased by more than 500 percent last year.

Crawford, the chairman of the council's Committee on Human Services, conducted a hearing at the Capitol City Inn yesterday to solicit comments on his bill. He said he was aware of the Barry administration's plan to move homeless families out of hotels and into apartments but complained that the city is not moving fast enough.

Crawford's bill, introduced Tuesday, would limit a family's shelter stay to 180 days and prohibit the city from paying a vendor more than $578 a month for a one-bedroom apartment for a homeless family. Complaining of high costs, Crawford cited the example of a one-bedroom apartment where the city was spending more than $29,000 a year to house a family, equivalent to $2,416 per month.

"It is my hope that this legislation will reform the process and place some semblance of a rational and cost-effective approach out of this runaway spending madness," Crawford said.

Marshall said he was not aware of any apartment where the city had paid $29,000 exclusively for rent. He also said that contracts have been renegotiated in some cases where the city was spending as much as $3,078 a month to lease apartments.

"I think we are going in the same direction," Marshall said of Crawford's bill. "He just wants to legislate something that we were going to do administratively. The thrust is the same."

Marshall expressed concerns, however, that a provision in Crawford's bill to limit a family's stay in a shelter may conflict with the voter-adopted Initiative 17, which requires the city to provide overnight shelter to anyone who needs it. He said it would be difficult to find permanent housing for every homeless family within the 180-day limit Crawford proposed.

Crawford said he may amend his bill to avoid a conflict with the overnight shelter law but stressed that "no one will be left out in the streets." If a family has no place to go at the end of 180 days, the family would be transferred to other city-owned facilities, he said. Or, Crawford added, the city could buy or lease additional shelter facilities.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.