CCNV DEDICATES SHELTER

REFURBISHING IS FRUIT OF BATTLE WITH U.S

Four years after a contentious showdown with the federal government over the homeless issue, Mitch Snyder and the Community for Creative Non-Violence dedicated their $14 million downtown facility yesterday to high praise from federal officials and other advocates for the homeless.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), former chairman of the Senate's budget subcommittee on the District, called the 180,000-square-foot refurbished shelter "a national model."

Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.) called it simply "a miracle."

"We used to have holes in the wall that were so big you didn't have to use the doors," Snyder joked in front of about 100 participants at yesterday's ribbon-cutting. "It was real convenient, but not so great in the winter."

Indeed, the new shelter at Second and D streets NW near the D.C. police headquarters hardly resembles the ramshackle building that Snyder and hundreds of defiant homeless people vowed four years ago never to leave when the Reagan administration threatened to evict them for safety reasons.

Snyder's unrelenting protests and life-threatening fast during that election year extracted a last-minute turnaround from federal and local officials, who, in the end, funneled about $13 million into a facelift that makes this shelter, according to Snyder, "the biggest and most comprehensive in the world."

The interior of the old Federal City College shines with new paint. Partitions separate row upon row of new beds and lockers. Kitchens are filled with stainless steel appliances. Walls are decked with 500 works donated by area artists.

In fact, the once simple -- or simply awful -- shelter is emerging into a kind of homeless industry.

Separate sections, each with its own kitchen, dining room, bathing and laundry facilities, have been built for older men, men with jobs, women, the ailing and other groups with special needs. The shelter has its own 32-bed infirmary and plans to open soon a 20-bed drug and alcohol detoxification unit.

The group is starting classes in car mechanics, key punch operating and other vocational skills. A large room in the basement is devoted to dancing, choir singing, art classes and other cultural activities.

The numerous amenities drew "oohs" and "ahs" from touring dignitaries, including Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II (D-Mass.); actor Martin Sheen, who portrayed Snyder in a recent television program, and several other Hollywood celebrities.

On money matters, Snyder and about a dozen other advocates for the homeless from around the country were scheduled yesterday to begin a 48-day fast to press Congress "to put its hands into its pockets and come up with more money for housing the homeless," Snyder said.

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