HOMELESS WIN COURT DECISION ON SURPLUS LAND

In a major victory for the homeless, a federal judge has given the U.S. government one month to review hundreds of surplus federal properties across the country for possible use by the homeless.

The order issued by U.S. District Judge Oliver Gasch late Monday settles a lawsuit filed by advocates for the homeless alleging that federal agencies have been dawdling in carrying out the McKinney Act, a 1987 law designed to make unneeded federal buildings and land available to shelter the homeless.

In Northern Virginia, the properties include a 14-acre parking lot overlooking the Pentagon in Arlington. In Maryland, they include acreage at Fort Meade, Andrews Air Force Base, the Beltsville Agricultural Research facility and the Food and Drug Administration facility in Laurel.

The one District of Columbia site is a 0.84-acre parking lot near First and E streets NW. The land is next to a shelter run by Mitch Snyder's Community for Creative Non-Violence.

"It's a total and complete victory," said Maria Foscarinis, a lawyer for the National Coalition for the Homeless, one of the organizations that sued. "It will make concrete release {of property} available this winter."

A homeless New York man and other groups representing the homeless were plaintiffs in the suit.

The judge's order breaks a major bottleneck in the execution of the McKinney Act, said Lyle Jeffrey Pash, another lawyer for the homeless. Until now, he said federal agencies "were under no obligation to identify underutilized property in any timely way. They could have taken forever if they wanted to."

The judge gave the Department of Housing and Urban Development until Dec. 28 to review at least half of a General Services Administration list of 335 federal properties deemed excess or surplus. The other half must be reviewed by Jan. 12.

If they are deemed suitable for the homeless, state and local governments and nonprofit groups may then apply to use the properties.

Gasch's order also requries HUD to canvass other federal agencies that hold land and make quarterly reports about unused or underused federal property.

J. Michael Dorsey, general counsel for HUD, said yesterday the agency will comply with the judge's order. He would not comment on whether an appeal will be filed later.

"I don't think {the order} says HUD and other agencies have not been complying with the McKinney Act," said Dorsey.

HUD was one of five federal agencies named in the suit. Dorsey said HUD had complied with the law last year by asking the federal agencies to determine if they had properties that could be used by the homeless.

But the judge in an earlier ruling in the case said HUD had to make that determination.

Since the act was passed in July 1987, 12 properties have been reviewed and found suitable for use by the homeless and three of those 12 have been turned over to the homeless, said Dorsey. None of the sites is in the Washington metropolitan area.

In an earlier ruling, Gasch called the number of properties transferred to the homeless "pitifully few."

Representatives of GSA, which was also named in the suit, declined to comment on the order. However, one GSA official, who asked not to be named, said the judge's decision has caused confusion. The order apparently applies to excess government property. But many of those properties, though deemed unneeded by one agency and technically considered excess, are being used by another federal agency, said the official.

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